Prime Minister Stephen Harper has worked through the right-leaning parties in Canada, and as Leader of the Canadian Alliance Party oversaw its merger with the Progressive Conservatives to form the new Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. By nature more comfortable with policy than as a political glad-hander, Stephen Harper has slowly become more at ease in leadership. He ran a meticulous campaign in the 2006 federal election, and led the Conservatives to a minority government. In the 2008 federal election he increased the size of that minority.
Stephen Harper became increasingly impatient with the constraints that minority government put on his plans. Always a tightly controlling manager, he got more controlling, both with his own MPs and the public service, was increasingly aggressive in attacking the opposition rather than consensus building, and ignored parliament, which he described as "just political games."
In the 2011 federal election, he ran a scripted campaign based on fear, giving the same speech several times a day throughout the entire campaign, and taking few questions. The strategy worked and he won a majority government. His government is left with little presence in Quebec however. He also faces a newly energized NDP in Official Opposition, which has dozens of new and young MPs. Right after the election, Stephen Harper told reporters his plan is to make the Conservatives a mainstream government, ruling closer to the centre.
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