Stephen Harper’s Legacy

Harper joins the long list of Canadian politicians who stayed too long and pushed their luck too far

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks of Canada's sacrifice during the First World War during an event Aug. 4, 2014, at the National War Museum in Ottawa marking 100 years since Canada joined the war. Matthew Little/Epoch Times

When we left the country to go traveling at the end of September, I expected the Conservatives to win a slim minority and defer Parliament’s reconvening to early January, at which point the opposition would combine forces to bring the government down. Then, unable to command the confidence of the House, Stephen Harper would ask the governor general to dissolve Parliament, thus precipitating another election.

Technically, the governor general could decline such a request, but my guess was that he‘d accede. Consequently, we’d be back to the polls in February or March.

So much for my powers of prognostication!

In losing, Harper missed the chance of defying the historical odds by becoming the first prime minister to win four consecutive elections since Wilfred Laurier in 1911. Instead, he joins the list of those who stayed too long and pushed their luck too far.

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

— Enoch Powell, British politician