Ken Boessenkool: Stephen Harper’s true legacy is united conservative party

Ken Boessenkool: Manning wanted a party that was populist first, conservative second. Harper wanted a party that was conservative first and populist second. It was what he said in 1987. It is what he said in 1997. And it was what he said in 2003 in what I consider to be the most foundational speech of his life — a speech I helped craft. That speech to Civitas (a small gathering of Canada’s not-vast-enough right-wing conspiracy) laid the foundations for his decade in power. It laid out the governing philosophy for a conservative party of Canada, even though that party did not exist yet. (You can find distillation of that speech, Harper’s government philosophy and his achievements in office in a book-length piece written by Sean Speer and I here.)…