36 Replies to “How much do you miss Stephen Harper?”

  1. Hey that’s not fair. Turdeau doesn’t do thoughts. He is the dummy sitting on his ventriloquists knee.

  2. The Harper legacy will be subject of discussion for decades. His history in the Reform movement gave him a level of faith from Western Canada that might have been overstated. While IMHO Harper was the best PM in decades he failed on the political front in key tenants of the Reform platform. The 3 E’s were abandoned. Critical issues for national debate, like equalization, were abandoned. Canada does not treat the regions of the country fairly or equitably.

    As a previous riding association Board member I witnessed the degradation of our riding association as the Harper governments reasserted the ‘top down’ management that Mulroney was famous for. I resigned from the Board for that reason. Yes, the Party wanted to control the public message, but the CPC never developed an ability for the grassroots to stay involved. Fiscal responsibility was supposed to be a key Party plank. In the ten years of CPC government I never saw a Party program that taught financial literacy. What could have been more fundamental to the Party than teaching finance to members, especially young people making major life time decisions. What I saw was the usual platitudes and thusly a lack of commitment to philosophy.

    IMHO Canadians are facing a financial abyss and the CPC is not discussing this or preparing for it. What they are best at is sending me email asking for money. A one way conversation which I no longer participate in.

    1. I think the Reform agenda was necessarily compromised as it became necessary to deal with the rest of the country who were not enthusiastic about the Reform Party. Harper’s real strength was his intellectual grasp of issues and ideas. I had great trust in him and like you I believe he was the best Prime Minister for many years and for years to come. So sad that he was not valued in much of Eastern Canada (for a lot of phony reasons), and that (along with things like foreign money) lead to his downfall. I hope history is kind to him.

    3. Well said, hits almost all of my own points on why Harper disappointed me in his last two years in Office. Still proselytized and voted for him, but …………..
      I wonder if Harper’s stepping back onstage is due to his recognition of the failure of the CPC to elect a winnable candidate.

    4. I was very disappointed in Mr. Harper. I did think he was a conservative of my brand for awhile. he proved me wrong.

  3. One can hope that since Trudeau has annoyed southern Quebec enough with the influx of illegals to the point that he has to move them to Ontario, enough people in ON will get pissed off enough to make this a sufficient wedge issue in the next election. Pipelines won’t do it, nor does pandering to Quebec seem to have an effect. Real, immediate concerns about the “refugee” problem, coupled with a bunch of the tax bullstuff (and linked to the polls going against the ON gov’t for the carbon taxation) Morneau has been trying to pull off, might just be enough. One hopes.

    Additionally, the one question I have about Harper’s comment in the article about economic benefits to Canada taking precedence over family reunification is, “Why does one preclude the other?”

    Full disclosure: I benefitted from the family-reunification system grease in making my wife’s immigration here very painless and quick.

    1. “Why does one preclude the other?” That might not be the case in every instance, but when you are formulating general policy, you need to deal with issues in broad strokes. Most people don’t have a problem with family reunification for immediate family (I am ok even with disabled children), but when you include parents and grandparents, it gets out of hand. Older people in particular are a drain on the economy. I think additional family members should be allowed in on a case by case basis, rather than a blanket program.

      1. Your points aren’t unreasonable. It’s fairly easy to implement policies that are self-policing: for my PR sponsorship application (I think it might have changed since), I had to agree to a legal undertaking to fully support my wife for at least two years, and within that period, she would have no eligibility for social programs. If she applied for any, I would end up getting clawbacks via my wages. Her PR was also issued conditionally, but again, that condition was removed less than four months after her PR status was granted, thanks to the Trudeau changes to the program.

        I had no real problems with the conditional nature of her PR, b/c it’s a reasonable check on abuse. Same with the legal undertaking. And that’s all that really needs to be implemented/re-implemented, but perhaps with some additional restrictions outside of immediate family. As an example, something like a longer conditional state (five years?) or a pre-PR state of “conditional resident”, after which more hoops get jumped through. Bringing over people between 50 and 70? Limited access to social programs, and the possible creation of a co-pay system for healthcare. Over 70? I don’t even know. But make it less attractive to bring in freeloaders, and fewer will come.

  4. I certainly miss Harper even though he failed on so many issues that would have put this country back on a common sense path.

    Now we just have a total disaster in so many ways. Immigration is just one of the disasters, and based on the ‘post-national’ state that the puppet mentioned on the day of his election.

  5. My beefs with PM Harper were:
    He backed down on the infrastructure rescue demands of the opposition during the recession-lite. I believe he should have stuck to his plan and let Canada’s fiscal strength carry it through. Lots of pockets lined and little to show for it.
    He didn’t step back when his star started to tarnish, and let those coming up move to the forefront. A leadership contest about 18 months before the election would have brought fresh faces to the fore and kept the baggage that PM Harper had developed from being the main topic. A “stepping back” may have kept a few good candidates from leaving.

    Besides those two important topics, I do miss the man.

  6. Any return to Stephen Harper would just accelerate a process that is bound to start soon anyway, as more conservatives realize that the CPC is just a sham, yet another globalist party dedicated to the enforcement of all things politically correct, using a few populist platform inducements to buy votes and allow that agenda to proceed. The trend that we saw in the last election for some conservatives to choose an alternative vote or abstain will be growing as more realize that this party is just a front for the same agenda that they oppose when Liberals are in power.

    Harper had his chance to govern for his voters but instead he clearly chose to govern for powerful interests and to do as little as possible to answer the call that was made by the party rank and file. He might be a more skilled politician than Scheer but basically he is just Scheer with an economics degree. Of course he is somewhat better than the current office holder but then so are most people you meet on a daily basis. I suspect that the “bring back Harper” stories are being floated by globalist interests who look on with growing dismay at the inept performance of their current puppet and doubt that the other useful idiots can sell their agenda with more success. They are nervous about Trump’s successes despite a full court press of elitist opposition, so the best bet is to find somebody who they can market as “our Trump” and try to dupe Canadians into thinking the swamp will be drained by a swamp creature.

    Canadian conservatives are partly to blame for this mess, they never exerted enough pressure on the CPC to be a true voice and bought into the phoney arguments of the accommodationists (if we just go slow and do nothing to offend …) and what’s the success of that strategy? Zero, it led straight to Justin Trudeau as low information voters said we might as well go with a guy who is enthusiastic about Agenda 21 if we’re going to be governed that way. The reason we have so many low information voters is that the CPC refuses to step into its role as political reality educator in a country dominated by left-liberal globalist media and academics — a large percentage of the voters have been brainwashed into thinking all of the crazy aspects of globalism are “progressive” therefore good, but if the progress is towards the bottom of an abyss, why go there at any speed, Justin’s fast forward, or Harper’s steady as she goes.

    “The new captain has reduced the forward speed, now we’re just going to ease into that iceberg and not ram it hard.” Is that really what we want or need? A little extra time to hear the orchestra and find the lifeboats?

  7. Comparing the airhead with Harper is so one sided that it boggles the mind.

    Harper’s steady and weighty program made Canada well set for the future.
    Could never understand the hatred of Harper that you could read in comments to the articles about his policies. The comments had actually nothing to do with the article itself, it was as though they just had the need for hate.
    There was one central thing to this, the media could not handle, not being in the centre of attention where Harper would be economical with words so they could not spin it into a circus.

    The airhead basically insist on demolishing anything that is sensible. His plan is nothingness, avoid reality where ever it confronts him and spews demagoguery every time he opens his mouth to speak. It is as though there is a programmed reaction in otherwise completely empty brain.

  8. “How much do you miss Stephen Harper?”

    Less than I would have if he’d actually led with courage instead of going along to get along.

    The problem with the Harper government was that it believed in the process of governance as the solution to Canada’s problems. Canada’s largest and most intractable problem right now is government. We have too much.

    The main difference between Liberals and Conservatives is speed. They both do the same thing, the Liberals just do it much faster. I didn’t vote CPC because I was head-over-heels in love with their policies, I voted for them because they weren’t the Liberals.

    CPC needs to sit down and have a hard think about that. They won’t, but they need to.

  9. Liked him a lot, a tireless worker and visionary. His strong, top down message is required in a country where 90%+ of the media, academics and government organizations are liberals. This I think was his biggest downfall, on day one of his majority, pulling all funding to the CBC and using his 4 years to subsequently dismantle Canada’s state broadcaster.

  10. All of the comments here suggest that Canada has not existed as a country for years/decades. It has not worked in my lifetime which extends back to when the ‘Confederation train’ crossed the country 50 years back when I was in High School.
    Separation is the only way out for the West, with Alberta as the leader. When we leave, most assuredly other areas like Saskatchewan will follow. Let them sue to join. Manitoba? Who knows? (They do have a hockey team.) Some areas will have to break away from their present unworkable situations.
    To Hell with cutting off the oil to the lower mainland. Actions like that are only going to piss everyone off in the Communist Lower Mainland region, not just the Environutjobs.
    We, the producing part of the country, cannot continue to be ruled by a government located physically 2000 miles away and ideologically on the other side of the world.
    This is way bigger than one idiot at the helm. Harper did some good things but his hands were tied by the eastern elites which does include the media. Anyone remember the media guild in the last election?

    1. ” Anyone remember the media guild in the last election?” Yup… and the Media Guild along with UNIFOR, they also represent Media liberals went balls out to “Stop Harper”… and you know what? They’re going to do it again. Until a political party comes along that isn’t pissing their pants scared of the Media then nothing is going to change… if one can’t figure out who you’re running against then just give up… like President Trump said, “the media is the enemy of the American people”… he was right and in Trudopia that statement is even more apt… I’m afraid the Trudeau experiment called Trudopia, formally Canada, should end as quickly as possible.

  11. Sure. Mr. Harper may have moved too slowly or not at all on many issues dear to the hearts of true conservatives. For example, equalization is a complete one-sided unfair farce yet if PMSH or any prime minister for that matter had made it known that changes were needed, how do you think that would fly in Quebec or Ontario or the Maritimes where most of the votes are? I am resigned to the fact that any party promising to govern responsibly and in a somewhat conservative fashion, promising to downsize government, is doomed to be in opposition. This country is full of selfish, stupid, lazy and short-sighted people who cannot see past tomorrow. People who obsess over so-called first-world problems. People who are tantalized by and addicted to “free” stuff. People who rely on the government to make all their decisions and would be totally helpless without Big Brother and endless regulations. These people vote. How do you change this mindset or is it even possible?

    2. The trick,as the Liberals well know,is to “promise ’em anything,then do what you want once elected.”

      Harper had four years with a majority, he didn’t even expunge Bill C-68, which thousands of us petitioned him to do, failed to clip the wings of CBC because , as my CPC MP told me,” the CBC is sacred in Eastern Canada”, failed on High River, failed to put Sun-TV on the mandatory channel list or whatever they call it, and still managed to NOT curtail immigration from the Middle East.

      Yes, Harper was a better PM than Trudeau, but so was Chretien, Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau,John Turner,Kim Campbell, Pearson,Dief,Uncle Louis ,Our Mac, R.B. Bennett, ……………need I go on?

      I agree with Western Separation, it’s the only way for the West to survive. The current government 2000 miles away in Ottawa runs the West as well as the French Generals in Paris ran the Western Front in WW1

  12. Many of the comments above are ample evidence of the political cannibalism of the right and are at least a part of why we have a dilettante doofus leading our national government.

    Harper wasn’t conservative enough, he didn’t get us EEE – egad what a prescription for paralysis), he didn’t get rid of the CBC, he was a globalist and my favourite, he lacked courage.

    Which our leftist comrades gleefully added to their list of false narratives. All the public sees is some cool watermelon and a rich bow tie nerd. The milquetoast derivative is even worse and opens the door to even more state mind control from the regressive progressives.

    You are the Ross Perot’s Canadian politics. You tip the scale the other way, but can feel righteous at the current pillaging of our treasury with our PM taking his counsel from Butts heads like Al Gore.

    The left would never be that foolish; that’s why they win and the right only gets victory when the left has screwed the place up so bad they get the boot for other progressives, who are promptly booted just as they right the ship of state, with pillaging resuming, now in the guise of climate wars and gender pestilence.

    And.you.helped.them.do.it. Harper was the best PM of our era, there can be no doubt of that. His greatest sin is he wasn’t perfect, he didn’t completely unhinge the country from globalism & establishmentalism.

    Obviously the solution to the great national temper tantrum of 2015 was to bring in a nihilist nincompoop.

    Having said all that, how good does Harper look compared to Trudeau. Since Sheer is kind of a Harperite (meld conservatism and libertarianism), I hope the Grits keep up that comparison.

    In the process the voter might take a comparing glance at the other guy on the left. Imagine if you will, where we would be today if the Grits led the country instead of Harper during those turbulent years.

    My guess we would be getting the IMF for dough.

    1. Compare Harper to Trump. Tiny scalpel vs. chainsaw. See what I’m getting at?

      Hence my point on the courage thing. I’d miss Harper more if he’d at least risen to the level of machete. Nobody watches the CBC, cutting their budget to reflect that fact would have been appropriate. CPC knew all about the CSA scandal, they did nothing. Etc. etc. etc. and the army still doesn’t have any helicopters. Or boots.

      Chainsaw is what’s needed, Mr. Shamrock sir. What am I getting from the CPC in Mr. Scheer? Little tiny scalpel if I’m lucky.

    2. Thank you Shamrock. Conservatives seem to be their own worst enemy.
      Harper was certainly the best PM in my lifetime. It seems we get what we deserve after all the whining about his failure to get rid of CBC and criticizing his government as much as the opposition did.
      And Trump is a once-in-a lifetime phenomenon.
      He isn’t going to happen here.

  13. Some great points already made. Here is how I see it…

    It would be far easier for me to list what I saw as Harper’s successes rather than his disappointments. I thought he did a good job on foreign affairs… OK, I think that’s my list complete. As a matter of fact, I have long said that if Harper ultimately demonstrated the same unwavering concern and support for western Conservatives as he did for Israeli Jews, we may have made some headway in this country.

    By far, his most immense failing was his apparent inability to see the Canadian media as the dishonest, backstabbing, Liberal-hack enemies of the right that they are. He deserved every bit of the blow-back he ultimately received for pandering to CBC scum and appointing them to the senate. It was a counterproductive and ultimately suicidal act, born of his apparent ignorance that haters of Conservatives could simply be appeased with Liberal-style pandering.

    I believe he lost his last election because he offered no real vision for the future to counter the ‘pony-hype’, the entire party seemed ‘old and stale’ by that time. Cripes, all Justin really has to do now is reinstate the CWB, and it will be as if the Harper Prime Ministership never even happened.

    When Harper melded the Reform Party with the skeletal remains of the federal Conservatives, he sold our western souls to the eastern devils in turn for national support. We have been sliding backwards ever since.

    No, I don’t miss Harper at all.

    1. You are WRONG! Duffy disappeared immediately when Tinkerbell took power. He was totally dispensable to the Liberals, the media, and the LIVs.
      As I said above his hands were tied. he was led to believe that if he governed from the middle of the road, all would be well. But when you are battling the NDPs, the Liberals, the Democrats – yeah those Democrats as well as those 6000+ in the media guild, well this is the result.
      Separation is not ‘an option’ it is the only option.

  14. Walked past Andrew Scheer getting interviewed on Sparks St. just a couple hours ago. He was smiling… miss SH but I think you can’t keep a center-right leader in power too long as the lefty attack dawgs and their Negative Branding wears voters out.

  15. As a campaigner for the CPCs with John Carmichael we urged, as did John and other MPs for Harper to speak to the nation every 3 months to keep us informed what was happening with immigration, pipelines, muslims, multiculti and other topics but he would not do it. This would have gone a long way to compare Harper, steady growth vs Trudeau, enough said.

  16. Harper wasn’t perfect but he was much better than the buffoon we have now for prime minister. Many immigrants were brought into this country while he was in power, but not illegally. I miss his style, classiness and the way he handled himself on the international stage. He was articulate, informed, intelligent and knowledgeable about Canadian history and the division of powers between the feds and provinces. He hired the best based on competency not “gender or race”. I don’t think he would have put up with this KM nonsense because he wasn’t afraid to take a position on an issue. And he did a lot to help ordinary Canadians keep more of their money while at the same time being fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars. Yes, he should have done some things differently especially with the CBC but scrapping all of it would have been a mistake and I think there would have been a huge public outcry. I miss Harper; he and his wife were real people, not like the pretentious self serving Trudeaus who don’t care one iota about Canada only Quebec.

    1. I agree with that. To some extent Harper was ultimately defeated by pettiness. Remember all the faux scandals? Harper was constantly having to put out brush fires — Schreiber, Gurgus, Duffy, Bev Oda’s orange juice, Afghan detainees (what happened to that crisis? Much of this stuff was mischief making by Liberals who were furious about being out of power. It was pathetic and ultimately all of those small cuts lead to constant negativity (unwarranted in my view) and a disservice to the country which is now being systematically undermined by the Liberal party with their globalist friends and incompetent leader. Canada is so much worse off now than under Harper. I am not sure we will ever recover. I miss Harper and I miss Canada.

  17. Pretty difficult not to miss Harper, despite my disappointment that he didn’t axe, cut and slash . . . because Mr. Dressup is a smug, self-centered, narrow-shouldered, soft-handed, fairy who acts like a tough guy in a room full of women and pot-bellied men. In a blue-collar setting he’d get jap-slapped in a heartbeat till he cried like a little girl with mud on her new dress.
    On a side note, I think one of the requirements for PM and maybe for all MP’s should be military service.

  18. Do I miss having a competent PM instead of an empty-headed dilettante? Of course. But Harper, in the end, chopped the CWB, the long-gun registry, and the GST by two points. That’s all we got for 9 years in power and 4 with a solid majority. I think he genuinely believed that all he had to do was outlast what he believed to be the in-progress implosion of the Liberal party, and get to a place where CPC & NDP were the only two major parties left. Trudeau’s election as LPC leader was originally viewed as a hail-mary play, a desperation tactic from a dying party that was almost at the point where it had nothing left to lose. They were down to 34 seats, was it? So sit back, don’t rock the boat, let the LPC die, and the CPC becomes the ‘natural governing party.’ Deeply flawed strategy, obviously.

    He failed to understand that the unrelenting onslaught of the leftist media, certainly led by the likes of the CBC, was tearing away his credibility and his appeal to Canadians east of Manitoba, and that the NDP support was built on a house of quicksand, namely Quebec. The conditions were there for a sudden, if stupid, Liberal revival. “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” Bam. Perfect empty soundbite for a populace primed to hate Harper and look for a “positive” alternative. The election was over at that point.

    And now we’ve a milquetoast nothingburger as CPC leader, who can’t speak out about anything, can’t lead worth a damn, because he spent four years being the damned referee! You don’t promote the referee to team captain! Stupid, stupid move, and it will set the party back a decade. Not that the party cares. They’re probably happier in opposition. Get to say stuff to win votes but never actually have to do anything, much like congressional Republicans who vowed for years to repeal Obamacare but suddenly had a Republican president who’d sign the bill, and balked at actually having to do what they said, the lying crapweasels.

    Sigh, This country’s toast. Too many socialists, too many parasites, too many lazy and stupid. Harper’s final years in power fertilized the soil for Trudeau’s rise to power, which will prove to be Canada’s denouement, I think. There’s nowhere to go from here but down, down, down, and down we are certainly going.

  19. While I miss Stephen Harper at the helm and wish him all the best,I am hard pressed to see any difference between Liberal and Conservative parties, we have too much government, no politician is willing to tackle this ugly fact.
    Too many nonproductive members of society draining the coffers of the productive and getting in the way of creative , useful work.
    Our gift to the next generation is just that ugly,an enormous useless bureaucracy grinding the life out of any citizens so misguided as to want to work, this mass of useless eaters dines very well,on the public credit card,which our children’s children will have to make good.
    Debt is deferred taxation.
    Generational theft.
    So while Stephen meant well and was probably right in his assessment,that Canada would not survive drastic action,history will show Canada was already dead.
    Incrementalism takes you to the crash point just a touch slower than “self balancing budgets”.
    Under the CPC we were still going down.
    Harper derangement was just our progressive comrades way of refusing to recognize this.
    Productive Canada has nothing in common with Freeloading Canada, this is being hammered into businesses heads, Canada does not want you,respect you or know how much they need you.
    But the USA is waking up and sending out that old call…Come on down.

  20. I have to comment on Trudeau as he reminds me of Charley McCarthy when he goes on one of his ranting episodes. Sorry Charlie, and Mr Bergen, but Trudeau’s mouth reminds me of a mannequin’s mouth. And I can only guess that the ventriloquist is Gerald Butts.

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