It was on this date in 2002 that Stephen Harper returned to the House of Commons, this time as leader of the new Canadian Alliance party. The Calgary seat he was elected to represent was vacated when Reform Party founder Preston Manning stepped down, making way for Harper. Mr. Harper had first been elected to the House in 1993 but chose not to seek re-election in the 1997 campaign. He then sought the leadership of the Canadian Alliance – which arose of the Reform Party – and his journey to the Prime Minister’s Office truly began. By early 2006 he was Prime Minister and went on to become Canada’s sixth longest-serving PM, staying in office until 2015. caption id="attachment_286445" align="aligncenter" width="400" Canadian Alliance Leader Stephen Harper, with Peter MacKay, 2003/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.