FILE--Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces, during a snowstorm, that Governor General Michaelle Jean approved his recommendation to prorogue Parliament at Rideau Hall in Ottawa Thursday, Dec. 4 , 2008. If six months is a lifetime in politics, then the past year was that and a reincarnation rolled into one for Stephen Harper. The prime minister went from spinning the government into full-blown crisis last November with an inflammatory and nearly suicidal economic statement, to being reborn at the top of the polls a year later.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tom Hanson