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OTTAWA — On April 25, 2003, Stephen Harper appeared at a gathering of conservatives in Toronto brought together by the Civitas group.

He was leader of the Canadian Alliance party, a thankless job with little likelihood he could knock the governing Liberals from their perch.

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But Mr. Harper’s speech that day, later reprinted in an essay, was remarkably prescient.

For anyone who cared to notice, it revealed how he would one day turn Canadian foreign policy on its head and, perhaps most notably, make this country the world’s most fervent ally of Israel.

Mr. Harper said Canada’s conservatives needed to “rediscover” the traditional conservatism of political philosopher Edmund Burke, which valued “social order,” custom and religious traditions.

“We need to rediscover Burkean conservatism because the emerging debates on foreign affairs should be fought on moral grounds,” said Mr. Harper.