Stephen Harper’s hands-off approach to Canada's social union, for instance, had as much to do with his ideological distaste for government activism on the social policy front as with a Quebec strategy, writes Chantal Hébert. There is no doubt that the Harper decade was not a good one for the sovereignty cause. No recent prime minister was as unpopular in Quebec as Harper. Elsewhere in the country, they would have drawn attention to his limited capacity to champion Canada effectively in a referendum Harper’s decade in power was a game-changer in Quebec but maybe not in ways he necessarily intended. A critical number of Quebec voters did accept the sovereigntist premise that the values that underpinned Harper’s policies at home and abroad were at odds with theirs.

Source: thestar September 06, 2017 19:52 UTC