53 Replies to “Stephen Harper – Reflections”

  1. can’t watch Ben do a commercial before watching the interview. good bad or indifferent he lost me.

    1. They do come across as tacky, you can almost feel some of his guests’ discomfort as they are forced to sit through his unabashed huckstering. Personally, they make me want to make a ‘stereotypical Jew’ comment, but I will resist. 😉

      However, unlike many other ad techniques on web videos, there is nothing keeping you from just advancing 30s or so past Ben’s annoying pitches.

        1. I have watched many of his interviews and believe you are wrong about that assertion, Jeff. I hope someone corrects me if I am the one who is mistaken, however.

          Agree with the cringe-worthiness, though.

    2. I don’t begrudge Shapiro those four or five advertising segments because that is part of his revenue stream. He is running an online business and uses old school promotional advertising to support his show. Frankly I prefer that to YouTube being the sole source of content monetization, since Facebook has had a history of non-monetization of conservative content. As a conservative he is always in danger of deplatforming by YouTube, so it’s smart to buffer himself as best he can.

      Just fast forward the minute he is doing the pitch, that’s what I do.

  2. It is worth watching . I can’t believe we voted out Stephen Harper for the idiot we have now.

    1. It’s worth watching for sure. It does show the sea difference in what we traded him off for through rank stupidity on the part of Canadian voters.

    2. Really? I can’t believe Canada didn’t pick Karla Homolka as PM. Seriously, have you seen nothing the last 100 years?

      1. r/K selection theory explains it all Kevin. Google it. Stefan Molyneux and Bill Whittle have excellent analyses on the subject and have done a video together which I highly recommend.

    3. Thank the constant media denigration of Harper and the Conservative policies and the constant media shilling for the Liberal empty headed Shiny Pony. The promise of a free lunch works on shallow voters.

      1. “The promise of a free lunch works on shallow voters.”

        True Ken. Followed by a toke or ten.

        As far as Harper goes, I will always remember him for what he could have accomplished, but did not, rather than for what he did achieve. So there is a lesson for all conservative politicians who wish to heed it: don’t listen to the little poli-sci grads in their elf suits whispering about things harming your chances for re-election – govern as if you’re going to get only one kick at the can. Your one and only duty is to give us sane, efficient, responsible government; re-election just doesn’t enter that picture.

        However, if you can give us that kind of government, re-election just might show up as a by-product!

        Listen up, Doug Ford!

    4. “We” didn’t vote Stephen Harper out, the other 39% did, and WE have to live with it.

      The CPC f***ed up the last election campaign, and lost. I hope they have learned a few lessons from that defeat and will run a more effective campaign this time.
      With their current charismatic leader, Andrew Scheer, they should win it in a landslide.

      This AM’s National Newswatch has an article which claims China has reached out to Trudeau to help China deal with Trump,thus making Trudeau appear the “statesman”.

      https://nationalpost.com/news/john-ivison-trudeau-has-a-chance-to-play-statesman-by-bringing-the-u-s-and-china-together-on-trade

      1. “””With their current charismatic leader, Andrew Scheer, they should win it in a landslide.”””

        There is your joke of the day folks.

        Weak Andy, the Charisma Machine.

  3. How is this for a reflection – you should drove a stake through the heart of the CBC when you had the chance.

    1. Agree completely Buzzard! Harper had the opportunity to do a lot of things but chose not to. Those things would have been hugely unpopular with the left and obviously he was hoping to win their support by increasing funding to the Ceeb. It turned out to be a political campaign contribution to the Lieberal party which ultimately defeated him.

      1. A lot of lost opportunity during the Harper years. I was on the Board of our CPC riding association before and after Harper formed government. Within 3 months it became clear that the CPC HQ wanted to muzzle conservative debate simply because they could not be trusted. The press jumped on every public statement by a conservative as an expression of Party policy.

        What truly upset me and led to my resignation was our elected CPC MP coming to our Board meetings with his “Ottawa Report’ and assuming that was good enough. No more active building of the constituency association, which necessitated, public debate. Just be ready to put up signage come next election. Harper gutted the grassroots. Our riding went from 1750 members to 400!

        My biggest beef with the conservative movement has been a total inability to communicate with the people. No intelligent defense of conservative thought or principals. Education, media and government personnel are dominated by progressives and they made no serious effort to change that. I compare the CPC to the Bush GOP brand. Very out of touch with what impacts ordinary Canadians. Trump has taught them nothing.

        1. And now we have Scheer as leader. Harper wasn’t exactly a Reagan, but Scheer is definitely akin to a Bush. Not only does Scheer have no desire to defend or communicate conservative thought or principals to Canadians, but the only time he’s seemed genuinely spirited to me is when he was attacking and putting down Bernier. Classic Liberal-wannabe move, attack the right while stay silent against the left.

          We’ll get four more years of a progressive federal government no matter how we vote next year.

          1. Scheer even aided the left with his whipping of the Conservative caucus into supporting the Paris Accord fraud.

        3. Ct,YES! Well done! We had the same situation here, a drop off from about 2000 CPC members to about 400,and the depressing part of it all is the local EDA acts like no one else but them has valid ideas.

          Too many are on the EDA for the supposed “prestige” of it all, the well-heeled schmoozers club who are in it for the same reasons they join the expensive golf clubs.

          The CPC doesn’t seem to realize how disenchanted their base has become after the last two years of Harper’s government. They expect us to come enthusiastically on board again without realizing how they let so many of us down last time. Conservatives aren’t blindly loyal as are Liberals, but the top CPC brass delude themselves otherwise.
          At this point, I see no reason to believe Andrew Scheer and the CPC will do much better than they did last time, with maybe 100 seats, but CPC members claim it’s MY fault for not being enthusiastic enough, so Harper lost. Strange logic, because I voted for Harper’s candidate and spoke well of him to everyone I ever talked to, so I seriously doubt my lack of jumping up and down and hooting out false cheers at Party meetings was the reason they lost.

          It’s like the hockey club blaming their loss on the fans because they didn’t cheer on the team with enough enthusiasm.

        4. entirely consistent with my loooong assertion harper was a control freak and a bully.
          that type simply do NOT listen to anything remotely related to grass roots except to plan the smack down.

          https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/08/10/Harper-Abuses-of-Power-Final/
          feel free to dispute any of the above links, you CANNOT dispute all of them.
          pure unfettered bullying.
          and shove your rationalization and reflex support of the CONservatist.
          personally, if he hadn’t scotched home delivery I might have cast my vote differently, but with that ‘final straw’ I opted to seize the opportunity to see something that should have been done 40 years ago. aka legalize pot.
          now back to voting out the TURDoo seeing as he accomplished what I wanted.

          1. I have to call a terminological inexactitude here.

            Elsewhere here you have mentioned your impressive IQ.

            Yet you voted for The Jejeune?

            Back away from the bong Buddy.

    2. The BIGGEST missed Chance this country has ever taken/seen….Avro Arrow nothwithstanding.

      That Taxpayer funded, Pro Islam – Anti Christian Propaganda machine should not just be defunded, it should be dismantled into a “million” little pieces, its producers and journalists sent to Venezuela on One way tickets & Denied Re-entry into Canada. Not one of those socialist bastards deserves a life in this country.

      1. Ken – last November my son and I went to listen to him speak on international trade . My son said ” Why didn’t he speak like that before the election?”. It was the way he has always spoken.The media carefully frames and constructs the portrait. And yes they will do the same with Andy who I believe was chosen to be less threatening. It will not work. It is a similar construct in Canada with Trump . The problem is the Conservatives don’t believe the press is their enemy and the vast majority of Joe public believe the press. Trump’s success comes from his ability to persuade a large portion of people the press is fake, which is fact true.

        1. Exactly. The media has been taken over almost totally by the descendants of the Frankfurt School.

  4. I’m sure if Stephen Harper never aspired to politics, I would probably think he was a great guy.

    But, he did and so I don’t.

    He absolutely wasted a Conservative majority that millions of desperate Western Canadians put their hearts, souls and dreams into achieving. He suck-holed the enemy media instead of challenging their hardcore anti-Conservative narrative. And, at the end of his one majority, he and his party seemed both uninspired and visionless, making a Shiny Pony victory almost an inevitability.

    Anyways, how these two could possibly hold a serious interview about conservatism, populism and globalism in the modern age without highlighting the deep state, the ideological climates of universities, the fact the media is at war against conservatism or the censorship of conservatives by big tech, etc, etc, is bewildering to me.

    But then, it is important to remember that Harper is not on these shows passionately selling conservatism to the masses(something he never did do well), he just wants to sell them his book.

    2. C.O., I agree. During the last years of the Harper regime, I became alienated from his leadership, mostly given his poor communications strategy. He never held news conferences, given his fear of the hostile Mecia cartrel. But he never spoke to friendly media outlets – and since he rarely spoke to the public, his supporters, like me, felt demoralized given the cartel’s one-sided reporting. I ended up quitting the party.

  5. I was a huge Harper fan and supported his incremental strategy for years, but it’s clear now that his majority was completely squandered.
    No fundamental change, just Chamber of Commerce-style cuckservatism.
    Harper seemed almost joyful when delivering his concession speech. Years of constant “Stop Harper” attacks we’re now over and he could exit stage right with his massive pension while the rest of us are stuck with Justin and his social justice warrioring gong show.
    Harper is now trying to rebrand as some kind of authority on populism for an American audience. His book reads like a cuckservative cover letter for potential corporate clients in search of Harper & Associates expertise.
    This country’s political landscape blows.

  6. “My biggest beef with the conservative movement has been a total inability to communicate with the people”
    During the years Harper formed government the PM was featured on TV exactly once per year for his annual chat with the media in December. The media was able to keep the PM out of sight to the average voter; forget about allowing anyone to actually hear any words he may have had to impart.
    I’m being serious here, before the era of social media exactly how would that communication have taken place?

    1. What Harper should have done was supported SUN TV more than they did. Should have given them exclusive interviews in the way of quarterly ‘fireside chats’. Quarterly reviews if you will. I understand that Canadian media froze
      him out. Canada has a well established talk radio, he didn’t use it near enough.

      Conservative thought has to be communicated at the riding level. In my time with the riding Board there was never any direction from HQ on how to develop a consistent messaging process. In Reform days we had Town Hall meetings or simple coffee groups. Evolve that process by adding a consistent agenda with a philosophical thread. The HQ never evaluated local riding Boards to determine if they were actually achieving anything. Effective Board members could have formed the basis for local government and eventually federal roles. Basic stuff IMHO. The Dippers have people on school boards, municipal, provincial and federal positions. Bring that up with federal CPC and they step back and say we cannot cross provincial lines. This is such insulting BS.

  7. Harper should have severely defunded CBC (especially TV), and once he didn’t get the Senate reforms that he tried for, should have appointed some decent Senators, instead of leaving vacancies for the Sock Puppet and his handlers to fill. Maybe he had his reasons, but to me those 2 inactions are unforgivable.

  8. The comments section following on YouTube is almost as interesting as the interview.

    Lot of confessions from regretful Trudeau voters.

    Brilliant man! Absolutely brilliant!

  9. Agree with the above. But don’t forget Obama sent his team to “consult” with Trudeau.

    That gave him the keys to the entire social network.

    Via obama Trudeau used the same targeting techniques that pushed obama over the top.

    Guarantee that was a 5 point swing.

  10. The last two weeks of the election campaign, the veterans groups started their anti Harper campaign to argue for better veterans benefits. It was devastating to the campaign.
    What have they gained. They screwed themselves, the branches still closed, and damaged the country severely.

    1. And boy did PM Shiny Pony and his cabal of grade nine students give the vets the finger.

    2. Any veteran who voted for Trudeau is either a woman, gay or a fucking gay woman supply clerk.
      Spoil your vote or write in a name but you never ever vote liberal. Ever.

    4. The vets, shockingly, learned NOTHING from history, one would think that military members, past and present, would have a huge appreciation of history, especially of political parties.
      Liberals HATE the military, as much as the commie ENDP nuts.
      Sorry, I’ve go no sympathy here, they ufcked themselves voting against the CPC, who values the military more than any other party in Canada. And that is not a fact that is hard to understand, EVER!

  11. He should have killed CBC. He should have never approved one of the media takeovers by Bell until CTV adopted a balanced political tone. He should have appointed real conservatives as Senators as the openings came up. He should have appointed real conservatives to the Supreme Court – if he didn’t know any, he could have asked my opinion. He might gave gotten re-elected.

  12. Harper: Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Didn’t. Boo friggin hoo. He brought is through wars, economic and credit crises.

    Because Harper failed we got Trudeau. Nice logic there.

    This is what progressives get to do with us every time, we are divided, they conquer.

    Maybe Harper ran out of steam, but he had plenty of company there.

    Maybe he got sick of the relentless attacks of the media and the disloyal eat their own that is Canadian conservatism.

    Maybe he should have “disbanded” the CBC or whatever. That would have won him another term? I think not.

    Maybe he should have gone on barnstorming political rallies and bypassed the mediocracy with a twitter storm.

    What the heck, we know that would have “worked.” Let’s blame that on him. Thank God we stuck to our principles.

    That enabled a little sliver of a market correction, open dishonesty about federal finances and “Duffy;” which the mediocracy ripped open, disdaining questions to Liberals about their dinner napkins plans of repackaged same old same old, plus $30b worth of “we’re back” deficits to get that debt snowball rolling downhill again.

    But no mistake WE let them do it. We went to ground, we took cover and hid behind our fantasy that a more conservative Harper would have prevailed. A more aggressive one, yes, that was what was required.

    As we enter final serfdom at the hands of a King Justin reign of error, we can all comfort ourselves that we stuck to our first principles, that we were better than that, even if they weren’t; and hopefully keep warm as we pay for Chinese pollution.

    1. Ain’t Monday morning quarterbacking grand?
      I’d like to see the ones braying Harper should’ve done this or that walk not a mile but a few steps in that great man’s shoes.

      1. Harper’s biggest worry was law and order issues all of which were overturned by the Marxist judges he appointed.

      2. Great man? We’re talking about Stephen Harper, not Winston Churchill.
        Harper was a competent Leader of Canada in a relatively peaceful time. Was he better than Trudeau? We certainly think so, BUT in the end Harper got his ass kicked by the LPC and Trudeau.
        As to “walking a mile”, Harper should walk a mile in the shoes of the people he let down with his last two years of timidity, people who, unlike him, are NOT immune to the consequences, people like the citizens of High River, for instance. Harper chose politics early in his life, don’t expect us to genuflect before his image. He won, he lost.

        Political Parties are no different than a sports team, they have to assemble a winning team and a game plan to win the Cup or the next federal election, and they have to convince the masses to buy tickets to their event or Party. When a team fails to do that, we “monday morning q/b’s” have every right to conduct an autopsy on the game/election, and in 2015,Harper and Team CPC came up short, period.

        Yeah,yeah,the media was ag’in us, the refereeing was biased, the field was sloped, the weather was bad, the cheerleaders were dull, etc.,etc. The ugly fact is Team Harper and the CPC failed in 2015, and that is no one’s fault but their own. We MMQ/B’s are NOT highly paid political experts hired by each Party to construct a strategy, we are merely observers who have little power,if any.
        The LPC has lined up Gerald Butts, Kate Purchase, Anna Gainey,and Kate Telford on their team,I hope to hell the CPC can hire people as competent,and win the next election. Btw,the LPC is already starting a door knocking campaign and are asking for volunteers, haven’t heard a word about this from the local CPC EDA yet.

        Sometimes Conservatives remind me of the hippies at Woodstock,and their laughably famous announcement,”if we all chant hard enough, maybe we can stop this rain”……….”no rain,no rain no rain”.

        To the CPC: field a team that can win, and don’t bitch to me, one of the mere peasants, if your team lost. I did my part, I bought a ticket, put up a sign, spoke enthusiastically to everyone I met, and VOTED for you! I am not Paul Desmarais! YOU lost the f***ing contest, now accept that YOU were responsible.

        1. Winston Churchill lost, twice, to the forces he and Harper had to contend with. Different times but both challenging.

          Mr Churchill was a great man, but it took total war to get him in while appeasement and peacetime took him out.

          Mr Harper would have been up to that task and brought us through real crises rather than those manufactured by power as an end Grits. Churchill’s stature is unquestioned.

          Harper was still the finest Canadian PM in my memory, going back to Diefenbaker, the next best along with the best PM we most desperately needed but never got – Robert Stanfield.

  13. as long as all journnalists [Craig Oliver (hoot-owl), Rolly-Polly from PEI] are frozen out of the senate, i can sleep at night.

  14. About half-way through, no it was past the half-way mark, there was a shift…something changed. I could see it, feel it, sense it and maybe it was only in Ontario so others didn’t pick up on it. Everything began to go downhill, and it wasn’t until after the election that we heard one of Soros’ groups came up from the US and interfered as only George can.
    Like Trump, Harper had all the media against him, every pundit, and all the comedians. And, some of his own members and cabinet ministers.
    Trudeau had the media, pundits, the comedians, plus his looks and hair, and let’s not forget the brilliant CPC slogan Not Ready Yet.

  15. I still think Harper is being shortchanged.
    Just finished reading his book “Right Here Right Now”
    BTW- Due to this stupid postal strike, I received an extra copy of it along with “Ship Of Fools” by Tucker Carlson.
    Anyone who wants them gratis plus shipping, let me know.
    richang@mnsi.net

  16. A superb interview, this is Harper’s best to date.

    A clear, articulate erudition, balanced with valuing the *data(facts). Then combing that with the obligation of government to serve the citizen, an acknowledge it is the government that serves with the consent of the government, not the other way around. *(economics both an art and a science)

    A few interviews like this during his last term of office into 2015, and he would have won another term.
    His meme: the archetype of the wise father.

    He carries the senior statesman role well. He’ll be a sought out adviser for a decade or more. His calm demeanor is something the U.S. political scene needs, at present.

    Ben Shapiro was a little nervous and a little intimidated, much like he was interviewing Prof. Jordan Peterson.

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