Background and career
Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. He is the only prime minister to have belonged to the modern Conservative Party of Canada. He co-founded the party and served as its first leader from 2004 to 2015. Since 2018, he has been the chairman of the International Democracy Union. Born in Leaside, now a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Harper studied economics, earning his bachelor's and master's degrees in 1985 and 1991, respectively, from the University of Calgary. He was a founder of the Reform Party of Canada and was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1993 federal election in the riding of Calgary West. He did not seek re-election in 1997 and instead joined and later led the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative lobbyist group. In 2002, Harper defeated Stockwell Day to become leader of the Canadian Alliance, the successor to the Reform Party, and returned to Parliament as the leader of the Opposition. In 2003, Harper and Progressive Conservative Party leader Peter MacKay agreed to merge the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservatives to form the Conservative Party of Canada. Harper was elected as the party's first leader in 2004. He led the Conservatives in the 2004 federal election, in which they lost to Paul Martin's Liberal Party. Harper led the Conservatives to a minority government in the 2006 federal election. During Harper's premiership, he faced the In and Out scandal, reduced the goods and services tax (GST) to 5%, and passed the Federal Accountability Act, the Québécois nation motion, and the Veterans' Bill of Rights. Harper led the Conservatives to a larger minority government in the 2008 federal election, after which he prorogued Parliament to avoid defeat by a proposed coalition of opposition parties, advanced the Economic Action Plan of personal income tax cuts and infrastructure investments in response to the Great Recession, introduced the tax-free savings account, and authorized military intervention during the First Libyan Civil War. In March 2011, Harper's government was found to be in contempt of Parliament in a vote of no confidence, triggering a federal election in which he led the Conservatives to a majority government. He subsequently repealed the long-gun registry, privatized the Canadian Wheat Board, enacted the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, and reduced Canada's budget deficit from $55.6 billion in 2009 to $2.9 billion in 2015. In foreign policy, Harper withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol, launched Canada's Global Markets Action Plan, negotiated free trade agreements, and authorized Operation Impact against ISIL and Operation Unifier following the Russian annexation of Crimea. Harper's Conservatives also faced controversies in the Robocall scandal and the Canadian Senate expenses scandal, and the Idle No More movement emerged during his premiership. In the 2015 federal election, the Conservative Party was defeated by the Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau. Harper officially stepped down as party leader in October 2015 and resigned his seat in August 2016. Since then, he has taken on several international business and leadership roles, including founding a global consulting firm, appearing in U.S. and British media, and being elected as chairman of the International Democracy Union, an international alliance of centre-right to right-wing political parties. Harper was the longest-serving conservative prime minister since John A. Macdonald.
Harper was born and raised in the Town of Leaside, now a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, the first of three sons of Margaret (née Johnston) and Joseph Harris Harper, an accountant at Imperial Oil. The Harper family traces its ancestral roots back to Sledmere, a village in Yorkshire, England, with Harper's 4th great-grandfather Christopher having emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1774, where he later served as justice of the peace in the area that is now New Brunswick. Harper attended Northlea Public School in Leaside and, later, John G. Althouse Middle School and Richview Collegiate Institute, both in Etobicoke, Toronto. He graduated from high school in 1978 and was a member of Richview Collegiate's team on Reach for the Top, a televised academic quiz show for high school students. Harper first enrolled at Trinity College at the University of Toronto. In an attempt to establish independence from his parents, Harper dropped out of the University of Toronto and then moved to Edmonton, Alberta, where he found work in the mail room at Imperial Oil. Later, he advanced to work on the company's computer systems. He took up post-secondary studies again at the University of Calgary, where he completed a bachelor's degree in economics in 1985. He later returned there to earn a master's degree in economics, completed in 1991. Throughout his career, Harper has kept strong links to the University of Calgary. Trained as an economist, Harper was the first prime minister with an economics degree since Pierre Trudeau and the first prime minister without a law degree since Joe Clark.
Harper became involved in politics as a member of his high school's Young Liberals club. He later changed his political allegiance because he disagreed with the National Energy Program (NEP) of Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government. He became executive assistant to Progressive Conservative (PC) member of Parliament (MP) Jim Hawkes in 1985 but later became disillusioned with the party and the government of Brian Mulroney, citing the administration's economic policy. He left the PC Party the next year. Harper was then recommended by the University of Calgary's economist Bob Mansell to Preston Manning, the founder and leader of the right-wing populist Reform Party of Canada. At that time, Harper "didn't see himself as a politician", Mansell told CBC News in 2002, adding, "Politics was not his first love." Manning invited him to participate in the party, and Harper gave a speech at Reform's 1987 founding convention in Winnipeg. He became the Reform Party's chief policy officer, and he played a major role in drafting the 1988 election platform, otherwise known as the Blue Book, which helped form the principles and policies of the party. Harper was influenced by his political mentor, Tom Flanagan, when writing the book. Harper is credited with creating Reform's campaign slogan, "The West wants in!" Harper ran for the House of Commons in the 1988 federal election in Calgary West but lost by a wide margin to Hawkes, his former employer. After Reform candidate Deborah Grey was elected as the party's first MP in a 1989 by-election, Harper became Grey's executive assistant, serving as her chief adviser and speechwriter until 1993. He remained prominent in the Reform Party's national organization in his role as policy chief, encouraging the party to expand beyond its Western base and arguing that strictly regional parties were at risk of being taken over by radical elements. He delivered a speech at the Reform Party's 1991 national convention, in which he condemned extremist views. Harper's relationship with Manning became strained in 1992 because of conflicting strategies over the Charlottetown Accord. Harper opposed the accord on principle for ideological reasons, while Manning was initially more open to compromise. Harper also criticized Manning's decision to hire Rick Anderson as an adviser, believing that Anderson was not sufficiently committed to the Reform Party's principles. Harper resigned as the policy chief in October 1992. Harper stood for office again in the 1993 federal election and defeated Jim Hawkes amid a significant Reform breakthrough in Western Canada. The National Citizens Coalition (NCC) ran a $50,000 print and television campaign against Hawkes but did not endorse Harper directly.
Harper emerged as a prominent member of the Reform Party caucus. He was active on constitutional issues and played a prominent role in drafting the Reform Party's strategy for the 1995 Quebec referendum. A long-standing opponent of centralized federalism, he stood with Preston Manning in Montreal to introduce a twenty-point plan to "decentralize and modernize" Canada in the event of a "no" victory. Harper later argued that the "no" side's narrow plurality was a worst-case scenario, in that no one had won a mandate for change. Harper has expressed some socially conservative views on certain issues. In 1994, he opposed plans by federal Justice Minister Allan Rock to introduce spousal benefits for same-sex couples. Citing the recent failure of a similar initiative in Ontario, he was quoted as saying, "What I hope they learn is not to get into it. There are more important social and economic issues, not to mention the unity question." Harper also spoke against the possibility of the Canadian Human Rights Commission or the Supreme Court changing federal policy in these and other matters. At the Reform Party's 1994 policy convention, Harper was part of a small minority of delegates who voted against restricting the definition of marriage to "the union of one man and one woman". He opposed both same-sex marriage and mandated benefits for same-sex couples, but argued that political parties should refrain from taking official positions on these and other "issues of conscience". Harper was the only Reform MP to support the creation of the Canadian Firearms Registry at second reading in 1995, although he later voted against it at third reading stage. He said at the time that he initially voted for the registry because of a poll showing that most of his constituents supported it, and added that he changed his vote when a second poll showed the opposite result. It was reported in April 1995 that some Progressive Conservatives opposed to Jean Charest's leadership wanted to remove both Charest and Manning, and unite the Reform and Progressive Conservative parties under Harper's leadership. Despite his prominent position in the party, Harper's relationship with the Reform Party leadership was frequently strained. In early 1994, he criticized a party decision to establish a personal expense account for Manning at a time when other Reform MPs had been asked to forego parliamentary perquisites. He was formally rebuked by the Reform executive council despite winning support from some MPs. His relationship with Manning grew increasingly fractious in the mid-1990s, and he pointedly declined to express any opinion on Manning's leadership during a 1996 interview. This friction was indicative of a fundamental divide between the two men: Harper was strongly committed to conservative principles and opposed Manning's inclinations toward populism, which Harper saw as leading to compromise on core ideological matters. These tensions culminated in late 1996 when Harper announced that he would not be a candidate in the next federal election. He resigned his parliamentary seat on January 14, 1997, the same day that he was appointed as a vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition (NCC), a conservative think-tank and advocacy group. He was promoted to NCC president later in the year. In April 1997, Harper suggested that the Reform Party was drifting toward social conservatism and ignoring the principles of economic conservatism. The Liberal Party lost seats but managed to retain a narrow majority government in the 1997 federal election, while Reform made only modest gains.
Soon after leaving Parliament, Harper and Tom Flanagan co-authored an opinion piece entitled "Our Benign Dictatorship", which argued that the Liberal Party only retained power through a dysfunctional political system and a divided opposition. Harper and Flanagan argued that federal conservative governments between 1917 and 1993 were founded on temporary alliances between Western populists and Quebec nationalists, and were unable to govern because of their fundamental contradictions. The authors called for an alliance of Canada's conservative parties, and suggested that meaningful political change might require electoral reforms such as proportional representation. "Our Benign Dictatorship" also commended Conrad Black's purchase of the Southam newspaper chain, arguing that his stewardship would provide for a "pluralistic" editorial view to counter the "monolithically liberal and feminist" approach of the previous management. Harper remained active in constitutional issues. He was a prominent opponent of the Calgary Declaration on national unity in late 1997, describing it as an "appeasement strategy" against Quebec nationalism. He called for federalist politicians to reject this strategy and approach future constitutional talks from the position that "Quebec separatists are the problem and they need to be fixed". In late 1999, Harper called for the federal government to establish clear rules for any future Quebec referendum on sovereignty. Some have identified Harper's views as an influence on the Chrétien government's Clarity Act. As president of the National Citizens Coalition (NCC) from 1998 to 2002, Harper launched an ultimately unsuccessful legal battle against federal election laws restricting third-party advertising. He led the NCC in several campaigns against the Canadian Wheat Board, and supported Finance Minister Paul Martin's 2000 tax cuts as a positive first step toward tax reform. In 1997, Harper delivered a controversial speech on Canadian identity to the Council for National Policy, a conservative American think tank. He made comments such as "Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it", "if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians", and "the NDP [New Democratic Party] is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men." These statements were made public and criticized during the 2006 election. Harper argued that the speech was intended as humour rather than serious analysis. Harper considered campaigning for the Progressive Conservative Party leadership in 1998, after Jean Charest left federal politics. Among those encouraging his candidacy were senior aides to Ontario Premier Mike Harris, including Tony Clement and Tom Long. He eventually decided against running, arguing that it would "burn bridges to those Reformers with whom I worked for many years" and prevent an alliance of right-wing parties from taking shape. Harper was sceptical about the Reform Party's United Alternative initiative in 1999, arguing that it would serve to consolidate Manning's hold on the party leadership. He also expressed concern that the UA would dilute Reform's ideological focus. When the United Alternative created the Canadian Alliance in 2000 as a successor party to Reform, Harper predicted that Stockwell Day would defeat Preston Manning for the new party's leadership. He expressed reservations about Day's abilities, however, and accused Day of "[making] adherence to his social views a litmus test to determine whether you're in the party or not". Harper endorsed Tom Long for the leadership, arguing that Long was best suited to take support from the Progressive Conservative Party. When Day placed first on the first ballot, Harper said that the Canadian Alliance was shifting "more towards being a party of the religious right". After the death of Pierre Trudeau in 2000, Harper wrote an editorial criticizing Trudeau's policies as they affected Western Canada. He wrote that Trudeau "embraced the fashionable causes of his time, with variable enthusiasm and differing results", but "took a pass" on the issues that "truly defined his century". Harper subsequently accused Trudeau of promoting "unabashed socialism", and argued that Canadian governments between 1972 and 2002 had restricted economic growth through "state corporatism". After the Canadian Alliance's poor showing in the 2000 election, Harper joined with other Western conservatives in co-authoring a document called the "Alberta Agenda". The letter called on Alberta to reform publicly funded health care, replace the Canada Pension Plan with a provincial plan and replace the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with a provincial police force. It became known as the "firewall letter", because it called on the provincial government to "build firewalls around Alberta" to stop the federal government from redistributing its wealth to less affluent regions. Alberta Premier Ralph Klein agreed with some of the letter's recommendations, but distanced himself from the "firewall" comments. Harper also wrote an editorial in late 2000 arguing that Alberta and the rest of Canada were "embark[ing] on divergent and potentially hostile paths to defining their country". He said that Alberta had chosen the "best of Canada's heritage—a combination of American enterprise and individualism with the British traditions of order and co-operation" while Canada "appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country ... led by a second-world strongman appropriately suited for the task". He also called for a "stronger and much more autonomous Alberta", while rejecting calls for separatism. In the 2001 Alberta provincial election, Harper led the NCC in a "Vote Anything but Liberal" campaign. Some articles from this period described him as a possible successor to Klein. Harper and the NCC endorsed a private school tax credit proposed by Ontario's Progressive Conservative government in 2001, arguing that it would "save about $7,000 for each student who does not attend a union-run public school". Education Minister Janet Ecker criticized this, saying that her government's intent was not to save money at the expense of public education. Day's leadership of the Canadian Alliance became increasingly troubled throughout the summer of 2001, as several party MPs called for his resignation. In June, the National Post newspaper reported that former Reform MP Ian McClelland was organizing a possible leadership challenge on Harper's behalf. Harper announced his resignation from the NCC presidency in August 2001 to prepare a campaign.
Stockwell Day called a new Canadian Alliance leadership race for 2002, and soon declared himself a candidate. Harper emerged as Day's main rival, and declared his own candidacy on December 3, 2001. He eventually won the support of at least 28 Alliance MPs, including Scott Reid, James Rajotte and Keith Martin. During the campaign, Harper reprised his earlier warnings against an alliance with Quebec nationalists, and called for his party to become the federalist option in Quebec. He argued that "the French language is not imperilled in Quebec", and opposed "special status" for the province in the Canadian constitution accordingly. He also endorsed greater provincial autonomy on Medicare, and said that he would not co-operate with the Progressive Conservatives as long as they were led by Joe Clark. On social issues, Harper argued for "parental rights" to use corporal punishment against their children and supported raising the age of sexual consent. He described his potential support base as "similar to what George Bush tapped". The tone of the leadership contest turned hostile in February 2002. Harper described Day's governance of the party as "amateurish", while his campaign team argued that Day was attempting to win re-election by building a narrow support base among different groups in the religious right. The Day campaign accused Harper of "attacking ethnic and religious minorities". In early March, the two candidates had an especially fractious debate on CBC Newsworld. The leadership vote was held on March 20, 2002. Harper was elected on the first ballot with 55% support, against 37% for Day. Two other candidates split the remainder. After winning the party leadership, Harper announced his intention to run for Parliament in a by-election in Calgary Southwest, recently vacated by Preston Manning. Ezra Levant had been chosen as the riding's Alliance candidate and declared that he would not stand aside for Harper; he later reconsidered. The Liberals did not field a candidate, following a parliamentary tradition of allowing opposition leaders to enter the House of Commons unopposed. The Progressive Conservative candidate, Jim Prentice, also chose to withdraw. Harper defeated New Democrat Bill Phipps, a former United Church of Canada moderator. Harper told a reporter during the campaign that he "despise[d]" Phipps, and declined to debate him. Harper officially became the leader of the Official Opposition in May 2002. Later in the same month, he said that the Atlantic Provinces were trapped in "a culture of defeat" which had to be overcome, the result of policies designed by Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments. Many Atlantic politicians condemned the remark as patronizing and insensitive. The Legislature of Nova Scotia unanimously approved a motion condemning Harper's comments, which were also criticized by New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord, federal Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark and others. Harper refused to apologize, and said that much of Canada was trapped by the same "can't-do" attitude. In March 2003, after their speeches in favour of the invasion gained little support in Parliament, Harper and Day co-wrote a letter to The Wall Street Journal in which they condemned the Canadian government's unwillingness to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As party leader, Harper sought to merge the Alliance with the Progressive Conservatives (PCs) to create a united right-of-centre party. The possibility of a united conservative party increased after Peter MacKay was elected Progressive Conservative leader in May 2003. On October 16, 2003, Harper and Mackay agreed to merge the two parties to form the Conservative Party of Canada. After 95% of Alliance members voted in favour of merging with the PCs and 90% of 2,486 PC delegates voted in favour of merging with the Alliance, the Conservative Party of Canada was founded on December 7, 2003.
