Canada’s Existential Question: Harper's Legacy and Future

This is part of a two-part series on the 2015 Canadian elections. To view the other article by Sarah Wu, click here. 
When the Stephen Harper was elected prime minister in 2006, he defeated a distrusted Liberal Party administration beleaguered by scandal. He promised, above all, that the “time for accountability has arrived.” Today, it seems the tables have turned.
In just a couple days, Canadians will head to the polls to decide Harper’s bid for reelection after almost a decade in office. Despite a strong showing earlier in the election period, his base of support is wavering, and the opposing Liberal Party leads in some polls by several points. This may be reflective of an increasingly negative view of the Harper years and of how they have changed Canada. As Canadians contemplate their vote over the next two days, they will critically assess Harper’s legacy. And while opinions are diverse, as in any election, many critics believe that Harper has fundamentally worsened the state of Canadian politics during his tenure, and that his legacy is a bad one. The time for accountability has indeed arrived.
Harper’s Legacy
Kaleem Hawa, the president of the University of Toronto Liberals, is one of many critical voices in this election. In an interview with the HPR, he argued, “I think what has transpired under Stephen Harper’s tenure as prime minister of Canada is quite unlike anything the nation has seen before. … It’s not a surprise so many Canadians are anxious to see anyone but our current prime minister returned to 24 Sussex [Drive, the prime minister’s official residence].”
Hawa is emblematic of the critical attitude many Canadians take toward Harper. The prime minister is widely perceived to have centralized power at the expense of Parliament, often bypassing the legislature to push his agenda. He has exercised an iron grip on the flow of information from the government to the people. His reforms to intelligence gathering have pushed the boundaries of constitutionality in government action. And finally, changes to citizenship have undermined what it means to hold a Canadian passport.
In an interview with the HPR, the Liberal Party candidate for Toronto Centre district, Bill Morneau, expressed discontent over Harper’s record. “He has clearly changed the balance of power,” he explained. “He has significantly strengthened the role of the Prime Minister’s Office at the expense of parliamentarians. … [t]he consolidation of power can be very dangerous.”
Budget matters have been among the most controversial examples of the prime minister’s newfound power. Each year, the Canadian parliament votes to approve a budget outlining its revenues and expenditures; should the budget fail, an election is automatically triggered. Nonetheless, billions of dollars of mandated funding has gone unspent. According to the Ministry of Finance, $20 billion of mandated funding between the 2012 and 2014 fiscal years returned to government coffers, despite being required by Parliament. The Liberal contender in the race for prime minister, Justin Trudeau, described these consistent lapses as a method to boost Harper’s political support, saying in September that he needed “to balance the books in time for his election.” If the Harper government has been able to perform these cuts, it would suggest significantly more control over the governmental budget than many parliamentarians would intend.
Certainly, it is clear that a balanced budget has been an essential item for Harper. The Conservative Party’s base of support relies on their perceived commitment to fiscal responsibility and economic prosperity. And Harper has certainly highlighted these areas during his tenure: over the past several years, Canada has benefited from a booming oil sector and a more efficient budget. However, recent declines in commodity prices have left the Conservatives with an embarrassing economic mess. Canada’s economy has been pushed into a recession, and the budget has slipped into deficit despite Harper’s best efforts.
In fairness to Harper, these problems involve factors arguably outside of his control. But instead of acknowledging these unfortunate circumstances, his office has attempted to sweep them under the rug. When third-party predictions of a recession began in July prior to the release of official economic figures, the Harper cabinet finance minister, Joe Oliver, assuaged concerns by falsely denying the possibility. As Andrew Jackson of the Broadbent Institute wrote in the Toronto Star, it was as though they wished to “ignore recession out of existence.” And despite a clear verdict from the nonpartisan Parliamentary Budget Office that the government would be more than $1 billion in the red, Harper has maintained at political events that he brought Canada to a fiscal surplus.
All Quiet in Ottawa
Perhaps the most striking example of Harper’s controlling style is the recent imposition of restrictions on public servants’ freedom of expression. The prime minister has taken unprecedented steps prior to the election to limit the ability of public employees to participate in political discourse.
To gain further insight into the exact nature of these gag orders, the HPR reached out to a civil servant in a senior position working in Ottawa. Speaking on condition of anonymity, she described the incumbent administration as a “controlling political regime [that has] used financial cutbacks to departments to reduce their ability to do important work that is perhaps not supportive enough of the Harper government’s agenda.” Additionally, she claimed threats had been made to remove employee benefits as a method of quieting bureaucrats. “One of the biggest incentives for workers to join the civil service has been the regularity of the work, the opportunity to serve Canadians, and the excellent benefits in terms of sick leave and maternity leave. Threatening the safety net for civil servants is quite the heavy-handed intimidation tactic. Scared workers tend to keep quiet.”
Beyond the general perception of a “controlling political regime,” many of Harper’s signature policies have come under fire. In January 2015, files provided by Edward Snowden to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) exposed widespread surveillance of Canadian citizens’ online activity that was similar in nature to that conducted by the National Security Agency in the United States. This came as a shock to many Canadians, who have been more resistant to anti-terrorism legislation that takes away civil liberties in the name of safety.
To legitimize the programs, Harper’s Conservative members of Parliament crafted Bill C-51, the “Anti-Terrorism Act.” Despite hundreds of Canadian law professors and businessmen participating in an open letter against the Act, as well as widespread protests across the country, the bill came into law this past June.
Alongside C-51 were Bills C-50 and C-24: the “Citizen Voting Act” and “Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act,” respectively. The Citizen Voting Act has been criticized for making the ballot-box less accessible; mainly, it has received vehement backlash because it limits expatriate voting. Bill C-24 allows the Canadian government to strip the citizenship of an individual found to be participating in terrorist activities. It is still a matter of question if these measures are constitutional, and they are yet to be decided in court. The leading liberal candidate for prime minister, Justin Trudeau, described the measure as “very, very scary,” adding that “as soon as you make citizenship for some Canadians conditional on good behavior, you devalue citizenship for everyone.”
Canada is a nation that takes immeasurable pride in its openness and inclusivity. Harper’s support in the election is deteriorating because it appears to Canadians he has dismantled these values. As Jean Chrétien, a former Canadian prime minister, recently said, “He has shamed Canada in the eyes of Canadians and of the international community.” The truth is that, despite his deteriorating support in this election, there is no easy choice in this election. The two individuals most likely to displace Harper from his position, while they may reverse some of Harper’s changes, come packaged with problems of their own. Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party is a political novice seen by many as inexperienced. The other, Tom Mulcair, leads the leftist New Democrat Party (NDP), which many perceive is likely to exacerbate Canada’s fiscal challenges. To many, it seems there is no good candidate in this election.
Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons, U.S. State Department