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In both style and substance, Stephen Harper is trying to tell voters — particularly in Ontario — that the man who once called for a “firewall” around Alberta to protect it from the depredations of the rest of Canada has mellowed. “He's presenting a friendlier face to our fellow citizens in Ontario,” says University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper, a long-time Harper ally and sometime confidante. “I think he hasn't changed his mind exactly, but packaged things so the rhetoric seems more friendly. The packaging has changed so it's not as scary.”

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