Captain Canada or the Grinch Who Prorogued Parliament?
By dint of sheer news volume, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was a heavyweight in 2008 — from a historic apology for the Canadian government's role in residential schools to an equally unprecedented constitutional end-run around a House of Commons bent on his political demise.
But Mr. Harper delivered the lion's share of the drama as well, making him the runaway choice as Newsmaker of the Year in the annual survey of news organizations by The Canadian Press.
“Love him or hate him, there is no doubt Stephen Harper generated his own headlines — and maybe his own demise when Parliament resumes,” said Chris Green of CFCB Radio in Corner Brook, N.L.
The Prime Minister was picked by nearly half of the newspaper editors and broadcast news directors in this year's poll, taking 64 of 133 votes. The only other Canadian newsmaker to garner more than 10 votes was Mr. Harper's main political foe of 2008: now-former Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who was chosen by 35 editors.
Other Canadian newsmakers deemed notable by the men and women who run the country's newsrooms included Maple Leaf Foods CEO Michael McCain, with eight votes, and political femme fatale Julie Couillard, who earned five votes to the three garnered by her ex-boyfriend, former cabinet minister Maxime Bernier.
Outspoken former Canadian Forces chief Rick Hillier, who stepped down in 2008, got four votes, as did Elizabeth May, the first Green party leader to participate in a federal election debate. Even Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel, the Quebec comedy duo that punked Sarah Palin, got a vote.
But none of the runners-up could rival Mr. Harper's news value, either in quantity or in quality.
“An obvious choice,” James M. Miller of the Penticton Daily Herald said in explaining why he picked Mr. Harper. “First calling an election and then ending the year fighting for his political life.”
Added Dan Leger of the Chronicle Herald in Halifax: ”Canadian politics news is all about Stephen Harper.”
The Prime Minister's Office has neither committed to a traditional year-end interview with The Canadian Press nor responded to requests for comment on Mr. Harper's selection as the year's pre-eminent newsmaker.
The year certainly ended with a blizzard of Harper-driven news.
An incendiary fall economic update on Nov. 27 sparked the near-collapse of the Conservative minority just six weeks after a federal election that Harper had called in breach of his own fixed-date election law.
Sources have told The Canadian Press that it was Mr. Harper himself who insisted, despite the uniform misgivings of his closest advisers, on loading the update with a poison-pill provision on political party financing.
When an unlikely Liberal-NDP coalition backed by the Bloc Quebecois sprang to life, the Prime Minister — his reputation as a master tactician suddenly tarnished — was forced to employ a scorched-earth strategy in the Commons.
He accused the coalition of consorting with separatists and conspiring to “destroy the country” — a message that effectively undid two years of Conservative courting of the soft nationalist vote in Quebec.
After delaying a non-confidence vote in the Commons by a week, Mr. Harper took the unprecedented step of asking the Governor-General to pull the plug on Parliament in order to keep his government from falling.
His moves effectively grounded the fledgling coalition, earning Mr. Harper glowing plaudits from his party base. They also enabled the Liberals to throw lame-duck leader Mr. Dion overboard in favour of Michael Ignatieff, a more formidable Harper opponent.
And as if that wasn't enough news-making for one calendar year, Mr. Harper appointed 18 new senators to the upper chamber Monday, reversing a long-standing commitment to put only elected representatives in the Senate.
Mr. Harper's choices included veteran CTV broadcaster Mike Duffy, his former colleague Pamela Wallin and Olympic medalist Nancy Greene Raine, as well as a host of prominent Conservative partisans.
