This October, when Canadians are scheduled to go to the polls, will mark 89 years since a McGill student by the name of J. Gordon Whitehead set in motion a series of events that ended with the death of one of the greatest illusionists of all time — Harry Houdini.

The would-be challenger delivered a short flurry of punches to the abdomen of the confident but ill-prepared escape artist. Several days later, he was dead of an infection caused by a burst appendix. Houdini ignored those advising him to stop performing and seek immediate medical attention — a decision that proved fatal. The moral: It’s a wise performer who knows when to leave the stage.

Now, Stephen Harper is nobody’s idea of a great entertainer. But like Houdini, he exudes a certain aura of invincibility — through evading the many snares laid by his political opponents, through his seemingly improbable electoral victories. He had something else in common with Houdini: He understands the art of illusion — that the key to illusion lies in understanding what people fear and manipulating that fear through misdirection, sleight-of-hand and deft presentation.

Middle-class Canadians have plenty to be afraid of these days. Their numbers are shrinking along with traditional employment opportunities. The financial future for their families is uncertain. The pace of change in the economy is terrifying. These are all rational, legitimate fears — and they’re unlikely to go away in the course of an election year. A good politician knows he can’t make those fears vanish. But, if he’s both good and lucky, he can point those fears in another direction.

Enter PM (Prime Magician) Steve, stage right — a political performer who can project and amplify those fears to unreal proportions and then, in a puff of legislative smoke, bundle and make them disappear.

Our MPs — the people we elect to represent us — are being rapidly relegated to the role of audience stooges, or hecklers. They’re there to applaud the PM’s performance, or to get shouted down if they try to expose the gimmick.

Harper’s carefully crafted image presents him to the nation as just another hockey-loving, Timmies-drinking, middle class guy — a person the average Canadian may not entirely trust or like, but not someone anyone suspects of being a mad-eyed radical ready to torch the neighbourhood. Steve’s projection of calm, banal, almost awkward normalcy has proved a highly effective illusion — concealing a very real agenda of radical change.

Contracting-out the drafting of legislation, eroding the public service, removing science and evidence-based policy from decision-making, ignoring Parliament at every opportunity — step by step, Harper has concentrated the sum of power in his hands and, in effect, taken a match to many of Canada’s institutions. In fact, the greatest threat facing Canadians’ long-term economic and personal freedom is precisely this process of erosion — the slow loss of our ability to actually influence change, provide meaningful input to legislation and safeguard our fundamental freedoms.

Last week saw the introduction of what may turn out to be Stephen Harper’s crowning achievement in the art of political illusion: the anti-terror bill C-51. Once again, the prime minister is using an outside threat with limited impact to draw the public’s attention away from a crumbling economy — all while further consolidating power and control in the PMO and taking it away from Canadians’ elected representatives.

Meanwhile, our MPs — the people we elect to represent us — are being rapidly relegated to the role of audience stooges, or hecklers. They’re there to applaud the PM’s performance, or to get shouted down if they try to expose the gimmick. Which is why you see Conservatives who once made heartfelt arguments for greater parliamentary oversight of the mechanisms of public security braying about “red tape” when opposition members call for the very same thing.

Peter MacKay once championed greater parliamentary oversight of the security services. He’s changed his tune now that his job is to hold Harper’s cape for him. John Baird, the now-retired Foreign Affairs minister, often championed the cause of greater transparency in government; even in his resignation speech he spoke of the need for governments to be there for the people. Still, the show goes on.

For some time now, there have been subtle signs of a growing malaise inside Harper’s dominion. Rumblings have been heard from his traditional base and from contemporaries urging the PM to shift focus — toward veterans, the economy, even the environment. More than 15 per cent of the Conservative caucus is not seeking re-election. Baird’s departure provided the strongest indication yet that his core audience is growing tired of the routine.

Illusion has worked well for Mr. Harper. He’s betting his career on it in 2015. But if his own fans start seeing through the trick, what becomes of the act?

Geoffrey Hall is a political consultant and writer. Over three decades he has worked with, advised or ghostwritten for some of Canada’s leading progressive voices, including Jack Layton, Bob Rae, Alexa McDonough and Audrey McLaughlin. In 2014 he left the Hill after nearly 15 years of writing for and advising several NDP Members of Parliament. [email protected]

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