Former prime minister Stephen Harper donated more than 1.2 million official photographs to the federal archives, according to records..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the complete collection of Harper's photos, emails and related items represents the largest contribution by any prime minister, for which he received an undisclosed tax credit..“The Stephen J. Harper fonds is the largest digital collection received by Library and Archives to date,” said an Evaluation Report on the Prime Minister Papers Project 2017-2022. .“It is 50 times larger than any previous transfer of digital records handled by Library and Archives Canada and is 330 times larger than any preceding Prime Minister Papers project.”.The Harper collection comprised 620 boxes of documents, “170 boxes of personal objects,” 113 terabytes of digital records, 1.2 million photographs and “48 hours of oral history interviews with Stephen Harper.” It took 65 employees more than six years and $6,743,658 to process the records for future public disclosure..The accounts did not disclose the specific value of any payments or tax credits received by Harper for his records. However, when they left office, former leaders Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney each received $1 million in federal tax credits for archiving their personal papers. The cost of acquiring Jean Chretien's records was not revealed..The federal archives have gathered the papers of every prime minister since R.B. Bennett, who had left instructions for his records to be destroyed upon his passing in England in 1947..The Harper collection contains more documents than the previous record held by the William Lyon Mackenzie King collection, which had around 1.8 million documents. King's records included daily diary entries from 1893 to 1949..“Management acknowledged they realized very early into the project their past experience dealing with Prime Minister Projects was based on analog records and could not be applied to the digital material in the current donation,” said Evaluation Report. .“The Stephen J. Harper fonds was an eye-opening experience for them and laid the groundwork for approaching similar future projects.”.Harper left office in 2015. Archivists only completed work on his records on August 31, 2022, including sorting documents by two separate teams, “a liaison team providing liaison between Library and Archives Canada and Stephen Harper’s office and a Library and Archives archival team.”.“The private documents of former prime ministers created during their years in office are of great significance as they provide a context for understanding decision-making in the highest political office in the country,” said Evaluation. .“They are essential to the preservation of Canada’s history and allow users and researchers to study the decisions that have shaped the socio-political landscape of the country.”
