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As a young man, I imagine Prime Minister Stephen Harper read Machiavelli and smiled at it "is much safer to be feared than loved".  Indeed, to me, there is one word that applies to our prime minister more than any other: fearful.

And, no, I'm not referring to his being shoved into a closet during the gunman's rampage on Parliament Hill.  No doubt he was following the direction of security staff and whatever training they provided.  Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, offered the chance to take a potshot at the PM largely declined, aptly citing the reality that the Mr Harper probably just did what he was told.

But other matters of public policy demonstrate how fear is such an overriding motivation for Mr Harper.  His fearfulness is more than the Shakespearean maxim "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown"; throughout his tenure, Mr Harper has shown how fear directs his decisions in a greater way than perhaps any other first minister before him.

From the beginning, and likely quite astutely, he feared the press and he feared his ministers saying something foolish.  What looked like wisdom and discretion nine years ago now looks like cowardice when he has moved beyond browbeating backbenchers into silence and instead muzzles government scientists who dare fight back with facts against Conservative ideology.

It is instructive to look at who Harper fears to meet.  A diminutive, bespectacled grandmother dares criticise him, and it strikes a chord; she wins a majority government.  He refused to meet with her for over a year, even to discuss the things taxpayers pay him to do.  Likewise, he won't meet all the premiers at once, lest he be outnumbered and be forced to atone for his unilateral reduction in the increase of health transfers, for instance.

At the height of the Idle No More movement a few years ago, fearful of a mere photo opp, Mr Harper refused to meet with Chief Theresa Spence, whose hunger strike galvanised the nation.  He also wouldn't deign to meet with a group of aboriginal students.  No doubt there are other motivations that play a role in these decisions — a dislike of being contradicted comes to mind for such a single-minded man — but the overarching sentiment seems to be fear: a fear of looking foolish, of being ganged up upon, of his decisions being exposed for the foolishness that many are.

He fears youth voting, lest they support his more charismatic rival, and introduced a bill that seems hellbent on limiting citizens' ability to vote.

Ultimately, he fears that his position is in jeopardy, and so refuses to fight fairly against Mr Trudeau; unleashing partisan-hued governmental advertisements — paid for by our tax dollars — and continuing his massive attack ads, he epitomises what Tolkien's Gandalf tells the fictional son of kings about his rival: "He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear.  Doubt ever gnaws at him."

Nonetheless, the prime minister likes to present himself as a tough, principled leader.  But his chirp to Vladimir Putin over a handshake, his penchant to send troops into battle and his "tough (arguably dumb) on crime" approach notwithstanding, this remains a man whose notions of masculinity are undermined by his sickening statement that 1200 missing or murdered aboriginal women "aren't high on my radar".  Mr Harper might like to present himself as a 1950s-era "daddy knows best" type, but his own father would've taken him to the woodshed for such cavalier comments in the face of dead women.

It's no wonder that Conservative fundraising missives prey on fears that everyone in civil society — unions, journalists, so-called elitists — are united against their party.  On one level, this Sun News-induced hysteria has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Michael Ignatieff wrote once, "It's good to be afraid occasionally.  Fear is a great teacher."  But Mr Harper takes it too far.

Ironically, his fear of losing — be it the media cycle or the election — may well be his undoing, for his fearfulness has morphed into nastiness and insularity and government opacity.

Canadians don't like the man our PM has become.  And, as the economy recovers, we may no longer fear him, either.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.