His father was an army cadet too young to see active service in the Second World War but who swore never to forget the horrors of the Holocaust.
So when Stephen Harper was growing up in Toronto with his two brothers, he learned from his dad, Joseph Harper — a man he later described as the “greatest influence” on his life.
Joseph Harper, an accountant who became a member of the Presbyterian Church, was a student of military history who despised totalitarianism.
He had seen what it can produce, how Hitler’s Nazis had obliterated six million Jews from the face of Europe. He understood why the Jews wanted a Jewish state called Israel to prosper and be safe.
Say what you will about Stephen Harper, and lord knows I have, but in foreign policy he has been a superb leader. The best we've had in decades. Foreign policy is one of the few areas in government where a Prime Minister can indulge himself. Most domestic policy is limited by strict political considerations. For most Canadians foreign affairs is what's going in the States. The really big problems of keeping the global order running are managed by the Americans and before them the British. We've been outsourcing our foreign policy since well before 1867 and will likely keep doing so well into the future. This isn't driven by callousness so much as an understanding that Canada is a small country in a big world.
This attitude on the part of the Canadian public gives the Prime Minister of the day remarkable latitude. It is often in foreign affairs that we see a political leader show his true colours. Pierre Trudeau not only visited Communist Cuba but hung out with Fidel Castro, even singing revolutionary songs. It was one of the most disgusting acts ever committed by a Canadian PM. Brian Mulroney, the master glad hander, conducted foreign policy the way a wardheeler visits a saloon. But it worked. In a matter of weeks he'd repairs relations with the Americans. Not bad for a few shopworn Irish jokes and a winning smile.
Then there's Stephen. Boring, sensible, intelligent and occasionally principled Stephen. He'll bend like a reed when it comes to fiscal conservativism, but nothing moves him from his support of Israel. Not a hint of moral relativism. Pro-freedom and anti-tyranny. The Press Gallery, which is usually too clever by half, imagines that this is part of a ploy to court the Jewish vote. Ahem. The Jewish vote might swing a riding or two in Toronto or Montreal, otherwise it is electorally inconsequential. In fact by supporting the Jewish state so strongly the PM risks far more ridings in Mississauga and Bramption where, to put it delicately, the year 1948 is not looked back upon with fondness.
Yet what is more interesting than Harper's foreign steadfastness and domestic pragmatism, is the role of his father. That the PM revers his father is well enough known. What comes across in the above story is the very Canadian nature of the late Joseph Harper. Here was man raised in a rich and free country, with a good education and a good income. A man who lead, so far as we can tell, a content middle class existence in what was likely the Golden Age of both the country and Toronto. Yet he cared about a small despised minority on the other side of the world. Cared enough to swear, in his own small way, never again.
This is not "normal" in human history. Most people in most parts of the world are concerned with their own immediate survival. To give a damn about people you have never meet, or know only slightly, and care enough to instill certain values in your children, is very unusual. To think in terms of principles and act over the long range. To sincerely care when most are callous. This is a leap of the imagination. Joseph Harper wasn't alone in thinking as he did. Many, many Canadians thought the same way.
It's what helped make Canada Canada and not some other place.
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