BLACKBALLED

Harper snubbed by 'progressive' summit (Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service, February 2, 2006)

Canada has been dropped from a global club of "progressive" nations because of the election of a new federal government headed by Stephen Harper.

Former prime minister Jean Chretien and his Liberal successor, Paul Martin, made overseas trips in 2003 and 2004 respectively to join British Prime Minister Tony Blair, South African President Thabo Mbeki, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and a host of other "centre-left" political luminaries at self-proclaimed "Progressive Governance Summits" in London and Budapest.

But Mr. Harper is not invited to next week's conference in South Africa, says the director of a British-based think-tank that has organized the international meetings since 1999.

Mr. Harper "wouldn't fit the political criteria" to gain membership, said Matt Browne, whose organization Policy Network is co-sponsoring the Feb. 11-12 conference in Pretoria with the South African government.

"My understanding is that the invitation wouldn't be extended to Stephen Harper," he said.

"I think it's fair to say the Conservative party as a whole now operates from a centre-right position. This is a movement designed to bring the centre and left together."

Excuse the self-reference, but the author is a colleague–-a decent leftist who has too good a sense of humour and is too fanatical a hockey fan to be much of a threat to civilization. In alerting me to the article, he allowed he was trying to capture the true tragedy of the Conservative victory for most of the left—no more wanking.