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OTTAWA — Eighteen months ago, Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove got a message from the Prime Minister's Office informing him he was no longer a very important person.
On Tuesday, he was in Stephen Harper's Parliament Hill office, meeting one on one with the Prime Minister after two years of trying.
Mr. Hargrove's get-together was one of several conciliatory moves on one day this week that has experts suggesting that Mr. Harper is changing his behaviour to deal with what they think is his electoral Achilles heel - a brittle and partisan nature that may lead voters to reject his efforts to win a majority government.
"Clearly he's been reading the same kind of indicators as everybody else has and sees that there's a problem in people finding him hyperpartisan and being controlling," said Peter Donolo, a partner with the polling firm the Strategic Counsel.
"The question for him, always in these matters, is whether he starts backsliding and whether these changes are permanent."
Mr. Donolo's polling numbers found last summer that, although Canadians believe Mr. Harper is a competent prime minister, they find him inflexible and unwilling to listen to the other side. Mr. Donolo has observed that, in recent days, Mr. Harper has decided to act less provocatively.
The first example was the meeting with Mr. Hargrove, who had originally broached the idea of getting together two years ago, after Mr. Harper became Prime Minister. Mr. Hargrove has been a significant critic of the PM, but also happens to lead one of the most influential unions in the country.
"We were told that we were on the Prime Minister's VIP list of people, so a meeting would be coming," a spokesman for Mr. Hargrove recalled yesterday. "We followed up with him about six months later; they then told us that we were taken off the VIP list. So that ended the thinking that we would get a meeting with him."
The second example was the more conciliatory tone he has taken with the Liberals, particularly Mr. Dion, whom he defended in the House of Commons this week for moving closer to the Tories on extending the mission to Afghanistan.
Finally, Mr. Harper relaxed, at least temporarily, his rules that compel reporters to put their names on a list from which his officials choose who gets to ask him questions. At an appearance on Tuesday, the PMO asked that the media put together their own list of four questioners.
Senior Conservatives say not to put too much emphasis on the new tone. Mr. Harper had met with Mr. Hargrove in the past, although not one on one, and the rift with the press has always been overstated, they said.
But Mr. Donolo said Mr. Harper has demonstrated in the past a willingness to recognize his own shortfalls, and he may be doing that now.
"He's learned that a lot of Canadians are uncomfortable about him being too partisan, too controlling, too right-wing, and he's trying to moderate that," Mr. Donolo said.
Mr. Harper's former campaign chief and close friend, Tom Flanagan, agreed that the PM can sometimes seem too partisan. He says it may stem from the fact that Mr. Harper takes on so many queries during Question Period.
"I think he's got to watch that he doesn't get typecast in playing the role in the House of Commons so it creates the wrong impression for voters at large," he said. "... People are always put off by partisanship. [But] the partisans like it."
Other Tories who asked not to be identified by name said they will take a wait-and-see attitude on whether Mr. Harper has really changed. His pattern in the past, said one, was to offer conciliation for a time, but revert to tougher behaviour later.
"The permanency," he said, "is that Harper is always going to be expeditious when it gets to his desire to retain power."
