The years 2001–06 marked a tumultuous transition for Canadian conservatism. At the beginning of 2001, the newly minted Canadian Alliance started to fragment as its leader, Stockwell Day, got into serious trouble. Thirteen members left, most to join the Democratic Representative Caucus, which existed for some months in loose alliance with the Progressive Conservatives. Things seemed to be getting worse for the political right as now there were three conservative entities in Parliament, instead of two. Then in quick succession came:

a leadership race for the Alliance, won by Stephen Harper in March 2002, promptly followed by the reintegration...

Like many people of an academic bent, I went through various phases of political belief when I was young. I thought of myself as a conservative, liberal, and social democrat at different times in my twenties and early thirties, until I encountered the works of Friedrich Hayek in 1977. ReadingThe Constitution of Libertyand, later, the three volumes ofLaw, Legislation and Libertyconvinced me that Hayek was fundamentally right about his central concept of spontaneous order.¹

InLaw, Legislation, and Liberty,Hayek argued that society is a “spontaneous order,” generating itself out of the transactions of individual human...

After Stephen stepped down as president of the National Citizens Coalition in August and our “Draft Harper” website went live in September, speculation switched from “if” he would enter the race to “when.”¹ His appearances at local Alliance functions were well received by attendees and well reported by local media.² Every time Stephen made a public speech, a rash of small cheques in the $50 to $150 range would show up in the Draft Harper mailbox. People seemed to find him compelling when they met him in person and heard what he had to say. These events were characterized by...

After he won the Alliance leadership, Stephen asked me to go to Ottawa to become chief of staff of the Office of the Leader of the Opposition (OLO). I was intrigued by the offer, but it wasn’t practical to accept it for the long term. My wife didn’t want to move to Ottawa for an indefinite number of years, nor did I want really to break with my academic career. Marianne and I finally agreed that we would go to Ottawa for a year to help Stephen get set up there.

There did, however, have to be some delay. I...

The outcome of the Perth-Middlesex by-election convinced Harper that it was essential to pursue cooperation with the Progressive Conservatives now that Joe Clark was about to retire. He was not deterred by the outcome of their leadership race, which Peter MacKay won by promising David Orchard in writing that he would make no agreement with the Canadian Alliance. In fact, the deal with MacKay encouraged Stephen to take the initiative, for it had to have made the more right-wing PCs unhappy. And if MacKay would make a deal with Orchard, maybe he would make another deal with Harper. I had...

The leader’s importance to a Canadian political party sets real limits on how much campaign preparation can be carried out without knowing who the leader will be. No matter who the leader is, the party will need to set up a war room, lease a jet and buses for the tour, and nominate candidates; but the most politically sensitive matters are specific to the leader. If Belinda Stronach had won the leadership race, her election platform, campaign slogan, and advertising would have been quite different from Stephen’s. She would also have wanted to bring in John Laschinger and other senior...

In line with the Liberal campaign slogan, “Choose Your Canada,” Paul Martin opened the 2004 campaign by polarizing against Stephen Harper, whom he tried to associate with us values. After visiting the governor general, Martin spoke to reporters outside Rideau Hall: “You can have a country like Canada. You can have a country like the United States. That’s a choice you can make. But you cannot have a health-care system like Canada’s … [and] social programs like Canada’s with taxation levels like those of the United States.”¹ It was similar to what Jean Chrétien had said on the opening day...

The results of the vote on 28 June 2004 were something of a shock. We had thought we might lose; but we expected at least to finish close to the Liberals, not to trail by seven percentage points of popular vote and thirty-six seats. Bringing the Liberals down to a minority government was important in terms of setting up our ultimate victory in 2006, but at the time it seemed like a minimal success.

Stephen was less than buoyant the next day, as recounted in theCalgary Herald:

In comments on his campaign jet the morning after the Liberals eked...

Following the spring 2005 misadventure, Stephen said that he would not again try to force an election without the NDP on side.¹ We were mentally preparing for an election in early 2006. The prospect was not encouraging, for the Liberals would have had a chance to receive Justice Gomery’s final report, accept his findings, and go to the voters on a reform platform, including a new budget.

Meanwhile the New Democrats, alarmed by the Supreme Court’sChaoullidecision legalizing private health-care insurance in Quebec, were trying to get Paul Martin to take steps to “protect” public health care. But Martin...

In the last five years, Canadian conservatives have made more progress than anyone expected, but the work is far from done. Canada is not yet a conservative or Conservative country; neither the philosophy of conservatism nor the party brand comes close to commanding majority support. Conservatives are able to win an election at least partly because liberals, social democrats, anti-American nationalists, environmentalists, feminists, and Quebec separatists are divided in their party allegiance among the Liberals, New Democrats, BQ, and Greens.

Some have argued recently that Canadian conservatives have to build for the long term, trying to affect public opinion so...

In the national election of 14 October 2008, the Conservatives increased their share of the popular vote from 36.3 percent to 37.7 percent and won 143 seats, coming tantalizingly close to a majority government. The Liberals’ popular vote fell from 30.2 percent to 26.3 percent – their worst performance since Confederation – and their seat total fell to seventy-seven. Thus, in spite of not quite reaching a majority, this election was another forward step in the Conservatives’ long march toward replacing the Liberals as the dominant party in national politics.

This chapter is unlike the others in this book because it was...

In his victory address on the night of 14 October 2008, Stephen invoked the ancient words from Ecclesiastes, “To every thing there is a season ...”¹ He seemed to imply that the time for political conflict had ended with the campaign and that the new Parliament would be more harmonious than the “dysfunctional” old Parliament to which he had referred when he asked for an early election. But things quickly moved in the opposite direction because of the ever-worsening global recession.

During the campaign, Harper, like the other party leaders, had promised to keep the government away from deficit spending,...