Given that Harper won 3 elections and was Prime Minister for nearly 10 years I'm not sure that he "paid the consequences"?  

As for "small government", government program expenditures were actually slightly HIGHER (relative to GDP) after Harper was finished, not lower.  So our government was very slightly bigger at the end of 2015 than it was at the end of 2005.  The change was largely due to increased transfers to the Provinces while most other things stayed more or less the same. 

The only thing that became smaller under Harper and the Conservatives was the military who saw spending fall from 1.4% of GDP down to 1.0% of GDP.

As far as social safety systems, the Federal government doesn't operate many of them, most are run by the Provinces (as they have been for a long time), so it is unclear just what systems people think Harper either did, or wanted to, cut.