Laureen Harper

Canadian graphic designer

Laureen Ann Harper ( Teskey; born June 23, 1963) is a Canadian graphic designer. She is married to Canada's 22nd prime minister, Stephen Harper.

The eldest of three, Laureen Ann Teskey was born in Turner Valley, a rural town southwest of Calgary, to rancher parents who owned an electrical contracting company. Her parents, Barbara and Dennis Teskey, divorced in 1991, after 29 years. After graduating from Oilfields High School, she attended the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology where she studied journalism and photography. She was first married to New Zealander Neil Fenton from April 1985 to 1988. Teskey joined the Reform Party of Canada in the late 1980s. She met Stephen Harper in 1990 while working for GTO Printing, a computer graphics firm operating in Calgary that helped create professional graphs and tables for Harper's major paper for his master's degree in economics at the University of Calgary. They married on December 11, 1993.

There was initially confusion in the Canadian media about which surname Laureen Harper uses — at different times, media references to her have called her Teskey, Harper, or Teskey Harper (not hyphenated). She used the name "Laureen Teskey" after her 1993 marriage to Stephen Harper, but after her husband's victory in the 2006 federal election, she began using the name "Laureen Harper" in her public role as a spouse of the Prime Minister.

When her husband ran in the 2006 elections, she campaigned alongside him. She was frequently seen at the podium on behalf of and with her husband.