Tom Flanagan, one of Stephen Harperâe(TM)s closest advisors and three-time national campaign manager, is currently doing publicity for his new âeoeinsiderâe(TM)sâe book on Harperâe(TM)s government and rise to power.

If equality-seeking groups are paying any attention to Flanagan, it is unlikely they are doing so for political advice. Yet recently Flanagan, on CBC Radioâe(TM)s The House, provided such groups, including progressive womenâe(TM)s organizations, with some of the most useful insights on how to advance an equality agenda and a womenâe(TM)s agenda under the Harper government.

Flanagan calls funding cuts to Status of Women Canada and the elimination of the Court Challenges Program a âeoenice step,âe asserting without equivocation that Conservatives will âeoedefundâe all equality-seeking groups âe” with feminists at the top of the list. He goes further, clarifying that Conservatives also plan to choke-off these groupsâe(TM) supposedly privileged access to government by, for example, denying âeoemeetings with ministers.âe But for strategic reasons, Flanagan notes, this will all happen incrementally. To avoid the perception of mean-spirited retribution, he says, âeoeincrementalism is the way to go.âe

Further, in a discussion about the Harper governmentâe(TM)s approach to electoral finance laws, Flanagan reveals that rather than playing to the spirit of Canadian law, the Conservative Government is playing to its outermost boundaries.

âeoeLike all laws, the Canada Elections Act is open to interpretation and I guess in politics youâe(TM)re always trying to get what you can out of the law, yâe(TM)know, youâe(TM)re trying to go to the limit within the law,âe explains Flanagan.

This is not a partisan rant or a cooked-up conspiracy theory; it is the solemn gospel of Harperâe(TM)s leading strategist.

Besides confirming that Harper and his team are ideologues cloaked as moderates in an electoral game, what can womenâe(TM)s groups learn from Flanaganâe(TM)s candid comments?

His influence and approach should be a clarion call to all equality-seeking groups, and should put us on a fundamentally different course of action and advocacy.

First, we should move away from what many label a pragmatic approach âe” a willingness to work with any government that could advance our position piecemeal and only at its most tenuous margins âe” and move to what can be termed an oppositional approach, taking up a strategy to oppose a political program or force that at best offers only concessions and incidental victories. We should develop this oppositional strategy with ruthless creativity.

The so-called pragmatic and incremental approach of those of us seeking economic and social justice plays directly into Harperâe(TM)s hands. Remember Flanaganâe(TM)s words âe” gradualism and incrementalism is where the Conservatives will find their greatest success. While the government waits for opportune moments to whittle away every womenâe(TM)s organization, in order to avoid appearing vengeful it will continue to fund a few of the less threatening groups, albeit with important restrictions on their access to power.

For example, the Conservatives decisively eliminated the budget for NAWL (National Association of Women and the Law) and with this move eliminated its effective and focused policy-based campaigns for such issues as pay equity, legal aid, and economic rights. Yet groups that may be perceived to have a more nebulous or international focus remain funded (for now) in the government’s Status of Women budgets. Groups like this need to interrogate their own role in facilitating the death by a thousand cuts that Harper is perpetrating on equality-seeking groups âe” those of us that Flanagan calls client organizations or “Liberal outrider organizations.”

Equality advocates have a distinct choice to make here between being incremental and being oppositional, which in the current context means being effective. To make this choice wisely, womenâe(TM)s organizations should take a further cue from Flanagan by playing strategically. Stop being the nice guy, so to speak.

With massive bureaucratic and financial resources, and a ruthless commitment to play to the outermost limits of the law, the Conservatives will destroy progressive organizations. The only response is to be equally creative, strategic, and even opportunistic. We need to meet the Harper agenda with an agenda of our own, and that is getting the Conservatives out of government.

In an immediate sense, this may have nothing to do with the pragmatic policies related to womenâe(TM)s equality. Under a Conservative majority, it will matter little whether the Parliamentary Committee on the Status of Women sits to hear about the need for good child-care across the country. It will matter even less if the only groups with the access and resources to appear before the committee are for-profit care providers and R.E.A.L. women.

Given a political foe that plays to the limit of the law, womenâe(TM)s advocates can adopt the same approach. Stop placing high value on fulfilling government research contracts and project grant guidelines to their full letter. Donâe(TM)t heed the government edict not to advocate âe” get around it or simply ignore it. Funded groups could continue to seek funding, for example, but could minimize resources allocated to fulfill grant entitlements, and divert the rest of the money beyond the reach of government.

This would require business-minded financial planning, more common to TSX-company backrooms than civil-society organizations. It would also require courageous choices to temporarily set aside a pragmatic agenda designed to advance womenâe(TM)s equality in favour of oppositional politics aimed squarely at getting Harper out of government.

This could mean joining with strategic allies to develop a highly visible campaign that finds Conservative weaknesses and creatively and relentlessly pursues them. This might mean, for example, allying with nurses unions in Saskatchewan to draw attention not to pay equity but to the more electorally salient debate of equalization and Conservative Saskatchewan sell-outs.

This oppositional strategy would serve womenâe(TM)s policy and equality interests far more than a pragmatic policy strategy in the face of further and further marginalization. There is only so much leverage to be gained by helping the Conservatives save face on their way to eradicating equality-seeking groups or by staying in a game with rules set by the likes of Flanagan.

Harperâe(TM)s handmaiden has told us that, as far as he is concerned, our days are numbered.

Rather than fighting the good fight into oblivion, this is a plea to equality groups to fight a good fight and win it.