After a decade at the top of the Canadian political pyramid, former prime minister Stephen Harper largely retreated from public life after his election loss in 2015.
While he delivered the occasional speech, gave interviews to some podcasters and endorsed Conservative candidates and causes, Harper has spent much of his post-parliamentary career quietly building a consulting business far from the glare of publicity.
Canadians haven’t heard much from their 22nd prime minister — until this week.
On the 20th anniversary of his first election victory, Harper has made waves with forceful statements about issues of the day at a weeklong series of events, playfully called “Harperpalooza” by supporters.
“I’ve largely stayed silent on what’s transpired,” Harper said Thursday at a banquet in Ottawa where parliamentarians past and present, staffers and foreign dignitaries lauded his time in office.
Now, Harper is urging the two main parties to better co-operate amid American aggression and other potentially existential threats and warning of the dangers of a “hostile” U.S. to try and shake corporate Canada out of what he described as its complacency.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper, speaking at an event to mark 20 years since he formed his Conservative government, spoke Wednesday of the unique challenge of facing a ‘hostile’ United States under President Donald Trump — and urged Canadians to focus on policy, not emotion.
Harper also chastised his successor, Justin Trudeau, for making the country, in his words, “weaker,” and offered advice to Prime Minister Mark Carney on how to renegotiate the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement — including endorsing reciprocal tariffs on American goods.
And he pitched an oil pipeline to the Pacific he said can solve two crises: western alienation and an economy entirely too dependent on the U.S.
“Our national conversation must be mature enough to acknowledge that many of the difficulties we now face as a country cannot be blamed on Donald Trump,” Harper said.
“In too many cases, they stem from bad decisions by our own government.”
At an event launching his collection at Library and Archives Canada on Thursday, Harper practically begged Canadians to learn more about the country’s history to avoid repeating mistakes of the past. Twice this week he drew attention to 1866, when the Americans last tried to annex Canada and destroy its economy by ending a trade deal.
Canadians are also reassessing Harper’s history.
Widely regarded as the godfather of the modern Canadian right-wing movement, Harper accomplished something no other federal Conservative leader has done in the last 30-plus years: he won elections.
He ended more than a decade of Liberal rule and cobbled together a coalition of prairie populists, eastern business interests, suburbanites, social conservatives and Quebec nationalists that delivered Conservative governments in 2006, 2008 and a strong majority in 2011.
At his official portrait unveiling ceremony on Tuesday, former prime minister Stephen Harper said ‘we must make any sacrifice necessary to preserve the independence and the unity of this blessed land.’
While the party has won the popular vote since then, Harper’s successors have failed to secure a plurality of seats or the title of prime minister.
The party Harper built is largely still intact — though more unabashedly conservative and western-focused than past iterations. And some of the people who helped Harper win are very much involved in trying to get the current party leader, Pierre Poilievre, into the Prime Minister’s Office.
Harper’s tenure was marked by some controversy — remember the drama over the long-form census or the Poilievre-backed Fair Elections Act? Or the government’s squabbling with scientists? There was also the Senate expenses scandal and that $16 orange juice — but he should be thought of as a prime minister who focused on incremental change and delivering results, Harper confidants told CBC News.
“Mr. Harper has a legacy of strong, steady leadership and genuine passion for our country — and it has really withstood the test of time,” said Ray Novak, a longtime Harper aide who ended his government service as the prime minister’s chief of staff.
“It wasn’t a flashy administration but a very policy-heavy government that focused on what was tangible and pragmatic. And that enduring legacy is still relevant today,” he said.
Immigration was more popular, the economy was relatively strong, taxes were lower and the deficits he ran were small compared to what the country has faced in the years since.
Some of Harper’s structural changes have been resilient despite shifting political sands: the GST cut has not been reversed, the long-gun registry is in the dustbin of history (although new firearms laws have since been added) and the Federal Accountability Act still keeps politicians and the staffers they employ more honest.
The universal child-care benefit he introduced has been reworked and expanded and more than 17 million Canadians now have a tax-free savings account (TFSA).
“The most impressive part of the Harper legacy is how little of it has been disassembled,” said Chad Rogers, a longtime Conservative supporter who volunteered on Harper’s first winning campaign.
“Some of these things can feel boring at the time but that’s also an underlying sign that there’s a competent government at work,” said Dennis Matthews, a “day one” staffer to Harper who ultimately ran the party’s advertising.
And then there’s the trade deals Harper helped negotiate with Asia and Europe — which have become the bedrock of Carney’s current trade diversification agenda.
“We’re facing an existential threat and tremendous pressure and those are the kind of sound policies that our current leaders can pick up and build on,” said Novak.
“The free trade network is a critical, strategic benefit. That legacy is worthy of a lot of attention and praise.”
It’s not just on trade that the current prime minister has continued parts of Harper’s agenda (with some tweaks).
While Harper often spoke of the past Liberal “decade of darkness” on defence spending, military expenditures fell well short of NATO targets on his watch. Carney’s government is now beefing up the military.
Just as Harper made nine trips to the Arctic to draw attention to a region that has at times been an afterthought in Ottawa, Carney chose Nunavut as one of his first stops as prime minister and rolled out billions in new defence and social spending to assert Canada’s sovereignty in the North.
“Prime Minister Harper had really strong instincts around sovereignty, trade diversification, energy security and some of the geopolitical risks that we see today,” said Matthews.
“Here we are today, 10 years after his government, and you look back at that and you think, ‘Wow, we were warned,'” he said. “Some of the things Carney’s focused on were in style, they fell out of style and now they’re back.”
And, like Harper, a monarchist and history buff, Carney is embracing and celebrating Canada’s past as he looks to revive patriotism in the face of an imperialist American president and separatist elements in Alberta and Quebec.
Indeed, Harper’s record on national unity — keeping Quebec separatist sentiment at bay and tamping down feelings of western alienation — was singled out by Carney as something he’d also like to emulate.
“Prime Minister Harper consistently understood that Canada’s strength has always come from holding together a country that stretches from coast to coast to coast,” he said at Harper’s portrait unveiling on Parliament Hill on Tuesday.
Carney said Harper’s counsel, as the country grapples with a whole host of challenges, is “greatly appreciated.”
Harper joked that Carney may not have been prime minister if he hadn’t spotted the resumé of a promising young man looking for work at a “nearby bank.”
“He’s apparently gone on to enjoy some success,” he quipped. Harper appointed Carney as governor of the Bank of Canada in 2007.
Novak said that sort of bipartisanship, and Harper’s joint messaging with former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien on the issue of separatism, is “healthy for our democracy” — and a potent force in the face of external threats.
“It’s important for these elder statesmen to speak to the value of our country and the importance of keeping it together,” he said.
There may be lessons in Harper’s success for Poilievre, too, observers say.
While the Conservative leader appears to be on the backfoot with polls showing the Liberals are in a strong position, Harper faced similar circumstances and eventually prevailed, said Rogers.
“I think if Pierre takes one lesson from Stephen Harper in 2004-05 it’s keep your head down, focus on talking to the people who share your beliefs. Focus on your plan and don’t worry too much about what the fancy people say,” he said.
“Minutes before Stephen Harper became prime minister there were a lot of very smart people who said it could never happen and then said it wouldn’t last and he would be gone. It was a blip on the map. In the end, it was a durable 10 years in power that made Canada better.”
