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He does not haunt us still.

If it hadn’t been a normal part of an orderly transition of power, the almost complete disappearance of former prime minister Stephen Harper might be a subject of more speculation — or at least curiosity.

Harper stepped down as Conservative party leader on election night in October, made a couple of shadowy entrances and exits on Parliament Hill in December … and then vanished completely from the public eye.

Or almost. This week, CTV’s Power Play host Don Martin shared a photo of Harper at the Fort Myers airport in Florida, keeping a low profile under a baseball hat — the same one he was wearing in a sighting at a Las Vegas Shake Shack in November.

Canada is a country accustomed to changing seasons (occasionally, in some parts of the country, four seasons in one day). So one assumes we can easily adapt to changing prime ministers.

What’s remarkable, though, is how even the Conservatives seemed to have moved on quickly from the Harper decade.

The interim Conservative leader, Rona Ambrose, appears to have forgotten (or is hoping that Canadians have forgotten) some significant features of Harper’s government. Ambrose released a letter this week, for instance, asking for a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to discuss the economy before he releases his first budget — as though consulting with the opposition was something that happened all the time over the past 10 years. (It was not, and it didn’t.)

Ambrose actually has become a vocal champion of transparency, as surely as Tony Clement, the former Treasury Board president, is now voicing second thoughts about the decision to abolish the mandatory long-form census. And the new, de-Harperized Conservative party is, apparently, now in favour of an inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women — and not so enthusiastic any longer about making arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

On that last item: Clement was demanding details last week on the $15 billion agreement to sell combat vehicles to the Saudis — an agreement his own government signed. He did acknowledge, at least, that these are details his old boss wouldn’t have released.

“So don’t take the signal from the last government. If you want to be true to your principles and values, which the Conservative party under new leadership shares, let’s move forward,” Clement said.

Is it unusual for a prime minister, along with his legacy, to go so quietly into that good night? Yes and no. Is it unusual for a prime minister, along with his legacy, to go so quietly into that good night? Yes and no.

We know that institutional memory isn’t what it used to be in Ottawa, but the new Trudeau government hasn’t even passed the 100-day milestone yet. This week marks three months since the election.

But as far as I can tell, it’s already too late to say “wait, what?” when Harper’s old party does a 180-turn from where it stood just a few short months back. If nothing else, this tells us that the hunger for regime change in Canada — displayed so vividly in the fall election — apparently extended to those who worked with Harper as well.

Is it unusual for a prime minister, along with his legacy, to go so quietly into that good night? Yes and no. Ex-PMs may make polite, diplomatic retreats from the headlines, but their influence — especially if they’re long-serving — is hard to shake off. Trudeau’s father, Pierre, happily sought anonymity after he retired in 1984, but as Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson wrote in the biography published years later, “he haunts us still.” (A statement which turned out to be prophetic in 2015.)

It’s debatable whether Pierre Trudeau haunts Harper, but another Liberal prime minister certainly did. Back when Harper first assumed power, apparently he would often ask, “What would Jean Chrétien do?”

This interesting little fact was contained in a 2014 book that should be required reading these days in Ottawa. It’s by David Zussman, it’s called Off and Running and it’s about what happens when power changes hands in Canada.

“A number of those interviewed for this study mentioned that in Harper’s early months as prime minister he would ask how Chrétien would deal with a particular situation,” Zussman wrote.

I’m just guessing, but I suspect that Trudeau hasn’t spent a lot of his first few months in power asking what Harper would do — unless, of course, he’s trying to do the precise opposite.

Trudeau’s mandate letters to ministers made it clear that one of his main missions is to be the anti-Harper — mainly in style, also in significant matters of substance. A lot of that happened in the first few months after the election. Now, with few exceptions, you don’t even hear the Liberals talking much about Harper.

It will be interesting to see whether Harper, still the elected MP for Calgary Heritage, is back in the Commons next week for another cameo appearance. He did show up for the election of the Speaker in December, and even exchanged brief words with Trudeau.

Trudeau recounted what happened in that encounter during an interview he did in December with Joel-Denis Bellavance of La Presse.

Apparently — and amusingly — Harper greeted Trudeau as “Justin” and Trudeau greeted Harper as “Prime Minister.”

“Old habits die hard,” Trudeau told Bellavance, laughing.

I’m not so sure. It seems that the members of the Canadian political class, including Conservatives, have shed themselves of the Harper habit pretty easily, in less than 100 days. Perhaps they might want to share that technique with all those trying to keep New Year’s resolutions in these early days of 2016.

Susan Delacourt is one of Canada’s best-known political journalists. Over her long career she has worked at some of the top newsrooms in the country, from the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail to the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post. She is a frequent political panelist on CBC Radio and CTV. Author of four books, her latest — Shopping For Votes — was a finalist for the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Canadian non-fiction in 2014. She teaches classes in journalism and political communication at Carleton University.

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