If Prime Minister Stephen Harper knows his Canadian history, and he likely does, he would know that last weekend marked a personal milestone.
Those who keep track of prime ministerial time-in-office (an admittedly small cult) will have noted that on Jan. 8, Harper became the 12th longest serving prime minister, displacing the 19th century Liberal Alexander Mackenzie.
More survival milestones will happen in rapid succession.
On Feb. 7, he passes Lester B. Pearson in time served in office.
On May 26, if he is still in office Harper will replace 1930s Conservative R.B. Bennett as the 10th longest- serving prime minister out of 22 Canadians who have held job.
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Considering that few gave Harper a chance of becoming prime minister after he helped unite fractious conservative forces but still faced a formidable and long-entrenched Liberal machine, Harper’s fifth anniversary in power Feb. 6 will be a time to acknowledge political skills (and a weak opposition) that have allowed him to hang onto power through two minority governments.
The Harper years have changed the political debate in Canada.
In Canada’s 143-year history, fewer than a dozen have been more politically successful.
The prime ministers that Harper is passing in early 2011 are not insubstantial figures in Canadian political history.
Mackenzie, at first a Reform MP when that meant Liberal and not anti-Liberal, was a one-term PM in the 1870s but he solidified the young country as a two-party state, gave the country the Supreme Court of Canada, and almost five years free of the corruption of John A. Macdonald’s Tories .
Bennett, often ridiculed in history as a capitalist caricature who failed to navigate Canada successfully through the Great Depression, also was responsible for creating the early traces of the welfare state, the forerunner to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Wheat Board.
Pearson, who never won a majority, managed to transform Canada.
His governments began the trek toward creating a legal basis for linguistic and gender equality, brought in the iconic Canadian flag, and implemented national Medicare, pension reforms, armed forces unification and a host of other reforms.
So Harper is outliving key Canadian political figures. Of course, time in office is a far less reliable judge of a legacy than accomplishments.
So far it looks a bit thin – an Accountability Act that has had little discernable effect on government accountability, a record Canadian deficit for an anti-deficit Conservative party, the occasional brush with ethical or corruption challenges and little movement on many core Conservative files.
But contemporary judgments usually miss the historical mark.
When he retired in 1968, Pearson was widely judged a divisive prime minister with weak control of a corruption- riddled government. History judges him transformational.
Judgment awaits Harper, but this winter at least proves him a survivor.
