text: Every PM has to work with the cards that are dealt them. Harper wasn’t responsible for the 2014 oil price fall any more than Trudeau was responsible for the Fort McMurray wildfires. That said, your statement about growth under Trudeau recently being much higher than anything achieved under Harper is absurd. The annual real GDP growth rate in 2017Q1 (i.e. the four-quarter growth rate) was 2.3%, the best Trudeau has ever achieved to date; you only have to go back to 2014Q3 to find 2.6% growth; in 2013Q4 and a number of earlier quarters under Harper the growth rate was 3.6%.