Stephen Harper is consistently consistent. The prime minister has been known to change his mind. But such events are rare.

A practitioner of Brian Mulroney’s famous credo that “ya dance with the one that brung ya,” Harper is careful to assuage his party’s brand of small-c conservatives — even though they represent only a fraction of the electorate at large.

From this comes his otherwise inexplicable attack on the collecting of statistical information by Statistics Canada as well as his frequent bows to the hard-line gun lobby.

As Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has discovered, he is unforgiving to a degree that shades into petulance.

And he doesn’t change. With just a few months remaining until the next federal election, the prime minister remains the man he has always been.

Consider just a few recent events:

Endangered species. As the Star reported this week, Canada has chosen to opt out of a recent international decision to restrict trade in 76 endangered species.

Exactly why the Harper government took this drastic step is unclear. Those involved in last year’s meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) say the scale of Canada’s rejection is unprecedented.

Most of the 76 species, which include ebony and manta rays, are neither native to Canada nor harvested by Canadians.

But the Conservative government doesn’t much like CITES. It is particularly irked that many signatories to the convention would like to restrict the international trade in polar bear body parts.

Beyond this is Harper’s general hostility toward environmental protection.

In 2012, his government axed a host of environmental regulations designed to protect Canadian fish. Now it is opting out of measures designed to protect tropical ebony trees.

Strange, perhaps. But consistent.

Climate change. Here the Harper government has become, if anything, more obdurate in its opposition to measures aimed at curbing global warming.

In 2009, it set weak targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases. But a report Monday from the federal environment department shows that it won’t even meet those.

When oil prices were high, Harper said it would be unfair to curb the tarsands boom by putting a price on carbon emissions.

Now that oil prices have slipped, the prime minister says that enacting measures to deal with climate change would be crazy.

He did send Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq this week to an international conference in Peru charged with preparing for next year’s Paris climate-change summit.

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There she promoted the use of what she called traditional knowledge.

She also said (incorrectly) that Canada’s efforts in curbing climate change have been an unadulterated success.

Pique. Harper has a dark side. In 2001, he helped pen a bitter letter calling on Alberta to create a “firewall” that would protect the province from Ottawa’s depredations.

After his Conservatives lost the 2004 election, he disappeared from public view for nine weeks — apparently because he was in a snit.

Former adviser Tom Flanagan later wrote that Harper suffers from bouts of depression

Now the prime minister is refusing to meet Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, even though the laws of politics say he should.

Why? The only explanation I can come up with is pique. The last time the two met, Wynne accused Harper of smirking. That wasn’t gracious of her. But most politicians would get over it.

Harper hasn’t. What’s interesting is that, even though his political interests would be furthered by being seen with the premier of Canada’s largest province, he can’t bring himself to do it.

Meanwhile, Wynne is having quite a lark. She reminds the media regularly that she is a woman scorned. She has turned a non-issue (meetings between prime ministers and premiers rarely accomplish anything substantive) into a political asset.

And the prime minister has let her do it.

But that’s our Stephen Harper. He is who he is, even when — as today — he risks being desperately out of touch.

Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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