Tracking Harper's 9-year-long assault on unions Resource Type: Article Published: 2015 Stephen Harper has been Prime Minister of Canada for almost a decade. In that time, the system of protections that were put in place by decades of advocacy by labour organizations and unions has been partly dismantled. The attacks have been extremely strategic. Ground Zero for these attacks has been the House of Commons, where piece after piece of legislation has taken aim at unions and collective bargaining.