this is kind of a naive article. harper left a lot of vacant spaces for his successor to fill, but he could very well  have stacked the court - at the lower level. the reason that harper had a bunch of liberals to promote was that it was what years of liberal dominance left him with.

it is true that we don't have the politicized judicial system here that we might have, but it is a function of the way the system works rather than an aspect of the system itself. we can imagine scenarios where this would happen.

trudeau is, in fact, going to have to steer around the harper appointees at the lower level. or, at least you would think that he would. unfortunately, i actually suspect that trudeau will end up preferring harper's appointees over those of his liberal predecessors, as he is ideologically closer to harper than he is to them.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stacking-the-supreme-court-1.4157799