Who was Stephen Harper?

Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) was Canada's 22nd Prime Minister, serving from February 6, 2006 to November 4, 2015. Harper was a Conservative and led the Conservative Party of Canada from March 20, 2004 to October 19, 2015. He won three consecutive federal elections (2006 minority, 2008 minority, 2011 majority), becoming the longest-serving Conservative Prime Minister in modern Canadian history.

Harper was born in Toronto and raised in Calgary, where he became one of the founders of the Reform Party of Canada in 1987 (a populist Western conservative party led by Preston Manning). Harper served as Reform MP for Calgary West from 1993 to 1997, then resigned to lead the National Citizens Coalition (1998 to 2002). He returned to politics to lead the Canadian Alliance (successor to Reform) in 2002 and led the merger with the Progressive Conservatives in December 2003 to form the new Conservative Party of Canada.

Harper's government reduced the GST from 7 per cent to 6 per cent (July 1, 2006) and to 5 per cent (January 1, 2008), the only sustained reduction in Canadian consumption-tax history. The 2008 federal apology for Indian residential schools (June 11, 2008) was a landmark moment in Canadian Indigenous reconciliation, delivered by Harper in the House of Commons. Harper led Canada through the 2008 financial crisis with stimulus spending of about $40 billion (Canada's Economic Action Plan), the orderly resolution of Canada's banking sector (with no major bank failures), and the General Motors Canada and Chrysler Canada bailouts of 2009.

Other Harper-era milestones include the Federal Accountability Act of 2006 (the principal post-sponsorship-scandal reform statute), the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (established 2008 under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, reporting 2015), the federal recognition of Quebec as a 'nation within a united Canada' (November 27, 2006, non-binding political motion), the abolition of the long-form census (2010, restored under Justin Trudeau), the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act of 2014 (later partly repealed by Bill C-6 of 2017), and Canada's modest combat role in Afghanistan (2001 to 2014, with 158 Canadian deaths). Harper lost the 2015 federal election to Justin Trudeau and retired from politics on November 4, 2015. He has since served as chair of the International Democrat Union and founded a strategy consultancy.