The returns from the elections in Canada will be an educational experience for residents of the Empire State, especially those of the Republican variety. Stephen Harper, a once-discounted Conservative policy wonk whom many analysts had written off as a spent force less than a year ago, will take the reins as prime minister. He does so at the head of a minority government; the vote wasn’t exactly a landslide. But his strategy for ousting a Liberal party in power for 12 years in a liberal country offers much about which New York Republicans can think.

The Conservative Mr. Harper won by being a conservative. Both parties campaigned on tax cuts, but Mr. Harper’s party offered a far bigger package package of tax reductions than the Liberal Party of the hapless Paul Martin. The press is focusing on Mr. Harper’s promise to cut by a percentage point the national sales tax, but other elements of his fiscal policy will cheer Reagan and Bush Republicans south of the border, including his proposal to eliminate capital gains taxation entirely as long as the gains are reinvested within six months. A policy analyst at Canadian free-market think tank the Fraser Institute, Jason Clemens, notes that this provision would spare from taxation the majority of capital gains in Canada.

In other areas, Mr. Harper’s agenda may be less bold but it is still clearly conservative. Both parties supported a “waiting time guarantee” to allow Canadians to seek health care in neighboring provinces if the creaking state-run system in their own area failed to provide timely care. Mr. Harper goes further, arguing that Canadians should also be able to seek medical attention in private clinics or America. Although Canada’s highest court struck down an outright ban on private medical care last year, obstacles still remain and Mr. Harper appears willing to lift some or all of them. He also proposed reforms to the government daycare financing system that would create vouchers for individual families.

The most noticeable break from his predecessor is on foreign policy. Mr. Harper has announced his disapproval of the Kyoto protocol that would impose the costs of curbing carbon dioxide emissions on wealthy countries. He has said he won’t send troops to Iraq, but in other ways his foreign policy views are more in sync with President Bush’s than Mr. Martin’s. He would support Canadian participation in a North American missile defense system, for example. It’s too soon to say how far he’ll be able to go in reshaping Canadian foreign policy in the short term, but Americans can look forward to a friendlier neighbor to the north.

In many respects, the Canadian electorate still tilts leftward. Mr. Harper could get away with questioning the country’s recently passed gay marriage law but had to promise he would protect abortion rights more forcefully than an American Supreme Court nominee. Canadians get frustrated with their socialized medical system but don’t have much appetite yet for ending it. Mr. Harper persuaded left-leaning Canadians to vote for him, albeit reluctantly. He did so by offering a clear and compelling agenda for change. “I think we have to give it a try,” Florence Koven, a 72-year-old voter, told the Washington Post on election day, despite her doubts.

Mr. Harper can be a role model for neighboring New York Republicans. Governor Pataki has won over a left-leaning state three times with a strong platform of conservative tax cutting, but even after that experience the party all too often loses its nerve. In the Senate race, the GOP here shied away from a conservative challenger in favor of a moderate who was difficult to distinguish from Senator Clinton and who sank. On the gubernatorial side, a handful of Republicans are competing with each other over who can embrace conservative principles more wholeheartedly. The party is energized, and we’d like to think the eventual victor will have a real platform, and not just a personality, to present to the electorate. The Canadian experience suggests that even New York’s liberal electorate will be willing to listen.