Former PM bids the Hill adieu
As low-key as ever, Harper announces resignation from Commons and Calgary seat
OTTAWA— Former prime minister Stephen Harper announced Friday his long-expected resignation from the Commons and his Calgary seat in the low-key fashion he adopted after losing his majority government last fall.
He posted a taped video statement to his social media accounts, Twitter and Facebook, reading out a letter also released on Commons letterhead that began with a formal and stilted: “Greetings, fellow Calgarians and fellow Canadians.”
Harper, 57, gave no indication of his career plans, which include launching a global consulting business, saying only that he was grateful to voters, party members and Canadians for letting him serve “as I bid farewell to the Parliament of Canada and prepare for the next chapter in my life.”
It was vintage Harper. There was no riding off into the sunset. No emotional goodbye, nor chance for reporters to question him. Just a brief statement, delivered not live or via a nationally televised news conference, but via social media channels, in a rehearsed and distant manner.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saluted Harper’s years as Conservative leader and prime minister, his family’s sacrifices during that period and his orderly, respectful and graceful handover of power after losing to the Liberals in October.
“His service as prime minister, and before that, as party leader, to country has never been questioned.”
Since losing power last fall Harper has appeared in the Commons only for votes, and has never spoken in debate as the MP for Calgary Heritage. He did not quit his seat, having had no exit strategy, no job lined up, and believing he should ease the party’s transition into opposition.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says Harper will be entitled to an MP’s pension of about $127,000 a year topped up by another $58,000 a year in prime minister’s pension that he will earn upon turning 67.
Harper bade farewell as leader to his party faithful at the Conservative convention in May in a rare public speech that echoed themes of his goodbye statement Friday.
In July, Harper angered many Conservatives at his annual summer barbecue by endorsing Jason Kenney — his former cabinet colleague and Calgary political neighbour, while Kenney’s opponents sat in the audience — as the leader to do what he did for national conservatives: unite the right-wing parties in Alberta.
In his Friday announcement laced with the same talking points he used on election night, Harper said he leaves elected office “proud of what our team accomplished together.”
He listed uniting Conservatives, cutting taxes, passing tougher crime laws and putting “families first,” and pointed to his government’s management of the economy after 2008 through the worst global recession since the Great Depression.
“We took principled decisions in a complex and dangerous world,” he said on a day when the Liberal government reversed one of those decisions: to stay out of peacekeeping operations in Africa.
The Conservatives are now in the middle of a leadership race to replace Harper and have scheduled a vote on this for May 2017. The expected heavyweights have not yet shown their cards. Kenney is not running. And the field has so far failed to excite Conservatives, let alone Canadians, in the face of a popular new Liberal government leader.
Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose issued a statement Friday that ensured Harper shared credit with small-c conservatives for the party’s formation and record.
“In 2003, Stephen Harper was at the forefront of the movement to unite conservative Canadians across this country under one banner. It would mark the beginning of more than a decade of his principled leadership.” It went on to praise Harper’s record and take aim at the Liberal government, saying “Under his leadership, Canada’s foreign policy was clear-eyed and robust, and our nation’s principles were never for sale.”