The 2015 election

Despite Canada’s having technically slid into economic recession in 2015, Harper trumpeted the need for consistency at the country’s helm in early August as he called for the beginning of what would be Canada’s longest federal election campaign since the 19th century. At the end of August Harper was able to boast that there would be a budget surplus for 2015, and in October he took credit for the signing of the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. However, the struggling economy—largely the result of depressed world oil prices—and a legacy of six consecutive national budget deficits left Harper open to criticism of his stewardship of the economy. Moreover, Harper’s attempt to win a fourth consecutive election was undermined by the timing of Wright’s high-profile testimony at the trial of Duffy while the prime minister was on the campaign trail, where he was bombarded with questions about the scandal and alleged cover-up.

In mid-September Harper ignited a furor by using the term “old-stock Canadians” while responding to a debate question on immigration. The gist of his remark was that Harper did not believe that immigrants who are undeserving of refugee status should be accorded special health care benefits unavailable to other Canadians. Political opponents, however, accused Harper of sending a coded message reinforcing anti-immigrant fears and stoking divisive us-versus-them politics. Similar criticism greeted the Harper government’s argument that the threat of allowing in Islamist terrorists precludes an increase in the number of refugees from the Syrian Civil War that it would permit to immigrate. Canadians were also divided by the Harper government’s decision to appeal to the Supreme Court earlier court decisions in favour of an immigrant Muslim woman who had challenged a government regulation that prohibited women from wearing niqabs (face-covering veils) during Canadian citizenship ceremonies.

Over the course of the election campaign, all three parties held the lead in opinion polling at one time or another. The New Democratic Party, led by Thomas Mulcair, took an early lead before the race narrowed to a contest between the Conservatives and the Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau. From the outset Harper’s strategy had been to paint the telegenic youthful son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau as unready to lead the country and the risk of a return to Liberal policies as too great a risk. Trudeau, however, showed himself to be an assured campaigner, and in the last weeks of the contest, the Liberals took an extended lead in the opinion polls. In the election itself the Liberals garnered 39.5 percent of the vote to rout both the Conservatives (who fell to about 32 percent of the vote and 99 seats) and the NDP to form a 184-seat majority government with Trudeau as prime minister. Harper resigned as leader of the Conservative Party but held on to his seat in the House of Commons until August 2016, when he resigned to turn his attention to the consulting company that he had established in December 2015.