No surprise that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's slew of mostly partisan senatorial appointments has sparked widespread condemnation. After all, it's something of a Canadian tradition for prime ministers to take political heat for using the much unloved upper chamber as a repository for patronage.
The real surprise is how Harper is reinventing himself as a conventional politician.
After devoting his career to changing the way power politics is practised, Harper has changed into a practical politician uncommonly devoted to furthering his career in power. The transformation goes well beyond this week's announcement that 18 new senators would soon be sworn in, despite his previous vow to await an elected Senate.
The Senate appointments are merely part of a pattern of dizzying turnarounds by a Prime Minister who pledged to stay on the straight and narrow. On the very holiday week he anointed the senators, he also slipped in the appointment of a new Supreme Court judge without the consultative measures he had previously committed himself to.
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