HARPER ON LAURIER
FORMER PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER ON THE LEGACY OF ONE OF CANADA’S GREATEST LEADERS
One of the greatest privileges I had as prime minister was retracing Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s footsteps in travelling to London to honour a Queen on her Diamond Jubilee. While times had changed in world and Canadian politics, I still felt and heard the echoes of Sir Wilfrid’s Diamond Jubilee visit of so long before while I was in London in 2012.
It was there, at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, that our Canada took her first steps, under Laurier’s gifted leadership, onto the world stage. Canada has remained on Laurier’s confident path ever since.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier took office in 1896, not long after the death of Canada’s Father of Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald. The Laurier Years ( 1896-1911) were ones of great promise and growth for Canada. My own province, Alberta, along with Saskatchewan, joined Confederation on his watch; the entire West was settled by thousands from beyond our shores, and Canada’s stature, both continentally and internationally, heightened substantially.
Laurier’s speeches remind us today that he spent decades in elected politics before becoming prime minister. Sitting opposite his greatest opponent, Sir John A. Macdonald, he participated in the discussions that defined and shaped the young Dominion in which he lived. Provincial rights, the events involving Louis Riel, minority languages, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, French-English relations and the quest for freer trade with the United States: these were debates he engaged in with vigour and unmatched eloquence.
As a Conservative, I note the constant themes that emerge when reading Laurier’s speeches. He believed in low taxation and government economy. The seventh prime minister also kept a watchful eye on incursions by the federal government into areas of provincial jurisdiction, and sought to reduce trade barriers between Canada and the United States. He also carried within him a passionate belief in parliamentary government and her institutions, such as the monarchy.
A study of Laurier also reminds us what a ground- breaking political innovator he proved to be. It was at his direction, for example, that his party became the first in post- Confederation Canada, in 1893, to hold a national convention. His addresses also demonstrate the attention he paid throughout his career to party organization.
There are lessons for all political leaders, at all levels of government, in these speeches today. Politics was his calling, craft and profession. And he was a master. Despite the ups and downs of his career and the all too frequent moments when Canadian unity was tested, Sir Wilfrid Laurier never lost his faith in Canada and her peoples.
His challenge and example, like Sir John A. Macdonald of Kingston’s, is so very relevant today. Sir Wilfrid Laurier stands as one of our greatest prime ministers. He always will. We are correct to continue to celebrate his legacy. And I am confident that prime ministers and Canadians will always do so as Canada grows and prospers. Just as Laurier, like Macdonald before him, predicted our nation would.
HE BELIEVED IN LOW TAXATION AND GOVERNMENT ECONOMY, AND KEPT A WATCHFUL EYE ON INCURSIONS BY OTTAWA INTO PROVINCIAL JURISDICTIONS.