Harper scores with Jets

Opinion

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This article was published 24/04/2015 (3819 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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OTTAWA — If a picture is worth 1,000 words, how many votes does that translate into?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper surely hopes at least a few will come his way after his Wednesday night appearance at the Winnipeg Jets’ playoff game.

From a political perspective, Harper being at the game is brilliant. He has carefully defined himself as the hockey-fanatic prime minister who is more comfortable with Tim’s than Starbucks. And he has made a habit of being there as often as possible when there is a big hockey game on the line. He attended the gold-medal matches of both the women’s and men’s hockey teams at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. He was there in Toronto in January when Team Canada’s junior men’s hockey team defeated Russia for gold at the World Junior Hockey Championships.

And he was there Wednesday when the Winnipeg Jets played their second playoff home game since returning to Winnipeg. He didn’t sit in a box, carefully protected from the drunk hooligans who inevitably show up in most arenas. He was out among the crowds, subtly protected by his security detail, but right in the thick of things.

It put him at one of the biggest sporting events of the year in this country, smack dab in the middle of a feel-good sports story that has even this reporter, who rarely watches hockey, getting all verklempt at the energy and excitement of her hometown team’s fans.

There is something unsettling about how easily politicians can use such events to fish for votes. Harper paid for his own ticket — no Manitoba NDP Jets’ tickets scandal for him, thank you very much — but he changed his schedule to make it happen. He was supposed to be in Winnipeg today to attend the 30th anniversary celebration tonight of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. But then someone — either he or one of his strategists — saw the political opportunity of the Jets’ playoff game.

So his schedule was changed. He arrived in the city a day early and spent two days doing campaign-style events around town. It’s almost unheard of for the prime minister to spend two days in a row anywhere other than Ottawa or on a foreign trip for a G8 meeting or the like.

Although it’s not unique to any prime minister or party, there is just something off-putting about the ease with which political leaders blend their partisan and government duties. Because let’s be real here, he didn’t change his schedule two days after the release of the federal budget so he could sell small-business tax cuts at a Transcona woodworking plant.

It was designed to get votes.

It was designed to set him apart from his main opponents.

It was designed to associate with Harper the kind of excitement people felt Wednesday night, an excitement that remains despite the fact the Jets’ lost and were knocked out of the playoffs in a four-game sweep.

Jets fans were picked as the third star of the game Wednesday night for a reason. There is nothing quite like them in the NHL right now, and the Jets’ playoff run is not just a Winnipeg story. It’s a Canadian one.

Even a friend of mine who is fan of the Ottawa Senators and hates the concept that there is such a thing as “Canada’s Team” said to me recently that the feel-good spirit around the Winnipeg Jets kind of makes them Canada’s team for the moment, and getting to a Jets’ playoff game is now on her bucket list.

By being there, Harper was the de facto leader of Canada’s hockey nation Wednesday night.

Sure, there was controversy over the fact he didn’t wear the right hockey sweater. His staff got the memo that he should be wearing white but nobody was dispatched Wednesday to secure the prime minister a Jets jersey. Instead, his staff plucked a white Team Canada jersey from the closet at 24 Sussex Drive, which Harper has dubbed the Jersey Room. To Harper’s utter horror, they also grabbed a signed 1972 Team Canada Paul Henderson jersey from the Summit Series and one can only feel a bit bad for the staffers who made that decision.

There was much chatter about his jersey choice among friends and foes alike after the game.

But fashion choices and the Jets’ heartbreaking loss aside, Harper walked out of that arena Wednesday night with a win.

Because maybe fans will remember what he was or wasn’t wearing Wednesday night. But mostly they will remember he was there.

 

Mia Rabson is the Free Press parliamentary bureau chief.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca