Harper Stephen - Stephen Harper

Copyright 2015 by John Ibbitson

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ISBN: 978-0-7710-4703-9
ebook ISBN: 978-0-7710-4704-6

McClelland & Stewart,
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For my Grant

Throughout 2014 , it was my great good fortune to serve as a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario. As well as writing for CIGI publications, I devoted the year to this book. To all of the research and senior fellows I worked beside, thank you so much for sharing your insights and your boundless enthusiasm, and for putting up with my rants. A special thanks to Fen Hampson, director of CIGIs Global Security & Politics program, who first suggested I come join the fellows; to David Dewitt, vice-president of programs, who guided me through the year; and to Rohinton Medhora, CIGIs president, who made the year possible.

CIGIs scholars dedicate themselves to understanding how we as a global community govern, regulate, and protect ourselves. If our leaders collectively are able to deter an attack, manage a downturn, or make everyone everywhere a bit better off and a bit more secure, then they have centres such as CIGI to thank for proposing ideas that one day become solutions. I am enormously in their debt, both for the opportunities and the companionship my colleagues offered. You wouldnt be reading this book without them.

He is a lion in autumn , weaker than in his prime, but still a force of nature. He faces his fifth, and perhaps final, test as national leader. But in a way, the result wont matter. Whether Stephen Harper wins or loses the general election of October 19, 2015, is moot. He has already reshaped Canada. And Canada will not easily be changed back.

He has made the federal government smaller, less intrusive, less ambitious. He has made Canada a less Atlantic and a more Pacific nation. He has brought peace to a fractious federation. Under his leadership, Canada speaks with a very different voice in the world. He has also given us a very different politics more intensely partisan, more ideological, more polarizing. This, too, is unlikely to change, now that people are used to it.

And then there is Harper himself. Slow to trust and quick to take offence, brooding and resentful at times, secretive beyond reason, perhaps the most introverted person ever to seek high office in this country, he has nonetheless defeated a plethora of challengers to give Canada its first ever truly conservative government, with profound consequences for the country. He has brought the West for the first time fully into the life of the nation, while making his Conservatives the only conservative party in the developed world broadly supported by immigrants. And he has lasted a decade in office, no mean feat in this democracy or any other.

Though he has few friends, those he does have think the world of what they see as a smart, funny, insightful, loyal, and decent guy. His family likes him, too.

Others see him as autocratic, secretive, and often cruel.

Stephen Harper sees himself as an insurgent, chafing against the political elites of Central Canada and what he believes is their muddled consensus. He rejected them as a teenager, when he first encountered them at the University of Toronto, and has fought them ever since. Though he would never cite John Turner, that fight is the fight of his life.

He has succeeded. More people think like conservatives today than thought that way a decade ago. Even if they dont consider themselves conservative, they believe in lower taxes, less regulation, leaving the provinces alone, letting people get on with their lives. They accept that our federal government is there to protect the border, protect property, protect communities, protect Canadas interests abroad, protect jobs, and otherwise leave well enough alone. While provincial and municipal governments look after schools, hospitals, roads, and other services, Ottawa under Stephen Harper has become a piece of giant software running silently in the background. Though most Canadians never vote Conservative, this Conservative leader has so altered the assumptions of the political debate that his opponents largely accept, though they will never admit it, the version of government he has bequeathed.

Stephen Harper as prime minister has also undermined the prerogatives of Parliament, eroded privacy rights, debased political debate, demoralized the public service, and cheapened the national discourse. He doesnt care. These losses are collateral damage, and not serious damage at that, in his eyes. Others powerfully disagree.

This book is a biography. While situating the life of Canadas twenty-second prime minister in the life of Canada, it seeks first and last to understand the man himself. You will not find in these pages an exhaustive accounting of the events of the three Conservative governments; in fact, the first half of the book is taken up with Harpers life before he became prime minister. We do what we do because we are who we are, and we become who we are early on. I chose to examine certain events closely because I believe they revealed something of Harper the man, rather than just the politician. Before I began this book, I didnt feel I really knew Stephen Harper, which is the reason I began it. Now I know him better. I hope after reading this you do, too.

John Pearce, my agent, embraced the idea of a biography of Stephen Harper the moment I first raised it, and Douglas Pepper at McClelland & Stewart did the same, serving as editor as well. I owe both of them a great deal, and not for the first time.

John Stackhouse, who was then editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail, granted my request for a years leave of absence, and David Walmsley, current editor-in-chief, welcomed me back. To both, and to all of my colleagues at the paper I love so much, thank you for granting me the privilege of working with you.