Stephen Harper’s finance minister, 2007-.  Flaherty was the only person in Ontario’s 1990s kick-the-poor Conservative regime to the right of Premier Mike Harris himself. That Stephen Harper has made Flaherty his finance minister, and allows him off the leash regularly despite his tendency to put his foot into brown and messy things, either says a lot about where Harper would like to take Canada politically, or about just how little other talent is available within the party ranks.