After Harper lost this was portrayed as an indictment of his government, his style, and his foreign policy by Liberals, including Jean Chretien, Paul Martin and Michael Ignatieff, as well as the NDP, of course, and much of the media.
Trudeau made it the central plank of his foreign policy, so much so that he bragged "Canada's Back" to an adoring crowd of Foreign Affairs bureaucrats and to the UN, as if the 'bad' days of Harper not doing our traditional role of always avoiding taking a stand on anything was now over and the world would love us again. Unfortunately for him he then went on to mismanage almost every important file through his endless virtue signalling. He made a fool of himself in India, and then blamed the Indians. He was all-but booted out of China when he tried to lecture them on womens and labour rights. The US government treats him with barely concealed contempt. The Russians laugh at him. The Saudis hate him. He pissed off everyone from Vietnam to Australia and Japan with the stunt he pulled at the TPP signing. What a joke this guy is.