If you need to summarize the Harper government in one policy, the EcoEnergy program is it. The story begins in 1998 when the Liberal government created a program called EnerGuide. While far from perfect, the program became immensely popular for, amongst other things, helping families retrofit their homes to become more energy efficient (the business side of the program based on credible research had less success).
Not surprisingly, the opposition version of Stephen Harper hated EnerGuide and soon after forming government, he killed the home audit and retrofit program. Much outrage ensued.
Luckily for fans of the program, that didn't last long. The government version of Stephen Harper realized that, contrary to what he said in opposition and his early days in power, there were votes (and decent policy reasons) to pay people to make their homes more energy efficient. But EnerGuide was so... Liberal. So, in 2007 the EcoEnergy retrofit program was born. Completely different from EnerGuide in it's home retrofitting program... Other than all the ways it was almost completely the same. But I digress (and yes, both programs were broader than this – point is, this is the main public facing component and the bizarre political football for Harper).
Again, not surprisingly, EcoEnergy proved to be immensely popular. Slightly more surprisingly given it's immense popularity, Stephen Harper decided to kill it a year ago – no more money, you see, since all the record amount of cash Harper was spending was needed for real priorities like snowmobile clubs and ads talking about snowmobile clubs. More public outrage ensued.
But that was then. Today we will almost certainly find out that once again, Canadians can breath easily because Stephen Harper will give them money to retrofit their homes. In fact, this decision may be enough to get the NDP to support his government and give him another year before an election. (Keep that in mind when the NDP trumpets this "win." It's great news that a program that's existed under two different names for 13 years is back for another run. Really, wonderful. It's just hard to claim that the NDP have changed Canada with years 14 to 17 of a program).
To summarize: Harper crapped all over a program in opposition, he killed said program once he formed government, he recreated an almost identical program under a different name 12 months later, he then killed said program once it became really, really popular only to save the same program the following year once it became a possible avenue to save his own skin.