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In the general election of 1979, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was successfully unseated by Joe Clark, and Trudeau announced his resignation as Liberal leader a few weeks later.  The press was full of tributes and retrospectives, and the former PM gave a heartfelt goodbye to his colleagues in the House of Commons.  He had happily served as head of the Liberal Party for 10 years, he said, but in the aftermath of defeat it was time to move on.

An NDP-led vote of no-confidence was passed against Clark's minority government less than a month after that, prompting Trudeau to abruptly reverse course and reclaim his party's top job.  It had all taken place in a period of six months.

It has now been six months since Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister and Stephen Harper stepped down as Tory leader.  Many conservatives have already found Justin Trudeau to be even worse than expected on virtually every front, from the budget to energy to ISIS.

In such a context, would it be the worst thing in the world for the Conservative's supposedly "retired" leader to rustle himself into a Pierre Trudeau-like comeback, citing the country's unprecedented need for his leadership at such a critical time?  A recent EKOS poll found Harper remains the leading favorite among Conservatives to run their party, holding a seven point lead over his closest competitor, Peter Mackay.

I'm not naive.  It's obviously an extremely far-fetched idea and one unlikely to happen.  It's undeniably intriguing to many conservatives, however, and it's worth contemplating why.  As we consider the profiles of the men and women far more likely to wind up as Tory boss it may be useful to compare their assets with what a revived Harper would bring.

The ex-PM remains a unifying figure to conservatives of all stripes.  Though the press has been full of gripes and gossip about the flaws and failures of the Tories' 2015 campaign, it's significant that few theories of the loss blame Harper personally, and his departure has not triggered an outflow of bottled-up intra-party resentment of the sort that often accompanies the exit of a longtime boss.  Harper was always seen as a deeply legitimate, credible leader of the Canadian right, and as Thomas Mulcair learned the hard way, a party won't grow outward when its unsatisfied inward.

 

Harper's biography was a tale of unbroken allegiance to conservative causes — from working for a Progressive Conservative MP as a young man to helping found Reform when he believed the PCs had lost their way, to making activist arguments as head of the National Citizens Coalition, to helping unite the right with the Conservative Party of Canada.  These jobs involved caution and compromise, as political jobs always do, but they were united by a consistent theme of fighting for causes conservatives care about, which sired trust.  As a conservative friend who once worked with Harper put it, "when he disappoints you, you know he's probably disappointed too."

A new Tory leader, by contrast, will have to create that trust from scratch.  The men and women vying to be the next Harper are all ex-ministers from his administration, and thus have political careers defined more by loyalty than leadership.  When Juan Peron returned as president of Argentina in 1973 after an 18-year exile the move was not universally popular, and led many to complain what they really wanted was "Peronism without Peron."  The next leader of the Canadian conservatives, by contrast, seems poised to attempt some flavor of "Harperism without Harper" — a suspicious formula given how critical the particulars of Harper's background and personality were to his success.

Political succession has been described as a game of mini-revolutions.  Rarely does a political leader come to power without framing themselves as a revolt against their predecessor's style or agenda.  Usually the revolt occurs in the name of moving forward, but it can occasionally be a conscious step backwards, too.  Leaders ranging from Winston Churchill to Benjamin Netanyahu, to Silvio Berlusconi to Pierre Trudeau were all rejected by voters only to be restored to power by a regretful public a few years later.

The next prime minister of Canada will embody revolt against Justin Trudeau.  Will Canada's political culture have changed dramatically enough to make Harper's style of pragmatic-yet-principled conservatism obsolete for that task?  And if not, will the Conservative Party be able to find a more competent, trusted champion of that approach than Harper himself?

Authenticity is a rare resource in politics.

Photo Credit: Macleans

Written By J.J. McCullough

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.