Case Study: A Picture of Politics - The Harper Years, 2006–15

Much of Thinking Government deals with the contemporary life and times of the federal Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau first elected with a parliamentary majority in 2015 and subsequently re-elected to minority governments in 2019 and 2021. But all governments emerge from history, and the historic legacies of past governments affect both electoral outcomes as well as the policies and programs handed down from one government to another, and the receptivity of a new government to maintaining, or altering, what it has inherited from its predecessor. Such was the case with the relationship between the current Liberal government and that of former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. The Trudeau government arose out of, and in counter-reaction to the Harper government, and many attitudes of Canadians toward current political debates are still shaped by what people think about the legacy of the Harper government.

With this in mind, the following is an overview of the life and times of the government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that appeared in the fourth edition of Thinking Government:

The 2015 election was historic, highlighting that some elections do present Canadians with real alternatives and that electoral outcomes matter. It was also an emotional roller-coaster for Canadians of all political persuasions. For Conservatives and New Democrats, Greens and Blocistes, it brought bitter disappointment and some degree of anger; for Liberals it meant joy and vindication. And for many Canadians of a centre-left disposition, it promised relief from a tumultuous decade of Conservative rule, a decade marked by deep ideological debate regarding the nature of public policies, the role of the state in this society, and the type of leadership that Canadians need and deserve. To fully appreciate the magnitude of the change that occurred on election night 2015, you need to remember what the previous decade was like in the political life of Canada.

In the 2006 election that first brought them to power, Harper and his party promised that a new government would mean a new future for Canada. The scandals and corruption of the old Liberal administrations of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin would be swept away and the new government would pledge itself to accountability, transparency, and openness in its operations. New and decisive leadership would put an end to the years of dithering and incompetent public policy making. The Conservatives assured Canadians that the military would be strengthened, that the country would be a firm ally of the United States, especially in its War on Terror and the conflict in Afghanistan, and that the new government would get tough on crime. And Stephen Harper repeatedly committed a Conservative government to sound economic management. Taxes would be cut, starting with the goods and services tax (GST); needless regulation of the private sector would be eliminated; the role of the federal government in the economy would be trimmed; and free enterprise would be promoted. The Harper team also stressed that a new Conservative regime would promote a revised child care policy, eliminate the long-gun registry, refrain from legislating on abortion, and ensure a more harmonious relationship between the federal government and the provinces.

When you look at these campaign promises from 2006, the remarkable thing is not that Stephen Harper was able to orchestrate an electoral victory based on this platform but that his government achieved most of these aims while operating from a minority position in parliament. A new Accountability Act was one of its first pieces of legislation. Tens of billions of dollars went to the military for new equipment and for waging war in Afghanistan and eventually an air war over Libya in 2011 and over Iraq and Syria in 2014–15. The Criminal Code was amended to crack down on violent criminals and gang members, toughen rules for young offenders, and lengthen sentences served by convicts. Individual and corporate tax rates were reduced, and the GST was cut by two percentage points. The Harper government also introduced tax credits for private child care services. The Conservatives reduced regulation of the economy, especially in relation to environmental assessment plans, and promoted tighter economic links with the United States and free trade agreements with other countries, leading to tentative agreements with the European Union in 2014 and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2015. In international relations Canada became one of Israel’s closest allies and supporters, sought closer trade relations with Asia (especially India and China), and advocated for global climate change agreements that would bind all countries equally while balancing greenhouse gas emission regulation against continued oil and natural gas development initiatives, such as the Alberta oil sands projects. Back on the domestic front, the Harper government abolished the long-gun registry and the long-form census, privatized the Canadian Wheat Board, stressed that most social policies were provincial responsibilities, recognized the Québécois as forming a nation within Canada, and kept its promise not to legislate on abortion.

This list of achievements is impressive and represents just some of the highlights from 2006 to 2015. Stephen Harper took pride in the fact that, on his watch, Canada weathered the 2008–9 global economic crisis, becoming the first state of the G8 to record positive growth and exit the recession in 2010. His government’s Economic Action Plan of 2009–15 steered tens of billions of dollars into the Canadian economy to protect jobs, stimulate growth, and foster a stronger private sector. Between 2011 and 2015 his government also rebalanced the federal budget, at the expense of federal program cutbacks, service reductions, and the loss of some 19,000 public service jobs. And he managed these initiatives while showing firm, decisive leadership and crafty parliamentary tactics. He was truly the man at the centre, the leader of the country.

He also gave the opposition parties fits. He was able to humble previous Liberal leaders Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, forcing the Liberals on numerous occasions either to vote for Conservative bills or to refrain from voting on motions out of fear that they would precipitate an election they could not win. He won minority governments in 2006 and 2008 and then won his first and only majority government in the election of 2011. It was following this election defeat that the Liberal Party opted for Justin Trudeau, the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau as its new leader and would-be saviour.

While Conservatives hailed Stephen Harper as a great prime minister with towering political knowledge and tactical skill, his opponents damned him as narrow-minded and ideologically driven, excessively partisan and mean-spirited, a domineering and controlling leader with a limited vision for Canada and out of touch with broader social undercurrents. “I don’t get into that second guessing of myself publicly,” he once remarked, but some thought he should do a little more self-assessment. Those on the left disliked almost everything about Harper’s government but were often divided on how far to push their opposition. Critics noted that cuts to the GST and corporate tax rates, by reducing the funding flowing to the federal government, also limited the social and economic policies it could promote.

Liberals criticized the Harper government for failing to provide a national, publicly funded system of child care and adequate funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). New Democrats attacked it for excessive spending on the military at the expense of social programs, for attacking unions and public sector employees, for bringing Canada deeper into the conflict in Afghanistan, and for abjectly supporting the US War on Terror with its concomitant problems of human rights abuses at home and abroad. Bloc Québécois antagonists challenged the Harper government on its failure to promote the Quebec economy, protect that province’s forestry and agricultural sectors from American competition, or advance Québécois culture. And all the opposition parties found the Conservative government sorely lacking in its environmental policies, especially its position on global climate change. They stressed that Stephen Harper was a climate change denier prior to his entry into federal politics and that as prime minister he obstructed the development of an effective global treaty that would impose hard reductions on greenhouse gas emissions, help to develop carbon taxes, and promote green energy alternatives to carbon fuels.

Many critics also pointed at what they saw as an authoritarian and autocratic style of leadership. Liberals and New Democrats condemned the centralization of power in the Prime Minister’s Office, whereby the prime minister and his key communications advisers tightly scripted all statements by ministers, their staffers, and senior public servants. Opposition party leaders complained that, far from opening up the process of government and making public sector management more transparent and accountable, the prime minister had stifled openness in government through his obsession with controlling the message and his obvious distaste for criticism. It came to be noted by journalists on the Ottawa beat that the Harper government came to view the opposition not as different political parties to be challenged in debate but as enemies to be ridiculed and denounced. Opposition MPs observed that public servants felt muzzled, that officers of parliament who challenged government policy assumptions risked punitive budget cutbacks, that the prime minister would even personally attack the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and that government MPs were no longer free to speak their own minds. And many journalists found it increasingly difficult to get interviews with government ministers and backbench MPs. As the Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson repeatedly argued, all government communications seemed to flow through and be controlled by the Prime Minister’s Office.

By the later years of his reign, critics were writing of Stephen Harper in increasingly bitter and despairing tones. Lawrence Martin complained of his increasingly despotic and Machiavellian form of leadership that was quickly turning Canada into “Harperland” (Martin 2010), while biographer Michael Harris referred to the prime minister as a “Party of One” (Harris 2014). And in 2015, in the months leading up to the fall election, Bob Rae, former NDP premier of Ontario and former interim leader of the federal Liberal Party, wrote of Stephen Harper’s leadership style and substance as resulting in Canadians “now living in a democracy with dictatorial tendencies, and Canadians should not see their democratic institutions diluted and muzzled because of political timidity. Are Canadians ready to make a change?” (Rae 2015, 110).

All these criticisms were roundly rejected by the prime minister and his supporters as the ill-informed complaints of losers who were frustrated by the Conservatives’ hold on power and ability to exercise the machinery of government far more efficiently and effectively than incompetent and corrupt Liberal administrations. Defenders of Stephen Harper’s leadership style simply said that he displayed firm direction based upon a rock-solid moral compass, not unlike Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan, and that most Canadians admired his convictions and his ability to get things done. John Ibbitson, a sympathetic biographer, stressed in 2015 that Stephen Harper had fundamentally transformed Canada for the better. Core conservative values had become Canadian values. Tax rates had been reduced, likely permanently, the size and role of the federal government had been curtailed, the leading role of the private sector in generating economic growth had been reaffirmed, and Canadian diplomacy now resonated with moral clarity rooted to principle rather than vague “feel-good” sentimentality. The changes wrought by the Harper government had recast the nature of Canadian politics and government (Ibbitson 2015).

To the complaints that he was centralizing power in the hands of the Prime Minister’s Office, more academic Conservative commentators claimed that prime ministers are always the key leaders of their governments and that such centralization of prime ministerial power had been a phenomenon in Canadian public sector management since the days of Pierre Trudeau. The Conservative majority win in the spring election of 2011 demonstrated that most of the electorate did not have deep qualms about the issue.

But times change. By the fall of 2015 a clear majority of Canadians were tired of the Harper government. While many continued to express support for free trade and lower taxes on the middle class, more and more Canadians were questioning Conservative policies on everything from environmental protection and global warming, to the wars in Iraq and Syria, to calling a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women. And, most palpably, a clear majority of Canadians were sick and tired of Stephen Harper’s cold and divisive leadership style. Justin Trudeau came to be seen as the one man who could oust Harper, and he rode that wave to victory on October 19, 2015.

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As of 2022, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has been in power for seven years. The bloom quickly went off the Liberal rose but the Conservative Party post-Harper has been unable to galvanize a significant number of Canadians to reject the Liberals and to vote Conservative. Be sure to follow this issue in the news. Do the Conservatives need to appeal more to the centre in order to win the next election? Or do they need to pivot further to the right of the ideological spectrum, embracing the mantra of right-wing populism, like Donald Trump in the United States?

Policy Instruments in Action

Instrument	Behaviour	Example
No action	Leave the matter to the private sector and/or individual choice.	A woman’s right to obtain an abortion
Symbolic state action	Promote showpiece behaviour.	Declaring certain days/weeks/months to be in honour of certain causes, e.g., February as Black History Month, to promote awareness of African-Canadian contributions to national culture
Policy exhortation	Use the power of persuasion.	Government advertising encouraging Canadians to get physically fit and to exercise more
Taxation incentives	Use the tax system to encourage desirable behaviour through tax credits, breaks, or incentives.	Giving Canadians tax credits to offset private child care expenses or the cost of donations to political parties; giving companies depreciation allowances for new equipment and tax write-offs for new investments
Public spending	Promote policy aims through programs directly funded by government.	Building airports, harbours, highways, high-speed telecommunications networks; implementing labour skills upgrading programs; offering grants and subsidies to Canadian book publishers
Regulation	Promote policy aims by mandating and enforcing compliance with legally mandated regulatory frameworks.	Medicine, veterinary medicine, law, engineering, taxi driving, restaurant and bar management
Taxation penalties	Promote policy aims by imposing tax burdens or penalties on those engaged in actions deemed luxurious, unnecessary, or undesirable.	Cigarette taxes, environmental pollution penalties
Ownership	Promote policy aims through direct state intervention, control, and ownership over particular fields of socio-economic activity.	CN, VIA Rail, CBC, Canada Post, Canadian Wheat Board, provincial liquor control boards
A state of emergency	Assume state control over the society and economy.	War Measures Acts during World Wars I and II, the 1970 FLQ October Crisis, and the 2022 Emergencies Act in Ottawa

Case Study:The Federal Sponsorship Scandal 1997-2006: When Things Go Wrong

THE MOTIVE
Did policy to promote the role of the federal government in Quebec backfire following the 1995 sovereignty referendum? After that razor-thin affirmation of federalism, the government of Jean Chrétien initiated the sponsorship program. With a budget of $250 million, to be used at the discretion of the senior officials responsible, it was intended to boost the federal government’s profile by supporting cultural events in Quebec.

THE CHARGE
In reports in 2002 and 2004, Auditor General Sheila Fraser attacked the administration of the program on the grounds that $100 million had been improperly manipulated. Much of the money had found its way into the hands of Quebec-based public relations firms with known ties to the federal Liberal Party. The auditor general famously remarked that senior federal bureaucrats had broken “just about every rule in the book” in their management.

As the media, opposition parties, and the general public cried scandal, the new federal government of Paul Martin accepted that something had gone terribly wrong with this program. In 2004 it established a public inquiry, led by Justice John Gomery, to investigate any wrongdoing.

THE DEFENCE
Chrétien, however, always denied that there was a serious problem. He asserted that any misuse of federal monies was the fault of junior officials who should be dealt with, if need be, in the courts. As for the broader goals, Chrétien and his supporters said the program had to be understood in the context of the time, when the federal government desperately needed to raise its public profile in Quebec to combat growing public sympathy for separatism.

From this perspective, the program accomplished its objectives. Support for sovereignty waned, the Parti Québécois lost power to the provincial Liberals in 2003, and the constitutional issue in Quebec still lies dormant. As Chrétien’s defenders have long argued, if money was wasted in the process, it’s a small price to pay for national unity.

WEIGHING THE CASE

Do you agree with Chrétien’s logic?

[ ] If you agree, do you believe that program ends are more important than their means? If so, what other programs would you continue to support despite evidence of wasteful implementation?

[ ] If you disagree, do you believe that program means always outvalue their ends? Was the sponsorship program a failure even though it met its goals? Or did it?

The Politics of It All

The problem for the Liberals was that the sponsorship program led to the sponsorship scandal, with the Gomery Inquiry revealing ample evidence of illegal and unethical behaviour of officials closely connected to the federal government and the Liberal Party in Quebec. Then an opposition leader, Stephen Harper used the sponsorship scandal to whip up public anger against the federal Liberals, while promising Canadians that if he became prime minister, the federal government would be far more open, honest, ethical, transparent, democratic, and accountable under his leadership. The Conservative electoral victory in 2006 was very much in response to these promises.

Dispatch Box: Peacekeeping or Peacemaking?

1. How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed how Canadians think about the role of government in society?

Your answer should address the actions federal and provincial governments took to deal with the pandemic since its inception in early 2020 as well as how these actions were understood by Canadians.

Assess:

• why many Canadians applauded the action of governments at the outset of the pandemic;
• how health care professionals viewed the pandemic response;
• how governmental responses to the pandemic benefitted ordinary Canadians as well as Canadian businesses;
• why Canadian governments were able to respond so quickly to the pandemic;
• why many other Canadians came to question governmental COVID restrictions; and
• whether this COVID experience has enhanced a public desire for more governmental socio-economic programs.

2. Explain the main differences between conservative and centre-left approaches to socio-economic policy.

Your answer should elaborate on the following broad concepts, drawing on examples that support the ways in which conservatives and liberals/social democrats differ over

• the role of the state and the public service;
• the role of business in society;
• the role and reach of societal and business regulation;
• the role and value of Crown corporations;
• tax policies; and
• individualistic versus collectivist approaches to society and the economy.

3. List and explain six uniquely Canadian policy areas that successive federal governments must confront.

Outline and assess the issues and recent history with respect to areas such as

• French–-English relations and Quebec’s role in Confederation;
• regionalism and regional inequalities and tensions in Canada;
• Environmental issues and the problems posed by climate change and the resulting policy challenges;
• Immigration, and the social and economic benefits and challenges posed by immigration;
• Canadian–-American relations and issues of security, trade, and environmental policy; and
• relations between federal and provincial governments and Indigenous peoples.

4. Identify the principal ideas of the new public management (NPM) approach.

Focus attention on how the advocates of NPM believe that it can transform government and the public service. Key ideas to be discussed and analyzed for their pros and cons are:

• privatization
• deregulation
• contracting out
• commercialization and user fees
• decentralization
• downsizing of the public sector

In terms of social, economic, and environmental policy, should governments do more with less, less with less, or more with more (higher taxes)?

1. Plan B, in the context of Quebec, describes the following policy:

• a. realigning provincial representation in Parliament to reflect current population
• b. defining the terms on which the federal government would negotiate with the province if it voted to separate
• c. federal monies to the province to promote support for federalism
• d. using court challenges to reject the legitimacy of provincial referendums on separatism

2. An allophone resident of Quebec

• a. speaks English plus one other language
• b. speaks English and French equally well
• c. has French as the first language but can function well in English
• d. has neither French nor English as the first language

3. Which of the following are Canadian policies/programs?

• a. Provincial compensation system
• b. Canada Pension Plan
• c. Federal employment insurance
• d. All of the above

4. Which of the following conservative policies were created by the federal Conservative government of Stephen Harper?

• a. Personal and corporate taxation rates were reduced
• b. The goods and services (GST) tax was cut by two percentage points
• c. Environmental assessment requirements were softened
• d. All of the above

5. The main purpose of federal equalization policy is to

• a. combat separatism in Quebec
• b. ensure that have-not provinces can offer public services and tax rates at levels comparable to the national average
• c. promote the equality rights expressed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• d. ensure that have-not provinces have levels of public services equal to those found in Ontario and Alberta

6. The primary role of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is to

• a. ease the flow of Canadian softwood lumber and other goods into the United States
• b. harmonize Canadian, American, and Mexican social policies
• c. reduce and eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers between Canada, the United States, and Mexico
• d. promote the privatization and deregulation of the economies of Canada, the United States, and Mexico

7. Which provinces are considered to be “have-not jurisdictions”?

• a. Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick
• b. Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan
• c. Vancouver, Alberta, Manitoba
• d. Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland

8. The term Aboriginal title refers to

• a. the honorary status of chiefs
• b. Aboriginal rights found in the Indian Act
• c. the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples to care for their ancestral lands
• d. rights accorded to Indigenous peoples through the treaty process

9. New public management refers to

• a. finding greater economy and efficiency in the public sector by emulating private sector techniques
• b. promoting greater public sector authority in the economy through Crown corporations
• c. improving training for middle management in public services
• d. applying public service techniques within the private sector

10. Which of the following is the primary source of legal entitlements for everyone living in Canada?

• a. The Constitution Act, 1982
• b. The Federal Multiculturalism Policy
• c. Crow’s Nest Pass Agreement
• d. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Chapter 1 Answer Key

• 1. b
• 2. d
• 3. d
• 4. d
• 5. b
• 6. c
• 7. b
• 8. c
• 9. a
• 10. d

Table 1.1 Population Distribution and Parliamentary Representation, 2018

Aboriginal title
In many places—most of British Columbia and the Far North, for example—treaties were never entered into at all, with the results that First Nations lands were simply occupied by white settlers in the absence of any formal legal process.

accountability
The duty owed by elected politicians and public servants who are responsible for the procedural and substantive merit of their decision making and are called upon to abide by the concepts of ministerial responsibility, the rule of law, and social responsiveness.

Allophone
A resident of Quebec whose mother tongue is neither French nor English. Roughly 20 per cent of Quebec’s population is either Anglophone or Allophone.

bureaucratization
The dynamic that occurs as social and economic affairs become subject to the influence and/or control of the state and its institutions.

Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The primary source of legal entitlements for everyone living in Canada. The Charter was brought into force as part of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Constitution Act, 1982
Enshrined the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution, and completed the unfinished business of Canadian independence - alllowing Canadians to amend their own Constitution without requiring approval from Britain.

Crow’s Nest Pass Agreement
A historical federal economic policy that established artificial rates for railway freight, and the oil and natural gas pricing agreements that culminated in the National Energy Policy of the early 1980s.

Crown corporation
A commercial enterprise established and owned by either the federal or the provincial state but possessing relative operational autonomy from the government. A Crown corporation is not a department and thus is not headed by a minister but by a board of directors appointed by the government.

deficit
The budgetary dynamic in which expenditures and other financial liabilities exceed revenues, resulting in the need to borrow money to meet financial obligations. Such borrowing results in an accumulating debt.

deregulation
The process of reducing or eliminating outright the legal rules that control and direct the behaviour of firms in the private sector. Deregulation is typically seen as a conservative policy to free enterprise from excessive, unnecessary, and costly state intervention in private behaviour.

equalization policy
Channels federal funds to provinces that have total provincial revenues lower than the national provincial per capita average.

ethics
The concept of appropriate forms of political and bureaucratic decision making within government. The basic principles of government ethics stress that politicians and public servants are to undertake their duties in light of serving the public interest, maintaining fidelity to law, and avoiding having their private interests interfere with their public duties.

federal multiculturalism policy
Stresses that Canada is a land of diverse peoples and cultures with such diversity helping to make the Canadian society, and its economy, stronger and more vibrant.

Foreign Investment Review Agency
Established in 1973 by Pierre Trudeau to ensure that the foreign acquisition and establishment of businesses in Canada was beneficial to the country.

government restraint
The policy of restricting or reducing social and economic spending initiatives and promoting privatization and deregulation as ways to cut government spending and deficits and limit the scope of government involvement in the social and economic life of a country.

multiculturalism
Federal and provincial policy to defend and promote acceptance of a pluralist and welcoming appreciation that Canadian culture is composed of multiple linguistic, ethnic, religious, national, and social groups.

National Energy Policy
An energy policy of the Government of Canada from 1980 to 1985. It was created under the Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau by Minister of Energy Marc Lalonde in 1980, and administered by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.

National Policy
The National Policy was a Canadian economic program introduced by John A. Macdonald’s Conservative Party in 1876 and put into action in 1879. It called for high tariffs on imported manufactured items to protect the manufacturing industry.

new public management
An approach to public sector management that emerged in the 1980s to foster greater economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in government. It emphasized that the public sector should adopt some of the techniques and behaviour of the private sector and grant public servants much greater operational freedom, subject to the overall control of elected politicians.

privatization
The process by which governments divest themselves of Crown corporations. Privatization can occur through the outright sale of a Crown corporation to a single private buyer or through share offerings to multiple investors on the stock market.

program administration
The managerial techniques of implementing public policy. Program administration uses the tools of financial, operational, and human resources management to deliver programs to the public that meet policy goals.

public policy
The broad priorities, goals, and objectives of a government entity with respect to human activity and the interests of the government. Public policy refers to a set of interpretations of the appropriate outcomes of government actions in a given field.

public sector management
The administrative functioning of the state and its officials. The methods by which state officials organize themselves in order to implement public policies, traditionally focused on the mobilization of financial resources (budgeting policy), human resources (personnel policy), and operational and strategic leadership.

public service
The institutions, organizational structures, and staff of governments designed to facilitate the implementation of laws, public policies, and government programs within society.

regulation
Public mandates and requirements established by either federal or provincial law to control, direct, and influence the actions of individuals, private firms, or related government institutions in order to achieve a public purpose.

socio-economic policy
The collective state policies designed to address social concerns (health, education, welfare, environment, and culture) and their relationship to economic concerns (trade, business, income, commerce, and tax).

state
The portion of society comprising the broad public sector, as opposed to the private sector, and based on the institutions of government. The Canadian state can be understood as comprising all the institutions accounted for and controlled and directed by the federal government, all provincial and municipal governments, and all First Nations governments. One can also refer to the federal state as all the public institutions in the federal realm and to a provincial state as all the public provincial and municipal institutions in that province.

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