The longer he's not Prime Minister
Stephen Harper attends the unveiling of his portrait, and speaks to history
Posterity calms. That’s almost what it’s for. I don’t suppose it’s possible to conjure, to anyone who wasn’t there, the feeling of shock that Liberals generated when they began to realize Stephen Harper might be the instrument of their undoing. Or their mounting frustration when, election after election, he was still there.
In those days a common shorthand for Harper was that he was always angry. One day I watched Question Period with the sound off, never a bad idea. What I noticed was that Stéphane Dion, who was then the Liberal Opposition Leader, would get up, looking furious, and sputter a question. Harper would rise, button his suit jacket, say something bland, sit back down, and Dion would get up looking even angrier. It taught me almost the only lesson that’s done me any good, the one I try to keep learning, which is to put some stock in the evidence of my eyes.
It’s now just over 20 years after the election that brought Harper’s Conservatives — just barely — to power. It’s a little more than 10 years after the election that ushered them out. Tuesday was the day for the unveiling of Harper’s official portrait. These are always important days, a chance for the former PM’s team to convene and remind themselves of what they did.
Images of all the portraits before Harper’s are here. Like everyone else, I’ve always liked the introspective Pearson, by Hugh Seaforth Mackenzie, and the mighty granitic Diefenbaker, by Cleeve Horne, who incidentally is my favourite all-division Canadian portrait artist. Portraits of the other PMs have their charms. Abbott and Bowell didn’t last long enough in the job, or after, to have their portraits painted in life; one day in 2002, newly-painted portraits of the two men appeared in the Centre Block. Muli Tang’s John Abbott is one of my favourites, just as a painting.
At least by the reckoning of Harper government veterans, this is Harper week in Ottawa. There’ll be a dinner on Wednesday to celebrate, approximately, the 20th anniversary of the Jan. 23, 2006 election. There are events all week, at the Royal Canadian Geographic Society on Monday, at the Library and Archives later in the week.
I don’t think Harper particularly needs to be celebrated to satisfy his ego. His ego is sturdy but not terribly needy. He knows what he did, and he knows that he knows it better than we do. But I think he’s content to have his portrait up beside the rest, for almost the same reason he flatly refused to consider moving out of 24 Sussex Drive to allow renovations while he was in office: because somebody like him should be in the house and somebody like him should be in a portrait. Because part of his political project was to make it feel more normal for Canada to be governed by different sorts of people with different sorts of backgrounds and ideas. By which I mean, of course, not always by Liberals. My second book about him, the longer one, was largely about this mission. He wanted to win for many reasons, including this: because winners write history. Now here he was. History.
The surviving members of his cabinet were there, from Christian Paradis to Leona Aglukkaq to the indestructible Joe Oliver to Steven Fletcher to the one Harper called “my leader” in his remarks, Pierre Poilievre. Staffers I hadn’t thought of in 10 years and others who’ve become good friends. All of Harper’s many chiefs of staff, except Nigel Wright, who died only four months ago. Several current Liberal cabinet ministers and MPs too. Some Senators. Doug Ford, who with his brother the doomed mayor of Toronto spent much of the last week of Harper’s last campaign on the trail next to Harper, trying to save his job.
You move to Ottawa and you pour your life into the fight for a day’s advantage, and you do it again tomorrow, and again, until the town wears you out or the voters make you stop. At the end of John Adams’s opera Nixon in China, Chou En-Lai sings: “How much of what we did was good?”
Mark Carney was on hand to say: Quite a bit of it. “In a political climate increasingly buffeted by noise, he brought composure, intellect, and decisiveness to public life.” In the 2008 banking crisis, “his government’s actions were decisive, our institutions remained trusted, and Canada stood strong.” He recognized Quebec as a nation within a united Canada and “spoke directly to Western Canada’s sense of contribution and responsibility, not as a region to be managed, but as a core pillar of the national project.” He stood up Op UNIFIER to train Ukrainians to defend themselves and was “a prescient champion of Canada’s Arctic.”
There was good-natured joshing both ways about Carney’s titanic budget deficit, which Harper would clearly be pleased to amplify on most other days, but otherwise politics took a holiday.
Harper thanked the artist, Phil Richards; his cabinet whom he praised to the heavens; his wife Laureen; and the thousands of Canadians who welcomed him into their communities while he was prime minister.
“In closing I want to say this,” he said.
“I sincerely hope that mine is just one of many portraits of prime ministers from both parties that will continue to be hung here for decades and centuries to come. But that will require that in these perilous times both parties, whatever their other differences, come together against external forces that threaten our independence and against domestic policies that threaten our unity. We must preserve Canada, this country handed down to us by Providence, preserved by our ancestors and held in trust for our descendants. We must make any sacrifice necessary to preserve the unity and the independence of this blessed land.”
Of course portrait day offers a particular version of history, not more definitive or accurate than the tumults it leaves behind. But hindsight is useful, as is a certain calming distance. It’s good to be reminded that most people who give their lives to politics have good hearts. This might be one of the biggest secrets about what goes on here. Perhaps it shouldn’t be.
A personal note. In 2012, settling down to write a book about Harper, I wondered what basic stance I should take toward my subject. There were already books out about him that were nearly hysterical. I saw no point writing another. I decided to try to write about Harper what some future historian might write. To write as though the debates about Harper were over, and no frantic excess on my part could affect their outcome either way. This would give me room to criticize some of his action but to admire other things. The question I kept in my head was, “What would somebody say in 20 years?”
Now the far future I tried then to imagine has begun. Time does its work, and its work is not always terrible but sometimes soothing.
One thing that emerged today was how relaxed Harper was and how much his sense of humour showed through. I knew people who worked with Harper and to a man (and woman), they all commented on his humour (especially his mimicry - apparently his Arnold Schwarzenegger is excellent). I always thought he would have been much more successful if he had allowed that side of his character to emerge more often.
Ideologically, I think Harper is probably closer to Carney than Poilievre (despite his public protestations to the contrary, such as in last year's election). But where Carney has a significant advantage is his dry sense of humour, which is one of his most endearing political qualities. I think it's something that should never be underestimated as good political quality.
“It’s good to be reminded that most people who give their lives to politics have good hearts. This might be one of the biggest secrets about what goes on here. Perhaps it shouldn’t be.” I am glad you concluded with this Paul. Needs to be said more often.