Court of public opinion turns on Tories

[HeresyLives]

Hébert: Court of public opinion turns on Tories

By Chantal Hébert
National Columnist

MONTREAL—Over their four years in power, Stephen Harper's Conservatives have won more public opinion battles by dismissing their critics as elite members of a disconnected chattering class than they have lost.

Where past governments have routinely sought to enhance the credibility of their policies by seeking backing for them from academic, editorial or professional circles, Stephen Harper and his government have most often successfully gone the other way.

-snip-

"Rather than funding academics, researchers and special interest groups, we decided to direct our child-care money to the real child-care experts. And their names are Mom and Dad," the Prime Minister reported to a partisan crowd in August 2006.

Since then, anti-intellectualism has evolved into a mantra of the current government, a trend that was likely exacerbated by the selection by the Liberal party of successive leaders with strong roots in academia.


http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/751087--hebert-court-of-public-opinion-turns-on-tories