Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

What was Stephen Harper thinking in 1997?

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, February 24, 2011 2:44pm - 153 Comments

Near the end of his TVO interview in 1997, Stephen Harper was asked who he thought would win the next election. You can advance to the ten-minute mark to see for yourself, but here is a transcript of his answer.

Well, it would really surprise me at the moment if the Liberals didn’t get the most seats. I mean, judging from all the, not just the polling data, but the fact they have such a wide coalition. The way the Liberals, I think, are eventually going to lose office, whether it’s in this election or the next one, is they’re going to fail to win a majority. They’ve basically lost Quebec and without Quebec the Liberal party has never been a majority party in this country. And that’s where I think you’re going to face, someday, a minority parliament, with the Liberals maybe having the largest number of seats, and what will be the test is whether there’s then any party in opposition that’s able to form a coalition or working alliance with the others. And I think we have a political system that’s going to continue to have three or four different parties, or five different parties, and so I think parties that want to form government are going to eventually have to learn to work together.

See previously: The guardian of our democracy, How late is too late? and What was Stephen Harper thinking in 2004?

Tags: coalition, coalition government, democracy, election, house of commons, Ottawa, Parliament, Stephen Harper

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Skido

Harper thinking………..find a group of people………..get them to give me a lot of their money………..make me their leader and I'll smash the Liberals! Ya……that's it. I'll smash the Liberals and I'll be the King, I'll make the rules, I'll break the rules even if their my rules….I'm all powerful. Of ya, and Canada can help me with that too.
hollinm

Do you guys really know what you are doing? We have chaos around the world. We have our major trading partner south of the border virtually in rebellion when opposition parties flee the state and hide out in hotels so they don't have to do their jobs. In Canada we talk about what an MP at the time said about some form of coalition. If that doesn't work then we have the Bev Oda issue where she may have lied and had a not inserted in a document. If this is all the media and the opposition parties can talk about we are in mighty fine shape. No wonder the polls support the government. Some of you people including Wherry need to give your heads a shake.

stephen

"Do you guys really know what you are doing? We have chaos around the world."

you think our response to the protests around the world for democracy is to end ours?

hollinm

How is our democracy threatened? Beacause the opposition parties and the left wing media say so. I still have all my rights and freedoms. I still get up in the morning hug my family, go out into the crisp cool air, have enough money to pay my bills etc. etc.
Problem is you people don't have enough to whine about so you try inventing stuff.
This blog is about what Harper said in 1997, People on this board are tying to pychoanalyze what Harper meant or did not mean. Its stupid.
If the government did what you profess you want done and told everything absolutely everything what would you do with all that information. I would suggest you would shrug and move on. If the jets cost $15 or 20 billion what would you do with that information as a citizen. Nothing. However, the media and the opposition and we partisans on this board would spin it negatively for all it is worth. Thus creating even more cynicism among the population who know it is only a game.
Democracy my a$$. Its pure talking points and you know it.

Claudia Lemire

Agree 100% with that!
Claudia Lemire

To me that's the beauty of this interview, that's why running his campaign with a majority government or a coalition will work fine, because at some point Ignatieff and Layton have to admit that they could form a coalition, it will be stupid not to, Ignatieff would be a terrible leader if the oportunity presented itself and he didn't take it, so as long as it is possible, it works and Harper once again is right.

This video is a good thing, just proved Harper's point.

Keith in Brampton

It also points out what a lying hypocrite he is…

PeteTong

You know we can debate how he Stephen Harper really feels about coalitions to the cows come home. But there's something that I think we can actually determine if we get the right sources. Does Stephen Harper wear a toupee? And if not why does his hair look so unlike any other hair that I have ever seen both then and in the present.

hollinm

Now there is a real discussion we could have. Some of the commenters would analyze it to death and of course then come to the conclusion that Stephen Harper for not telling us he wears a wig he should be drawn and quartered on Parliament Hill for all the world to see.

LinkHogbrow

Well here is what our prime monister was thinking in 1994. And nothing he does indicates he is wavering in the slightest.

“Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion … And whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or ten governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be.”

~ Stephen Harper

(Speech to the Colin Brown Memorial Dinner, National Citizens Coalition, 1994)

Keith in Brampton

He seems to be confusing "less" and "worse" these days. He promised the former but has not delivered; but he's come through in spades on the latter.

Judge Roy Bean

The left propoganda machien hard a wurk, again. C'mon FoxNewsNorth…
bepele

The only legitimate government is one comprised of the majority of members of Parliament representing the majority of voters in their districts.
Which parties or group of parties they affiliate with is totally immaterial.
Anything else is undemocratic.

A
Atchison

That quote is out of context. He is obviously speaking about the movement to unite the right, which he did and the successfully formed a government which has lasted 5+ years.

FVerhoeven

quotations out of context? But that doesn't matter to Wherry. It's all about distorting the truth. There's no longer a debate possible on macleans blog central. It's all become so empty.
Keith in Brampton

As pointed out elsewhere in this thread by others:
1) Harper was part of the Reform Party, which SPLIT the right;
2) in 1997, the right-of-centre parties taking power with a coalition would have required the support of the Bloc.

So no, it's not obvious. And besides, he was clearly talking about a coalition, not a merger. A coalition is a coalition is a coalition…

JamesHalifax

MikeT wrote:
“Actually, Dion – the author of the Clarity Act – got two years of unconditional support from the Bloc. That’s more quiet support than anyone since the Bloc was created.”

ACtually, Mike….the CLARITY ACT has its origins from a REFORM MP prior to the 1995 Referendum that the Liberals almost lost on us.

Chretien was presented with a list of questions and requirements about quebec seperation by a young Reform MP, and he turned it down. After almost losing the referendum, Chretien took this REFROM MP”s work, gave it to Dion, and told him to make it sound Liberal. The result, is the Clarity ACt.

Who was the Reform MP who origianlly wrote what was to become the Clarity Act, Mike?

I’ll give you a hint………he’s currently our Prime Minister.

OH…and by the way, he’s also the same Reform MP who wrote the economic policy for the reform party on how to slay the deficit………which was promptly once again “borrowed” by Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

Just so you know….

peter

James, you gotta stop confusing the deluded with facts. especially the local ring master. !4 yearsago he was probably an undergrad or high school senior. Obviously the twitter/facebook generation have pumped themselves up in their own echo chamber and been talking theory and black and white problems/solutions. Meanwhile the adults have been governing and actually engaging with multiple real threats to our national future and the 164 shades of grey each challenge presents. I think it is telling that the only areas of Canada that support the Liberals are the big cities. Almost without exception, where primary manufacturing, or resource extraction (you know those old-school industries that generate foreign exchange and genuinely add to the national treasury as a net benefit, as opposed to the parasitic class living off the fat of the productive) dominate, so does the CPC. In other words people who generate wealth for a living like the CPC, or at the very least, fear the alternative. People who consume the wealth of the productive like swarms of mosquitos in Northern Ontario are trying to get back on the gravey train.

oppoguy

Oh come on! 1997 was the height of Stephen Harper's halcyon days. You know, before he started spending his nights alone in his office with only stacks of job creating and international-strife-keeping-at-bay correspondence and a camera crew to keep him company.

No one can be held to the things they said in their youth (or letters to the Governor General they co-signed with the separatists and the solicalists on September 9th 2004). Honestly!
NOT my Canada

KING Harper is the BIGGEST LIAR.

This is the guy who became KING (or DICTATOR) in Dec 2008 when he RAN AWAY TO HIDE from a scheduled non confidence vote that the Opposition had ALREADY publicly announced they would defeat the PM on (to try to run the Government with a coalition) by using MOB RULE (organizing rallies right across Canada claiming to be OUR savior from the EVIL SEPARATISTS taking what was REALLY Parliamentary business (i.e. up to our MPs to vote on) to the people aka MOB RULE … it was NOT an election, it was MP business … MOB RULE) to basically steal our democracy from use by claiming he know BEST (that was the whole point of the non confidence vote, HE DIDN'T) … ONLY a KING can do that (a PM must ALWAYS maintain the confidence of the House, HE DIDN'T).

NOT really a PM but a KING.

Sue

You are NOT my Canada.
Mike514

You need to review your parliamentary rules and procedures.

Ronald

STEVE MUBARAK musing…….that the Parties will have to learn to work together.

Then he had this to say in '97 which any self-respecting Candian would treat with alarm if not downright anger at his narrow-minded Bushleague view:

"It's past time that we scrapped the National Healthcare Act….privatization is the only way for us to……

Prorogation – shutting down Democracy to hold on to Power
Refusal to abide by the Rules of Parliament (Bev Odious, Detainees, Long-form as Stevie hates FACTS, disrespecting even the low-level women in his Cabinet)
Disdain for Democracy itself!

No wonder his spouse had to be forced to appear with him on CTV to dispell the well-known facts that she's left Harper for her RCMP officer-bodyguard! He is a hypocrite living a lie, but holding on to power — and to his phony WIG! At least now taxpayers don't have to pay for 24/7 hairdresser from CTV!..

Coalition now!
Memi

Stevo Gaddafi is far more appropriate Ronald!!!

This man is a farce and an embarassment to any Canadian who rembers that Pearson and Tommy Douglas REALLY worked together to give Canadians what the Americans only dream of: Medicare in the mid-60s. And Pearson did get the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE for this.

Harpo–no Vision just a dictatorial piece of luck as the Opposition is too civilized to oppose this neanderthal Blast from the Past…

God save us
Laren

Harper DID in fact include the Bloc and the 2003 letter sen to G-G was signed by both the BLOC and the NDP Leaders, after being asked by Harper to form a COALITION of the cons, libs and ndpers.

The man is not worthy of sitting as the head of our country. No wonder we lost the UN Security Council coveted seat this year—the first time in 60 years. That was a slap on the diplomatic face of Canada and it should fall on Harper who has disgraced this good country and made it resemble a Banana Republic, not the nation that was respected by all countries before 2005. Shame on this short-sighted meanspirited country bumpkin.
Ronald

Our current ruling Minority Forever Government IS a Coalition:

Conservatives/Reformers/Alliance

The CRAP PARTY!

If only the 25% of Candians who believe that Crappers should rule this beautiful land and DISMANTLE it in due course, removing the fed authority and letting the wayward Provinces have their own way…..woke up before it's too late and we become the 52nd STATE of UNION after Puerto Rico. Harper' s Dream: Dismantle the country…true libertarian without the brains
Louise B

Laureen Harper left her husband for a RCMP bodyguard and lives in a condo in Ottawa.

They appeared together cause Harper told her he needed her cover.

Andrew Cohen in the Ottawa Citizen alludes to this and Norman Spector had a Globe article that the editor pulled.

HARPER'S WIFE LEFT HIM over a year ago for her female bodyguard. Everybody knows this.

- That's why the lovey-dovy Interview with Petie @ CBC

Mike514

The same Norman Spector article that was torn to pieces by many respected journalists including Paul Wells of this magazine?

The same Norman Spector article that was pulled from the Globe's website due to its questionable claims? Even the Globe has done its best to distance itself from the article.

Why should anyone take such accusations seriously, considering the above?

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/ Open_Democracy

To complete the story, here's what Mr. Harper had to say about the NDP, the Party he needs to help him pass his budget in the same year:

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2011/01/is-s…

I would suspect that Mr. Harper's true beliefs are reflected in what he said then as opposed to the Harper of today who says what is likely to garner him the most votes.
don craig

talk about trying to make something out of nothing.. who wrote this Iggy Pop?

frobisher

No. But Iggy Pop did write "I'm a Conservative". It's on 'Soldier'. And it's actually funny, too.

wilson

Livebloggin Junkie says
' If Harper 'wins' the most seats but less then a combined LPC-NDP it won't take long for the GG to inform Harper that he was actually the loser.'

Not true.
Unless PMSH resigns or until the House votes non-confidence, PMSH is PM, he is the incumbent.

A 'minority' LibDip can approach the GG,
but with out a majority coalition,
a new election would be called, at PMSHs request.
(this very subject came up during the British election,
and the answer was Queen would call 'new election without a majority')

But.you don't have to worry,
Duceppe has already formalized Bloc participation in a coalition,
it is written in their policy platform.
All LibDips have to do is come up with $5 Billion to buy his support!

Now if Liberals and Dippers would be so honest as to lay their cards on the table,
Canadians can vote for the government they want.

Livebloggin Junkie

:)
I wasn't (intentionly) suggesting it would be the GG who would take the initiative on his own, but even if the LPC-NDP coalition has less then a majority but more then the CPC, they would signal that they will vote down the Throne speech. I doubt the GG would disolve because the coalition didn't have a majority. So, signalling that the non-conf vote is coming at the first oppurtunity, I think PMSH would relinquish rather then be dumped. There won't be a third Harper minority. The lefties will bleat that there isn't a coalition, but it is facile, naive and incredulus to suggest they would just keep letting the CPC be the government if they could provide and alternative.
Shorter version, in politics, you backslide, you lose.

wilson

'I doubt the GG would disolve because the coalition didn't have a majority'
In our Parliamentary system, yes the GG would dissolve.
It would take a majority coalition to replace a sitting PM.
Maybe a pair of duces trumps an Ace, but a 2 party minority does not dethrone a sitting Prime Minister

'I think PMSH would relinquish rather then be dumped'
He would you every tool available to him.
And THIS TIME, he is prepared.

wilson

I'm just going by what the British 'experts' said, is there precedent otherwise?

McC_

Harper didn't have a majority coalition when he unseated Paul Martin in 2006. You're not making any sense.
TimesArrow

Since when as that ever stopped her?
hollinm

What are you talking about. The opposition parties voted non confidence and an election was called. Where was the coalition? Help me to understand what you meant.
wilson

Harper won the most seats so Martin resigned.
Libs + Dippers only had 132 seats, but still beat Harpers 124.
Why didn't the LibDips form a coalition government, incumbent PM Martin had first chance to do so, even tho Harper won more seats?
he needed a majority
TimesArrow

er… maybe the dippers didn't want a coalition?

wilson

Well, I would rather have a CPC-NDP coalition government
then allow a Ignatieff to hand 30% of the power of the federal government over to the separatists.

And if Jack is smart, he will detach the NDP from the Liberal butt and be as willing to work with a Conservative government as he was the separatists.

Mike T.

I am surprised you don't agree with Stephen harper that any bill which passes due to the support of the Bloc is illegitimate and should be considered as such.

Loraine Lamontagne

Oh yes, like for the civil definition of marriage…

There was a time when Harper thought the world of Mario Dumont, and Harper has named a number of former ADQ officials to positions in Ottawa, including the Senate – and Dumont and his party were on the side of the YES in the 1995 referendum, as I recall.

wilson

Bob Rae used to be a Dipper, Scott Brison and Belinda Stronach ran for the CPC leadership.
John Charest used to be a PC…….
'Harper thought the world of Mario Dumont'
and likely still does, I like Super Mario too.