Harper gives Poilievre vote of confidence
Former PM appears at conference in move seen as effort to unite splintered Conservative party
Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper offered a piece of advice to his successor Pierre Poilievre Wednesday: don’t let the current political debates in Ottawa be about you.
Harper told a crowd of hundreds of conservatives gathered in at an Ottawa conference that as Opposition Leader, Poilievre’s chief subjects shouldn’t be what ideas he’ll put forward in the next election.
There is time to develop those, Harper said, and given the federal NDP is a “branch plant” of the Liberals, the current Conservative party doesn’t need to do anything to be a contender in the next election — it will be one, and Poilievre has a shot at winning.
“What I say to Conservative opposition leaders is: your job today, yeah, broadly speaking indicate a direction you’re going to go,” he said.
“But it’s not to talk about how you would run the country. It is to hold the government accountable for how it is running the country and making it wear its mismanagement, incompetence and corruption.”
Harper’s remarks to a conference once dubbed the “Woodstock” of the conservative movement marked a return to the domestic political spotlight for the former prime minister.
He’s rarely spoken publicly in Canada about politics since losing government in 2015 and stepping down as Conservative party leader that same night.
The party’s loss — and his departure — tossed the national movement into years of soul searching about what kind of movement it was in his absence and who could pick up that torch.
After three bitter leadership races in a five-year span that pitted various factions and visions of the party against each other, members have now settled on Poilievre, who seized the reins of power in last year’s leadership race with Harper’s blessing.
Though managing those factions remains a challenge for Poilievre, Harper’s blessing has helped — and the former prime minister sent another signal of that Wednesday by making a choice to attend the marquee event for Canada’s conservative movement alongside a former leader he broke publicly with decades ago.
What’s known now as the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference used to be called the Manning Networking Conference, named for Preston Manning, the Reform party founder and former leader.
Manning stepped back from the conference and related think tank in 2020, and it was renamed, but his presence continues to loom large — despite the best efforts of organizers, most insiders still call it the Manning conference.
He also remains a presence in the conservative movement itself, something Harper paid tribute to in his speech Wednesday night, a 20-minute run through nearly 100 years of conservative history in Canada dating back all the way to the days of the prairie populists right up to the modern incarnation.
He placed Poilievre in that history, suggesting the very scorn once heaped on anti-establishment conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, as well as Canadian reformers, is the same as that which Poilievre gets now.
Harper and Manning then sat down side-by-side for what was billed as a “fireside chat,” both noting it had been years since they’d done so.
They were once political brothers in arms, working to transform the Reform party, which was founded as a western grassroots protest response to the Progressive Conservatives, into a national political party capable of forming government.
Both were elected to the House of Commons in 1993 — an anniversary Harper also noted Wednesday — but Harper would ultimately chafe under Manning’s leadership, later complaining publicly about issues like his expense account and a lack of freedom to speak frankly from the back benches.
They formally broke in 1997, when Harper decided not to seek re-election, and went on to run the National Citizens Coalition.
Harper would later become the leader of the successor to the Reform party, the Canadian Alliance; when it merged with the Progressive Conservatives, he became leader of the new party, the Conservatives.
The chill between the two men would last for decades, both politically and over policy.
Still, Harper paid glowing tribute to Manning Wednesday, referring to him as the closest thing Canada has to a “founding father” of the modern-day movement.
Manning did what no one had done before, Harper said: build a political party, and in turn a movement, from nearly nothing.
“To build such a party from virtually nothing is not just a unique accomplishment, but a manifestation of a skill set that very few people will ever possess,” Harper said.
Wednesday’s event was seen by many as another peacemaking effort to send a signal it is time for all conservatives to rally similarly behind Poilievre.
He will be giving a speech of his own at the conference on Thursday.