Article content continued

Its defenders point to all the things other governments might have done — a national daycare program, say — that Harper’s didn’t. But we could as well list all of the conservative policies it failed to enact, from privatization to deregulation to reform of social programs. We might talk of how the party’s social conservatives were gagged, or how the party of democratic conservatism became the party of one-man rule.

There was much that it did that it shouldn’t have — a long list that would include abusing the prerogatives of Parliament, packing the Senate with spendthrifts and cronies, and attempting to skew elections via the Fair Elections Act — and much else that it tried to do but failed, from reforming the Senate to building pipelines.

And whatever it did do, for good or ill, is rapidly being undone, either by the courts or by the government that succeeded it: not only egregious nonsense such as the corruption of the long-form census or all those unconstitutional crime bills, but real accomplishments such as pushing back OAS eligibility or income-splitting for couples with children. About all that remains are the free trade agreements it signed (good) and the GST cuts (ill).

So when it came time, in his speech to the Conservative convention, for the former prime minister to review his record, it was more by way of stances than achievements: standing up for “principled positions in a dangerous world,” say, or standing watch over a period of relative prosperity and national unity. It’s not nothing. There were some important reforms of campaign finances, some useful tax changes. But as legacies go, it’s pretty thin.