During his 10 years in office, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a pro-Israel stance that has remained the country’s policy to this day • In an interview with Israel Hayom, Harper talks about anti-Israel bias and the investigations into Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
It’s incredibly hard to anger someone from Canada. Try as you might, it will take some time before a Canadian begins to lose their temper or raise their voice – unless of course the topic of discussion is ice hockey. Canada takes pride in being a country where, unlike the American behemoth to its south, everything goes smoothly – and culturalism takes precedence over aggression, to the point where things can get extremely boring.
In the international arena, too, Canada has for years taken care to do the “correct” thing to ensure it is accepted by everyone. That is why Canada has historically taken a central role in peacekeeping forces and has always tried to differentiate itself from U.S. policies in the world.
Canada refused to help out in the Vietnam War or the Iraq War, and it seems as if Ottawa has always wanted to show the world that Canada is most definitely not the United States’ younger sibling. That was all true until 2006, when a new sheriff by the name of Stephen Harper came to town. He would serve as the country’s prime minister until 2015.
Almost overnight, Harper, the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, shook up the conventions that had guided Canadian policy on the Middle East and Israel over the years. And most importantly, he made it clear that although Canadians may be the friendliest and most peaceful people in the world, they will not blindly toe the line.
When the rest of the world wanted to turn Israel into a scapegoat, Harper would not have Canada play along. In the decade in which he served as prime minister, and even as the head of a minority government, Israel had a loyal ally in the country. Harper closed the Canadian Embassy in Tehran. And in 2011, he ordered the Canadian delegation to walk out in protest when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered his address to the United Nations.
In an interview with Israel Hayom in Jerusalem, Harper spoke with pride of the steps he took while in office.
“It really began at my first summit of [the International Organization of the] Francophonie, which I think was 2006, where at the last minute, after supposedly the decision was decided, a couple of countries came forward with an anti-Israeli resolution blaming Israel for the [2006] Second Lebanon War, and all these other things. You know, I thought the resolution was not only unfair, but actually untrue. And I am not a guy who when something is untrue just goes along because everyone else says I should.
“You don’t give me a good argument, I am not going to support you,” Harper says. “And if you give me a bad argument, I am going to oppose you. And I was hearing a lot of bad arguments, so I didn’t take that position, and we ultimately shot down that resolution.”
Harper noted he was consistently pro-Israel while in office, “whether it was when we became the first country to abandon the Durban II process, when we were the first country to walk out of Ahmadinejad’s speech at the U.N. – these were the right thing to do. And frankly, they were in the interest of Canada because these are bad things. And they may be directed at Israel, but they are bad things for us, too. And as I say, it makes no sense, Israel is being singled out, but ultimately it could be launched at anyone of us.”
Speaking of the two countries shared values, Harper said, “Certainly, I think people understand my view. I see Israel as a country – as a western democratic country that shares values, opportunities and threats with Canada. And I think western politicians who believe they can kind of abandon Israel on the front line of these threats are endangering the long-term security interests of their own countries.”
He admitted his clear pro-Israel stance “was not popular among other Western countries. It is not the direction certainly of European countries, and it was not popular for much of the Canadian media. But the fact is that the position had very strong support from major elements in the Canadian population and is a position that many individual Western politicians do have and a lot of politicians outside the west have.
Q: You once said that you were willing to be pro-Israel no matter the price you would have to pay. If that is the case, why didn’t you relocate the Canadian Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as prime minister?
“There was a conservative prime minister many years ago who tried to do that, and it was a schlimazel, so no government wanted to touch it since … At the time, it would have been a symbolic move, but with real serious security risks. And Canada doing it alone – the risk just did not match the reward. Now that the U.S. has done it, there is really every reason for the government of Canada to do it, and certainly my successor as leader of the Canadian parliament.
“[Current Conservative Party leader] Andrew Scheer has committed to doing that, because this now is a very feasible thing to do. And it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do not just because Jerusalem – at least west Jerusalem is certainly the capital of Israel – but it is also the right thing to do because by not having the embassies in Jerusalem since 1948, I think we have inadvertently – Western countries have – sent the signal to extremists on the Palestinian side that someday Israel really won’t exist. I think that by putting our embassies now that Donald Trump has made that possible really sends a signal that this is how we get peace.”
For six of the 10 years in which Harper headed Canada’s government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel’s prime minister. Harper said, “No Israeli leader has been as huge on the world stage. He is a commanding presence on the world stage.”Harper also expresses astonishment at the various investigations into Netanyahu.
“I certainly knew about Prime Minister Netanyahu going way back. One big part of the reason was – I can remember back in the 1980s – I think it was when Prime Minister Netanyahu began to appear on North American television as U.N. ambassador, because he was such a forceful communicator in English.”
He said, “We were prime ministers together, Prime Minister Netanyahu and I. I am also the chairman of the IDU [International Democrat Union], which is a global federation of global right-wing parties, which [Netanyahu’s] Likud [party] is a member of, as is the Conservative Party of Canada. So, we are sister parties. And we served together for six years, and we have become close personal friends. And I have tremendous admiration for what he has achieved.”
Harper said he was personally supportive of Netanyahu “because I know him. I have witnessed his capabilities, I have witnessed somebody who faces, just pressures that are unimaginable in a country like Canada and most secure Western countries.”
Q: Did you consult with him on economic reforms?
“You know, Canada has a high-tech industry, but we think we could be better. And we looked at ways of building venture capital and other things and Israel is a model for that.
After noting he did not seek to intervene in the campaign, Harper said, “My support for Israel is not based on the election result. I would just say, as somebody who does chair the IDU and gets around the world and has such an admiration for Israel, I must say I am concerned about some aspects of this election. When it comes to a democracy, the voters must be the ones who lead them. What worries me I see here is the politicization of legal processes. I think that is a great concern. The idea that you would drop an indictment in the middle of a campaign can’t be seen as anything other than politicized process, by any fair-minded person. That’s how it is going to be seen around the world. Look, whether getting so many gifts, this is an ethical issue, that is for the voters to decide. And how politicians deal with media, whether they get credit or don’t get credit, I mean – the idea that you would criminalize these issues is a fundamental threat to democracy. These are decisions for the electorate to make, so I hope that regardless of this kind of politicization of the legal process, I hope the voters make up their mind based on the big issues that Israel faces.”
Q: Were a Canadian prime minister to hypothetically be under investigation, would voters respond angrily to an indictment being issued during an election campaign?
“This is a hypothetical. All I can is that in Canada today, the idea, the kinds of things that are at issue here – the technicalities of ethical rules around gifts and gifts from friends, and the issue of how people do politics with media – it is inconceivable in Canada that these things would be criminalized. … It is just not conceivable.”
Against the odds
Today, Harper serves as an adviser for various causes and organizations around the world, and that is why he is currently in Israel.
“Since I have left office, I have formed a business organization – a consulting firm. But we do a wide range of things, including the encouragement of trade with countries that we built relationships with while we were in government. And the reality is that despite the fact that Canada has always recognized Israel and was very close under my government, the fact is that the economic potential of our relationship has never really been exploited. So I am actually here this week primarily because we are an advisor to a Canadian fund called AWZ, that really operates here, a fund that invests particularly Canadian money into some of the high tech startups particularly the security space, and really working with how we can get Canadian money in those and bring those products into the North American markets. So that is why I am here, to develop those relationships that we were worked on in government.”
Harper has proven to be an experienced politician, and as such succeeded for 10 years in promoting a conservative agenda that has left its mark well after he left office upon losing the 2015 elections to the young and charismatic Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau. Trudeau, of course, is the son of legendary Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. There were concerns among Israel supporters that Canada would revert to its role of providing legitimacy to the campaign to delegitimize Israel, or at the very least serve as window dressing in the all too familiar and notorious show that plays out at countless international forums.
But Trudeau surprised many by maintaining Canada’s pro-Israel stance, although he has not gone out of his way to do so like his predecessor. Canada has abstained from U.N. General Assembly votes to condemn U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital. He even surprised everyone when he pushed and passed proposed legislation that would define the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. He has also left Canada’s embassy in Iran closed. There is a consensus that the “Harper effect” has yet to subside and may even be permanent. Future left-wing governments in Canada may also opt not to vote automatically against Israel in various forums. Harper in all likelihood would count that as one of his greatest victories in the international arena. It is apparent that he feels a great sense of pride that Israel has a warm place in frozen Canada’s heart.
As Harper sees it, Israel and Canada are partners to the same fate because they have both managed to survive against all odds.
“Israel was founded by refugees,” Harper notes. “Canada, certainly the original British population in Canada, was a refugee population from the United States. … Israel was obviously in an ongoing struggle in a neighborhood that’s often unwelcoming or unfriendly. Canada had a period really of 40 years that ended in 1815 where we had to defend our existence from the United States.”
Whether or not Harper returns to the prime minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex Drive, we are sure to feel his influence on Canada-Israel for years, and maybe even generations, to come.
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