From the economy to the environment, social programs to foreign policy, immigration reforms to tax cuts, the tar sands to free trade deals, and many other areas, the 36 contributors to The Harper Record 2008–2015 detail the facts and key moments of the 40th and 41st Parliaments. [...] In each case we see the importance of the 2008 financial crisis to achiev- ing the government’s objectives: from stimulus to austerity there is an organic con- nection between the government’s response to the Great Recession and its system- ic transformation of the role of the Canadian state. [...] The uncertain and precar- ious economic situation during the recovery was the perfect ideological device to undermine opposition to the cuts, and to weaken the voices of the most marginal- ized (O’Manique). [...] Ironically, the prime min- ister’s insincerity on the day of the apology may prove the greatest obstacle to the achievement of one of his government’s highest ambitions: getting natural resour- ces out of the ground and to markets. [...] The policy of assimilation The belief that the interests of Canada and of Indigenous peoples are best served by the assimilation of the latter into the “mainstream” socioeconomic culture is as old as the country itself.