harper never expected this to hold up, it was just red meat for his base. there's a dozen or so examples of this, too.

it's easy to give him shit for wasting everybody's time but that's actually not the right way to look at it in the longer lens of history. i've stated repeatedly that harper's most enduring - and perhaps singular - legacy is going to be all of the laws that he had struck down. he's actually going to end up as a very important prime minister, for that reason alone. he's done more to shape constitutional law than any other leader since the elder trudeau.

100 years from now, nobody's going to be able to cite anything he wrote or anything he built. but, law students will study the multiple important and enduring precedents that were set when his laws were struck down.

i really don't know of anybody that's comparable. anywhere.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-court-citizenship-act-1.4108346