Emma Teitel

Has Harper really marred our standing on the world stage?

What do Stephen Harper and Joan Jett have in common besides a burning love for rock and roll?

Neither, apparently, gives a damn about his or her reputation.

Jett said so explicitly in her hit song, “Bad Reputation,” released in 1980. And Harper, according to his foes, has quietly and deliberately diminished Canada’s international standing as the True North Strong and Friendly since he entered the prime minister’s office in 2006.

Thanks to the Conservative government, we often (annoyingly) hear, “gone are the days when youngsters travelling abroad sewed miniature Canadian flags to their backpacks with pride.” (An alternative explanation for this supposedly waning trend? Young people can’t sew. Last year, researchers at the University of Missouri found that millennials are severely lacking, compared to their parents, in clothing repair and maintenance skills.)

Backpacker pride aside, according to an Angus Reid study released this week, “Canadians are twice as likely to say this country’s reputation has worsened over the last decade as improved.” And remarkably: “In spite of this view,” reports Angus Reid, “they (Canadians) still choose Stephen Harper as the leader best suited to represent Canada on a number of key foreign issues, including terrorism and trade.”

In other words, even supporters of Harper seem to be under the impression that the PM has significantly scarred the country’s reputation.

Were Joan Jett not currently tied up, and were she remotely interested in the job, I wouldn’t be surprised if she gave Harper a run for his money in the general election.

So supposedly devastating to our national standing is the PM’s hawkish foreign policy, you’d think anyone besides Donald Trump would do a better job at salvaging the country’s reputation. That is, assuming Canadian self-perception is accurate — assuming our reputation needs salvaging in the first place.

It’s true: Harper has muzzled scientists, shown contempt for journalists, and served unhelpfully — some would say — as an uncritical friend to Israel. He appears to have little love for Canada’s indigenous and refugee populations — or its women whom he has consistently snubbed in the election cycle.

But has Harper really marred our standing on the world stage in such a major way?

There is something both morally suspect and frankly unconvincing about this increasingly popular “reputation” business — which asserts that Canada, once a shining example to the world, has fallen from grace in a short period of 10 years. That Canada — regardless of its new-found conservative bent and hardline foreign policy — is top of mind to anyone outside its borders.

It seems as though obsessive anti-Harperism has given us a kind of national narcissistic personality disorder, where we assume the entire earth is talking in hushed tones about how much we’ve changed for the worse. (Harper may be the big bad wolf on Canadian soil, but he is small potatoes outside our borders.)

This sentiment is especially ridiculous when you consider the fact that we are consistently named one of the most well-liked countries in the world. This summer, according to the CBC reporting on yet another best-nation reputation contest (this one spearheaded by Reputation Institute), “for the fourth time in six years, Canada has come out on top in a survey that tries to determine which country has the best reputation.”

Harper may have altered our standing in the minds of activists and diplomats — where landmine clearance, women’s contraception and refugee and aboriginal rights are concerned — but he does not have the power to eviscerate it the world over.

Ignorance is actually, ironically, our best friend in this regard: the kind of cheap generalizations we cringe at when travelling in the United States or Europe are a welcome alternative to the truth.

Ask a foreigner what he thinks of when he thinks of Canada and it is unlikely he will evoke the prime minister with the icy stare steering a nation away from its soul. Instead, he will probably mention cold winters, Justin Bieber, poutine, Drake or any number of friendly stereotypes that inspire the trinkets we balk at in our airport gift shops: maple syrup, beavers, moose slippers.

Some clichés, thank God, never die.