'Good Riddance': Canada's Stephen Harper Bids Adieu to Politics, Hello to Consulting

As expected, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced his resignation from Parliament, saying that he's now gearing up for "for the next chapter of my life."

That chapter, as the Toronto Star reports, includes "launching a global consulting business."

Harper posted the news Friday on his social media accounts, saying, "I leave elected office proud of what our team accomplished together."

For the 57-year-old, the resignation marks the end of "nearly two often-tumultuous decades in public office," Mississauga Newsreports.

Harper lost power in October in a "devastating election defeat" when his Conservative Party lost to the Justin Trudeau-led Liberal Party.

Since then, the Star adds, he "has only appeared in the Commons for votes since he lost power last fall, and has never spoken in debate as the MP for Calgary Heritage."

The country "shifted to the center-right under Harper," the Associated Press writes, and, as Common Dreams has reported,

During his tenure as Prime Minister, which spanned from 2006-2015, Harper was known internationally for pushing through an aggressive conservative agenda which included: wholesale investment in fossil fuels, including Canadian tar sands; blocking international efforts to combat climate change; dismantling civil liberties through mass surveillance; unflinching support of Israel and attempts to outlaw pro-Palestinian boycott movements; supporting numerous wars overseas; and willfully ignoring the treaty rights of Canadian First Nations, among many other things.

As for his new career, the National Post reports that he "has already lined up an impressive and potentially lucrative post-politics career that includes a new consulting business with international clients, board directorships and joining a speakers' bureau."

Following the election in October, Andrew Mitrovica wrote at Ricochet:

Like millions of Canadians, I'm glad he's gone and taken his tawdry ideas--if you can even call them that--about who Canadians are and what Canada stands for with him into political oblivion. I'm not going to waste a nanosecond pondering his ignominious "place" in this nation's history, his toxic "legacy" or what he's going to do next. Justin Trudeau is like a nicely wrapped confection.

Look, he'll be just fine. Chances are Harper's going to do what other ex-prime ministers have done when voters tell them emphatically to get lost... he will cash in big time. I suspect the make-believe economist will quickly join a high-powered law firm somewhere in Canada or maybe the United States and turn into a make-believe lawyer. He'll also accept lots of invitations to sit on lots of corporate boards that will pay him lots of money to act as a glorified lobbyist.

Like Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien before him, he'll happily trade in the "noble calling of public service" to become a highly paid gun-for-hire in a pinstriped suit doing lucrative mega business deals with influential politicians and CEOs he befriended along the way. Some elder statesman.

Good riddance, Harper. Don't let the closet doors hit you on the way out of the PMO.

On Twitter, writer and Ricochet founding editor Derrick O'Keefe similarly summed up many progressives' response to the new development: