Stephen Harper

The Harper family traces its ancestral roots back to Yorkshire, England, with Christopher Harper having emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1784, where he later served as justice of the peace in the area that is now New Brunswick.

Harper attended Northlea Public School and, later, John G. Althouse Middle School and Richview Collegiate Institute, both in Etobicoke, Toronto.

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 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 studied at the University of Toronto's Trinity College before moving to Alberta.

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.

Harper studied economics, earning a bachelor's degree in 1985 and a master's degree in 1991 at the University of Calgary.

He took up post-secondary studies again at the University of Calgary, where he completed a bachelor's degree in economics in 1985.

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.

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 and losing 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 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 was one of the founders of the Reform Party of Canada and was first elected in 1993 in Calgary West.

He did not seek re-election in the 1997 federal election, instead joining and later leading the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative lobbyist group.

In 2002, he succeeded Stockwell Day as leader of the Canadian Alliance, the successor to the Reform Party, and returned to parliament as leader of the Official Opposition.

At that time Harper "didn't see himself as a politician", Mansell told CBC News in 2002, adding, "Politics was not his first love."

In 2003, Harper negotiated the merger of the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to form the Conservative Party of Canada and was elected as the party's first leader in March 2004.

Harper is the first and only prime minister to come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, serving as the party's first leader from 2004 to 2015.

In the 2004 federal election, the new party lost its first election to the Liberal Party led by Paul Martin.

The 2006 federal election resulted in a minority government led by the Conservative Party with Harper becoming prime minister of Canada.

During his first term, Harper confronted the In and Out scandal, reduced the goods and services tax to five percent, and passed the Federal Accountability Act, the Québécois nation motion, and the Veterans' Bill of Rights.

After the 2008 federal election, in which the Conservatives won a larger minority, Harper prorogued Parliament to defeat a non-confidence motion by a potential coalition of opposition parties, passed the Economic Action Plan of major personal income tax cuts and infrastructure investments in response to the Great Recession, introduced the tax-free savings account, and ordered military intervention during the First Libyan Civil War.

In March 2011, a no-confidence vote found his government to be in contempt of Parliament, triggering a federal election in which the Conservatives won a majority government.

During his third term, Harper withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol, launched Operation Impact in opposition to ISIL, repealed the long-gun registry, passed the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, launched Canada's Global Markets Action Plan, and grappled with controversies surrounding the Canadian Senate expenses scandal and the Robocall scandal.

In the 2015 federal election, the Conservative Party lost power to the Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau.

Harper officially stepped down as party leader on October 19, 2015, and resigned his seat on August 26, 2016.

Since then, Harper has taken on a number of international business and leadership roles, founding a global consulting firm, appearing in US and British media, and being elected leader of the International Democrat Union.

Harper was born and raised in Leaside, a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, the first of three sons of Margaret (née Johnston) and Joseph Harris Harper, an accountant at Imperial Oil.