Kevin Libin points out just how little today’s Stephen Harper resembles the young Reform Party MP when he first went to Ottawa:
Who’s that Prime Minister in Ottawa preparing to appoint a string of partisan senators tomorrow, and dreaming of converting the G8 from an economic focus to one of promoting health care for mothers and children in the developing world — and what’s he done with Stephen Harper? The man who first came to Ottawa as a Reform MP in 1993 with an agenda to privatize social services, restrict immigration and end Upper Chamber patronage would likely not recognize the Conservative leader of today, and not just because of the greyer hair.
Mr. Harper has come a vast distance in his approach to policy in the four years he’s been running the federal government, rather than sniping at it from inside a regionally focused rump party. “How much of that is the natural evolution, or maturity and wisdom or prudence that comes with age,” says Faron Ellis, a Lethbridge College political scientist and author of a book on the Reform party’s history, as opposed to a “political learning curve,” is hard to say. Whatever the reasons, there’s no question, things look much different in Stephen Harper’s mirror than they did 17 years ago.
