Profile: Canadian Conservative Leader and Prime Minister Stephen Harper

by Rob Walker | October 10, 2008 at 11:11 am

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Current Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the twenty-second Canadian PM, winning a minority government in the January 2006 federal election.

He was born in Toronto in 1959, moving to Alberta in '78. He studied at the University of Calgary and earned a bachelors and masters degree in Economics.

It was in school where he became interested in politics, first joining the Young Liberals and soon leaving to join the Progressive Conservatives and eventually, in 1987, entered into professional politics as the Reform party's Chief Policy Officer.

He ran against Stockwell Day and won the leadership of the Canadian Alliance in 2002, which eventually merged with the Progressive Conservative party in 2003, becoming the current 'Conservative Party of Canada'.

His first 18 months as opposition leader were largely devoted towards consolidating the fractured elements of the Canadian Alliance and encouraging a union of the Canadian Alliance and the federal Progressive Conservatives. The aim of this union was to present only one right-of-centre national party in the next federal election, thus preventing the vote-splitting of the past. In undertaking the merger talks, PC leader Peter MacKay reversed his previous agreement with leadership opponent David Orchard not to merge with the Alliance. After reaching an agreement with MacKay in October 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada officially merged in December, with the new party being named the "Conservative Party of Canada".

Earlier this week I put together a list of all the various parties in the Canadian election and their platforms. You can find the Conservative party platform here:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper understands the global financial crisis. His plan for the way forward has been clear and consistent: balanced budgets, lower taxes, investments to create jobs and keeping inflation low.

Here's the Conservative take on Harper's actions during his time as Prime Minister:

As Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has delivered real action on the priorities of all Canadian families including:

Passing the tough new political fundraising rules that take the big money, corporations and unions out of political party financing.

Reducing the GST from 7% to 6% and now, to 5%.

Providing $1,200 per year, per child under six, that parents can spend on their own child care priorities.

Giving Canadians tax credits for money spent on transit passes, textbooks and kids’ sports.

And of course he wouldn't be a nation's leader without some controversy under his belt, namely crapping on the East Coast as 'gimme' provinces.

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." [38] These statements were publicized and criticized during the 2006 election. Harper argued that the speech was intended as humour, and not as serious analysis.[39]