Chrétien and Harper a lot alike

[CHIMO]

Both men would almost certainly beg to disagree but there is a lot of Jean Chrétien in Stephen Harper — and not just because they each were given up for dead just before becoming prime minister.

After a bit more than a month, no one doubts that this prime minister is willing to push the envelope. What is less certain is whether Harper knows when he must back off.

Even for a seasoned hand such as Chrétien, the exercise of power turned out to be intoxicating. The flip side of his decisiveness was an imperial sense that the end justified the means and that attitude eventually filtered down his government, leading it in unsavoury directions.

If Harper is strikingly different from Chrétien in anything to date, it is in his reluctance to delegate responsibility. Given that, he is probably even less likely to abdicate even a fraction of his considerable powers to Parliament, his caucus or his cabinet.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1142376614992&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907622983