Harper exits stage as page is turned on an era
We’re not going to have Stephen Harper to kick around anymore. The Conservative Leader has asked his party’s national council to reach out to the new parliamentary caucus to appoint an interim leader and implement a leadership contest.
Not that you would have known that from his valedictory address to the faithful in Calgary, where he neglected to mention he plans on leaving.
He accepted responsibility for the party’s crushing electoral defeat. “The disappointment you feel is my responsibility and mine alone,” he said. “We put it all on the line, we gave everything we had and we have no regrets.”
It seems almost to fantastical to think that the man who has dominated public life in Canada for the last decade is leaving the stage.
But he is going — to the undoubted delight of millions of Canadians who have convinced themselves he is Canada’s Richard Nixon, similarly “without ethics, morals or a bedrock sense of decency,” in the words of Hunter S. Thompson.
By invoking the menace of imaginary hobgoblins like the niqab, Harper invited the comparison. He, like Nixon, will no doubt find solace in telling reporters they won’t have him to kick around any more. But Nixon said that in his “last press conference” in 1962 and returned to politics to become president six years later.
I doubt we’ll see Harper or his like again.
The Liberal Party is intent on changing the way we vote — a reform that would make it less likely we will see any Tories in power for quite some time, far less an incremental radical like Harper.
There was an end- of- an- era feel to Harper’s homecoming in the giant Calgary convention centre, where he celebrated his majority government four years ago.
This time, the room was half the size — in keeping with the dimensions of the crowd — most in attendance from a sense of duty, rather than enthusiasm. It all had the feel of a glass of champagne that had been left out overnight, as the networks declared the Liberals the winner before the results had even started flowing in from Central Canada.
The news that the Liberals had roared out of Atlantic Canada taking all 32 seats had veterans invoking ghosts of 1993.
The list of heavyweight Conservatives whose political careers are now pushing up daisies is lengthy — Julian Fantino, Chris Alexander, Gail Shea. It will be no consolation that the real attrition was felt by the NDP, which lost stalwarts like Peggy Nash, Jack Harris, Paul Dewar, Megan Leslie, Pat Martin, Peter Stoffer and Andrew Cash.
It is no great surprise that Harper is stepping down after such a crushing electoral loss. However, it seems as if he intends to soldier on as a member of Parliament in the short term. This is perhaps a reaction to the unfortunate precedent set by Jim Prentice, the former Alberta premier, who quit politics after being defeated in the provincial election last spring, despite winning his own seat.
The Conservative national council will meet this week to draw up the rules of the contest. It is expected there will be heavy pressure placed on Saskatchewan premier, Brad Wall, to throw his hat in the ring.
Jason Kenney, would be the presumptive favourite in any such race, particularly since he criss- crossed the country during the election in an effort to elect Conservatives. Yet a number of senior party insiders say they do not expect him to run.
In previous years when things have not gone his way, Harper has descended into a dark place.
But people who know him say he will leave in sanguine mood, having recently signed the Trans- Pacific Partnership agreement, which he feels will become his legacy.
He made it through a decade in power and will go down in the history books as one of Canada’s significant prime ministers. He will leave behind a country that is at relative peace with itself.
There will be recriminations within the Conservative camp aimed at a campaign team that did not seem to be prepared, even though they fired the starting gun.
Jenni Byrne, the campaign manager, is taking most of the flak and was conspicuous by her absence in Calgary.
The retirement of so many incumbent MPs took a huge toll, as did the loss of experienced backroom giants like the late Doug Finley and Nigel Wright. “It left a ship with no captain,” said one Conservative.
But this is not a party on the brink of civil war. It has held more than 100 seats and it has money in the bank. If a new leader can deodorize the brand, the Conservatives will still be a force at the next election. This is not 1993, when the party was reduced to a rump of two seats. “This is sad, not tragic,” said one Tory.
Politics is a tidal business, marked by a continual shift in the national mood. The undertow has pulled Conservatives and New Democrats out to sea like pebbles on a beach. The trick for the Conservatives is to convince Canadians there is life after Harper and that they are ready when the tide comes back in.
The disappointment you feel is my responsibility and mine alone. We put it all on the line, we gave everything we had and we have no regrets.