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 is to date the only prime minister to have been a member of the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, being the party's co-founder and serving as its first leader from 2004 to 2015. Since 2018, he has been the chairman of the International Democracy Union. Born in Leaside, now a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Harper studied economics, earning his bachelor's and master's degrees in 1985 and 1991, respectively, from the University of Calgary. He was a founder of the Reform Party of Canada and was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1993 federal election in the riding of Calgary West. He did not seek re-election in 1997 and instead joined and later led the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative lobbyist group. In 2002, Harper defeated Stockwell Day to become leader of the Canadian Alliance, the successor to the Reform Party, and returned to Parliament as the leader of the Opposition. In 2003, Harper and Progressive Conservative Party leader Peter MacKay agreed to merge the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservatives to form the Conservative Party of Canada. Harper was elected as the party's first leader in 2004. He led the Conservatives in the 2004 federal election, which it lost to Paul Martin's Liberal Party. In the 2006 federal election, Harper led the Conservatives to a minority government. During Harper's premiership, he faced the In and Out scandal, reduced the goods and services tax (GST) to 5%, and passed the Federal Accountability Act, the Québécois nation motion, and the Veterans' Bill of Rights. Harper led the Conservatives to a larger minority government in the 2008 federal election, after which he prorogued Parliament to avoid defeat by a proposed coalition of opposition parties, advanced the Economic Action Plan of personal income tax cuts and infrastructure investments in response to the Great Recession, introduced the tax-free savings account, and authorized military intervention during the First Libyan Civil War. In March 2011, Harper's government was found in a vote of no confidence to be in contempt of Parliament, triggering a federal election in which he led the Conservatives to a majority government. He subsequently repealed the long-gun registry, privatized the Canadian Wheat Board, enacted the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, and reduced Canada's budget deficit from $55.6 billion in 2009 to $2.9 billion in 2015. In foreign policy, Harper withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol, launched Canada's Global Markets Action Plan, negotiated free trade agreements, and authorized Operation Impact against ISIL and Operation Unifier following the Russian annexation of Crimea. Harper's Conservatives also faced controversies in the Robocall scandal and the Canadian Senate expenses scandal, and confronted the Idle No More movement. In the 2015 federal election, the Conservative Party was defeated by the Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau. Harper officially stepped down as party leader in October 2015, and resigned his seat in August 2016. Since then, he has taken on several international business and leadership roles, including founding a global consulting firm, appearing in U.S. and British media, and being elected as chairman of the International Democracy Union, an international alliance of centre-right to right-wing political parties. The longest-serving conservative prime minister since John A. Macdonald, Harper ranks average to above-average in rankings of prime ministers of Canada.