Protecting kids good politics, but it’s much deeper than that for Harpers

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 — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has collectively spent more time in Manitoba in the last two days than he probably has in the last two years.

This is not a knock on him. He’s a busy guy and he generally does make it to Manitoba two, sometimes even three, times a year. (While his predecessors generally timed their visits with party fundraising dinners, Harper seems to prefer timing them to Jets games.)

But for the prime minister to be in any Canadian city other than Ottawa for more than 48 hours is almost unheard of and it has had some wondering what was up. Some might chalk up Harper’s lengthy stay in the province to local politics.

The Conservatives currently own 11 of the province’s 14 seats but are vulnerable in as many as five seats in Winnipeg thanks to the pending retirements of incumbents in three ridings and drifting support in two others.

But while Harper said Thursday he has no doubts his party will win those seats back in the election this fall, shoring up Conservative support in Saint Boniface or Elmwood-Transcona is not really why he’s here for so long. It’s just kind of a fringe benefit.

Harper’s true purpose for being in the city this week is to attend the gala dinner tonight celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection at the Fort Garry Hotel.

This is a can’t-miss event for Harper and his wife, Laureen, who has made the issue of cyber-bullying and online child victimization a hallmark of her role as the wife of the prime minister. And the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in Winnipeg has been at the centre of most of their work.

The dinner had been on his schedule for a while and his visit to the city ended up being extended by a day so he could also go see the Jets’ playoff game Wednesday night.

Protecting children is among the most easily marketable political causes for any politician and Harper has certainly made great efforts to make it a priority for him. There have been two justice bills specifically aimed at child predators, and today he is at the third roundtable in less than two years on the subject of child victims.

It is the second in Winnipeg, and all have involved the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. He just announced new funding today for child advocacy centres.

Last year he renewed funding for the CCCP with a $9.5-million, five-year commitment. That’s on top of $251,000 announced for CCCP in January 2012 from the federal victims strategy.

In 2013, he and Laureen announced a $100,000 gift to CCCP as the Government of Canada’s official way to mark the birth of Prince George, the son of Prince William and his wife, Kate.

Earlier this year, CCCP executive director Liana McDonald was named as one of the 50 recipients of a Canadian flag as part of the government’s work to mark the 50th anniversary of the flag.

It is safe to say there is no organization in Winnipeg that has a closer relationship with the prime minister and his wife than CCCP.

There may be good politics at play in supporting causes that protect children but when it comes to the Harpers’ direct and frequent involvement with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, politics is not at the root of their interest.

There is a sincerity in her words when Laureen Harper speaks about trying to protect her own two children and why she has leant her support to help promote CCCP websites like www.needhelpnow.ca or www.kidsintheknow.ca or when she promotes its educational materials.

Harper’s normally steady voice has been known to waver, even just slightly, when he responds to stories of children being victimized.

“I can just tell you, you know Laureen and I, as a parent of a teenaged daughter, you’re just sickened seeing a story like this,” he said in 2013, after Nova Scotia teenager Rehtaeh Parsons died following a suicide attempt. Parsons was the victim of sexual assault followed by extreme cyberbullying that saw an explicit photograph of her distributed by other teenagers on social media.

Harper’s government isn’t the first to support or work with the CCCP, but it has certainly blossomed with its help.

Wilma Derksen, who started Child Find Manitoba in 1985 just months after her daughter, Candace, was abducted and murdered, said no matter the political stripe or level of government, there has always been solid support for the organization.

Child Find morphed into the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in 2006. It is now one of the most pre-eminent organizations in the world devoted to both helping victims of child predators, educating kids and parents about how to protect themselves online, and conducting research on the problem of online child luring.

Derksen told me this morning she never could have imagined what Child Find would become because in 1985 she never could have conceived of the Internet.

“It’s a totally different world today,” she said.

Yet Derksen said “it just feels good all over” to see what the organization she helped start has become and all the good that it does.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca