Stephen Harper

: Most government leaders would look at the refugee crisis in Europe and see it as an opportunity, especially during an election, to appear on top of the issue -- with some combination of statesmanship, leadership and intuitive grasp of their own population sensibility, according to Rabble. But Stephen Harper is not most politicians and the refugee crisis turns out to be one of the most intractable and complex issues he has to deal with -- which is why he looks so ham-handed over a week into the catastrophe unfolding across the Atlantic. Chip in to keep stories like these coming. It has shone an extremely unwelcome light on one of the dirty little secrets of the prime minister old Reform Party political base: it is chock-a-block with extremists and others who simply don't like non-European immigrants. They have managed to bleed traditional Liberal support from those communities by spending oodles of time and energy playing to the traditional family values of those communities, to their suspicion of big government and their entrepreneurship. Harper and his political machine have done a remarkable job of massaging the huge contradictions in the Conservative Party political strategy regarding ethnic communities. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.