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The Right Honourable Stephen Harper is Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister. He is also leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, and represents the riding of Calgary—Southwest.

Harper assumed the role of prime minister on February 6, 2006 after his Conservative Party won a minority government in the federal election held on January 23, 2006. The Conservatives ran a successful campaign, due in part to the sponsorship scandal, the public’s general fatigue with the Liberal Party, as well as campaign gaffes by the Liberal Party. Moreover, an RCMP investigation into insider trading over the Liberal government’s income trust decision also hampered the federal Liberal Party’s election prospects.

Since taking office, Prime Minister Harper and his Conservative government have taken a strong stand on several issues. Perhaps most notable is the emphasis on Canada’s mission in Afghanistan; generally, the Conservative government has increased funding to support Canada’s military (to purchase new equipment), while specifically pushing for keeping the nation’s troops in Afghanistan until 2009 or longer. The Conservatives also followed through on their promise to reduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by one per cent in 2007 and 2008, respectively. The Conservative government has introduced other tax cuts since taking office. In the 2008 federal budget, it introduced a new Tax-Free Spending Account, which has generally received positive reviews.

During its tenure, the Conservative government has also faced criticism, perhaps most strongly around its position on the issue of climate change and global warming. In an upcoming election, this will be a key election topic. Other issues will be health care, the economy and Afghanistan.

Harper and the Politics of Conservatism

Harper has had a vibrant, and sometimes tumultuous, political career. In short, he served as a political operative behind the scenes, held office, retired and then returned to public life. Harper’s involvement in politics spans more than two decades. He was leader of the Official Opposition from 2004 to 2006, to then-Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberal minority government. There was rampant speculation that Harper would retire when the Conservatives failed to win the 2004 election; however, he soon put the matter to rest.

Harper is the first leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada, which came into being in December 2003. This new party is the apex of a significant period of transformation — in which Harper has been a major player — in federal politics on the right in Canada. From Confederation, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC) dominated the political right; however, that political landscape began to change beginning in the mid-1980s. Harper had a short-lived dalliance with the PC Party in the 1980s under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, but severed ties because he became disillusioned. In the 1980s, a grassroots movement in Western Canada, buoyed by key themes such as Western alienation, the sitting PC government’s alleged favouritsm of Quebec and lack of fiscal responsibility, leading to the creation of the Reform Party of Canada.

Then-Reform Party leader Preston Manning invited Harper to make a speech at the Party’s founding convention in 1987, and later made him his chief policy officer. Harper is credited with having a major influence on the Reform Party’s 1988 election platform. He ran as a Reform candidate in the 1988 election, but lost, only to serve as chief advisor and speechwriter for Deborah Grey, the Reform Party’s only elected Member of Parliament, beginning in 1989. In 1993, he stepped into public himself by running as the candidate for the riding of Calgary West — a contest which he won. Harper then went on to serve one term only. During his time as a Member of Parliament, he differed with his party on some key policy issues; in 1995, for example, he was one of only two Reform MPs to vote in favour of federal legislation requiring owners to register their guns. In 1997, Harper stepped out of politics for a number of years, only to return to contest the leadership of the Canadian Alliance Party (formerly the Reform Party). He was successful in his 2002 leadership bid and also won the constituency of Calgary Southwest in a federal by-election.

As Canadian Alliance leader, Harper worked to heal divisions that had emerged within his party; several prominent caucus members had defected in favour of a coalition with the Progressive Conservative Party, led by former Prime Minister Joe Clark. By April 2002, all but one of the dissidents had returned to the Canadian Alliance. Harper then worked to consolidate the various conservative elements to end vote-splitting on the highly fractured right, entering into negotiations with then-PC Party leader Peter MacKay regarding a merger. Despite harsh criticism and discussions that initially failed, the new Conservative Party of Canada emerged — the product of a union between the Canadian Alliance Party and the Progressive Conservative Party.

Political Ideology

Between 1997 and 2002, when Harper was out of public life, he served as president of the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative think tank and lobby group that advocates free enterprise, free speech, and government that is accountable to its taxpayers.

Harper opposed new federal legislation that placed restrictions on political advertising of private interest groups during federal elections. Harper took the federal government to court, arguing that it violated constitutional rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and the right to vote. The case of R. v. Harper was eventually heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the legislation, concluding it was constitutional under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Harper also continued to comment on the general direction of Canadian politics. In 2001, along with five other right-wing politicians and academics from Alberta, Harper published “The Alberta Agenda,” an open letter to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein. The group called for building a “firewall” around Alberta to limit the extent to which an “aggressive and hostile” federal government could encroach upon areas of provincial jurisdiction. Specific recommendations included Alberta’s withdrawal from the Canada Pension Plan (replacing it with a provincial plan); provincial collection of personal income taxes; creation of a provincial police force to replace the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); resumption of provincial responsibility over health care policy; and a push for Senate reform as a major national agenda issue.

Harper’s political ideology and views were shaped during his university days; he was exposed to several political ideologies and perspectives that have contributed to the development of modern Canadian conservatism. One was neo-liberalism, or right-wing liberalism, which favours a limited role for government in a nation’s social and economic development. Noted US economist Milton Friedman, former US President Ronald Reagan. and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher espoused this brand of liberalism. Another important influence was Western alienation, which argues that the interests of Central Canada (that is, Ontario and Quebec) dominate politics in Canada, while Western Canadian interests receive second billing or are completely disregarded in national policy. In this regard, a significant ‘touch point’ occurred when former the Liberal government, helmed by Pierre Trudeau, introduced its National Energy Program, which sought to stabilize national energy supplies and prices through federal regulation of the oil and gas sector in Western Canada.

A Personal Snapshot

Stephen Harper was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1959, and grew up in the suburbs of Leaside and Etobicoke. Following graduation from high school, he moved to Alberta to work briefly in the oil industry, and then entered post-secondary studies at the University of Calgary, where he graduated with a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Calgary. In 1993, Harper married Laureen Teskey. They have two children, Benjamin and Rachel.