When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in August that he would be seeking the prorogation of Parliament until October, he sung a most familiar refrain: “The number one priority of this government, I do not have to tell you, will continue to be jobs and the economy.”And yet, despite 'not having to tell us,' the PM went on: “While we are overall pleased with the progress the Canadian economy has made since the recession, we remain in a very difficult, fragile and competitive global marketplace, and we think there is much more to be done to secure Canada's economic potential and economic future.”What gives? Why is this rhetoric about the economy so ceaseless from the Harper Conservatives and what role does it play here, in an announcement about prorogation?It could be that Canada just weathered one of the greatest economic crises in recent history. It could be that the economy is all Canadians really want to hear about. But it might also be that a new social contract is coalescing, one explained surprisingly well by our Pacific neighbours in Beijing.Harvard-educated legal scholar Samuel A. Bleicher writes that “An implicit social contract underlies the Chinese people's relationship with its government. The people accept the autocratic Communist Party of China (CPC) regime with its corruption and minimal public participation, and the CPC regime delivers a continuous and rapid improvement in the economic standard of living.”In short, as long as the material life of Chinese citizens improves by olympian leaps and bounds—even in the absence of political rights—the government retains the political support of a majority of the governed.But this implicit social contract between the people and the party might not only have a home in China. It might be that one of the Harper government's great successes has been to secure a similar contract with us, to project the notion that the economic future of Canada is safe in its hands—and that everything else is of secondary or even lesser importance.The Harper government's persona is defined by its claim to have demonstrated sound management of the economy. One can hardly encounter a document, advertisement or speech from the Harper Conservatives without some reference to their skill and dependability on all matters economic.The federal budget itself is no longer a budget but an “Economic Action Plan”. In recent years, government has shelled out millions on “Economic Action Plan” ads to ensure that we are constantly reminded of this economic promise made to us, the electorate.But as in China, the other half of the deal holds as well. Canadians who vote Conservative on the basis of Harper and finance minister Jim Flaherty's credentials as deft fiscal managers appear to be willing to turn a blind eye to abuses of their political institutions. For the sake of the strong and stable economy that this government supposedly delivers as their 'number one priority,' much else can be overlooked.If the prorogation of 2008 to avert the fall of his government had any moral for Stephen Harper, it was surely that the niceties of parliamentary democracy can be bypassed if a good enough economic justification is cobbled together: “at a time of global economic instability, Canada's government must stand unequivocally for keeping the country together”. There will be no popular or constitutional backlash if the fragile state of the Canadian economy or the rise of Canadian employment can be used as a rhetorical shield.The deployment of omnibus budget implementation bills and rampant time allocation to shut down debate show that Stephen Harper and Government House leader Peter van Loan have learned the lesson well.There is, of course, reasonable doubt about whether this government lives up to its own boasting about jobs and the economy. That it weathered the storm of global financial uncertainty in 2008 is a claim that has rightly been questioned; strong banking regulation imposed by previous governments may have been more responsible for that accomplishment and the prominence of the primary sector in the Canadian economy and high global commodity prices might have made signal contributions to economic stability. Employment numbers may now also have ceased to support this government's cocky claims of competence, with many of the jobs they profess to have created revealing themselves to be temporary or part-time.The broader point is this, though: in this government's flouting of democratic norms and in its constant appeal to economic prosperity in the course of doing so, it may be revealing itself as a regime intent on restructuring the relationship of Canadians to their state and substituting a more prosperity-based approach for anything more traditionally associated with democracy, anything related to the will of the people being articulated through legislation.When the Globe and Mail endorsed Stephen Harper in 2011, its justification was in keeping with a realignment of the Canadian social contract. Despite the abysmal lack of serious debate during the course of the campaign, despite the unwillingness of Conservative candidates to set any objectives or discuss any issues other than maintaining a strong, stable Canadian economy in a time of global uncertainty, Canada's most widely read paper was willing to give the man an electoral green light.For the Globe editorial board, the Harper government was best equipped to deal with “a volatile economy, ballooning public debts and the unwieldy future of our health-care system.” The measure of a federal government was perceived to be its capacity for sound management. “Canadians take Mr. Harper's successful stewardship of the economy for granted, which is high praise,” glowed the Globe. The message of their endorsement was clear: it would be nice if Parliament could be treated with respect, but sound management must be the first priority.And yet, it is not as though Bleicher thinks that the Chinese people universally accept their current bargain with the authoritarian Communist Party; like most keen observers, he sees cracks forming in the arrangement. He says that a general lack of good government is “not just socially undesirable, but arguably a critical barrier to continued economic progress.” There is pervasive corruption in China, tremendous environmental degradation, and dissent and protest on the rise.The F-35 fiasco was so abysmal for the Conservatives precisely because it cast doubt on the image of this government as a diligent group of sound financial managers. The Nigel Wright affair was so striking because it made visible the clumsy and grimace-inducing shenanigans of the Harper backroom. Both of these embarrassments cast doubt on the notion that we need not be concerned with the way the government operates. The claim that the government will take care of us economically and that nothing else matters looks somewhat doubtful with their dirty laundry flapping in the wind.When Stephen Harper announced last December that the federal government would allow the Chinese National Off-Shore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to acquire Canada's Nexen he was perceived to have shut the door on further acquisition of this kind of strategic Canadian holding. And yet, the door was not shut entirely and Harper made clear that such acquisitions would still be allowed on “an exceptional basis.” What is this exceptional basis? Harper has learned a lesson from that Chinese state making the acquisition: No need to clarify. We have the country's best economic interest in mind. Don't worry. Trust us.Instead of the peace, order and good government which we find prominently in the Constitution Act, 1867 and which is meant to be the guiding principle of the legislative activity of Parliament, the Harper government has adopted a policy of peace and economic order. Full stop, no good governance necessary.Mark Dance and Claire Kane Boychuk have each worked for MPs on both opposition and government sides of the House of Commons through the non-partisan Parliamentary Internship Programme. Ms. Boychuk has lived and studied in China and is currently studying law at McGill. She is a freelance writer in Ottawa. Mark Dance's political commentaries have appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, the Toronto Star, iPolitics, the Chronicle Herald, the Globe and Mail and elsewhere. He has also appeared on CBC's The House with Evan Solomon.