“That word ‘populist’ has taken on a number of imprecise and often negative meanings,” he told a crowd at the Canada Strong and Free Network conference in Ottawa on March 22.
Harper said the original meaning of the word meant the representation of the broad interests of a great mass of people in contrast with the elites who hold concentrated power.
The former prime minister was making the case for a renaissance of the conservative movement with organized support across society.
Making a keynote address at an event established by Preston Manning, who also founded and led the populist Reform Party from the late 1980s, Harper drew examples from the work accomplished at the time and made some parallels between the eras.
He said governments and central banks have been implementing the economic policies of the 1970s, “and as a consequence, we are getting the economic results of the 1970s.”
That period was marked by high levels of government spending and stagflation, the combination of high inflation and low and uneven economic growth.
There was also a rise of authoritarianism, Harper said, but then came new conservative leaders such as Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the UK.
“They contradicted all the established wisdom of the elites and things changed for the better,” he said, noting the Soviet Union disappeared and so did the economic turmoil of stagflation.
He linked this change to the birth and rise of the Reform Party in Canada, which held a similar anti-establishment orientation and captured 52 seats during its second election participation in 1993, with Harper and Manning winning Calgary ridings.
“We advocated overall very orthodox economic policy, yet at the same time being portrayed as radical by the media and rejected by the elites, the way ... that Pierre Poilievre is today,” Harper said.
Canadian ‘Revolution’
The Progressive Conservatives under Kim Campbell were badly defeated in the 1993 election, going from 156 seats to two.The separatist Bloc Québécois at the time was running in its first election and captured 54 seats to become the official opposition to a majority Liberal government under Jean Chrétien.
Harper called that election “Canada’s political revolution” during a fireside chat with Manning after his address, with a large number of seats going to new parties.
“I think that’s the closest thing to a revolution,” Manning said, adding that Canadians are “too polite to chop off heads.”
“Our revolution was not like the American Revolution; Environment Canada wouldn’t give us a permit to put tea in the Toronto harbour,” he said.
Both of them spoke about how the Liberals at the time had followed some principles advocated by the Reform Party such as the need to balance the budget.
“They weren’t crusading on fiscal matters, but they didn’t disagree with the overall objective that you had to balance the budget, but they criticized ‘you guys are going too fast,’” recalled Manning, who served as leader of the official opposition from 1997 to 2000.
But comparing it to today, Manning called the situation a “deterioration” due to the present government not seeking to stop deficits.
Harper and Manning also discussed how the Reform Party is part of the backbone of today’s Conservative Party.
The Reform became the Canadian Alliance in 2002 and Harper became its leader. He then negotiated the merger with the Progressive Conservative Party in 2003 to form the current Conservative Party.
The Conservatives lost to the Paul Martin Liberals in 2004, but not without handing them a minority government with 27 seats.
Harper led the Conservative Party to a minority government in 2006 after the Martin government was brought down by a vote of no confidence in relation to the sponsorship scandal.
Poilievre and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith are scheduled to talk at the conference on March 23.
