Stephen Harper one of Carney’s Advisors, Blasts Trump’s “Failed Policies”, Says Carney “Gets It”

[BeaverFever]

Harper says Carney team sought his trade advice, suggests looking outside U.S.
 

OTTAWA — Former prime minister Stephen Harper said Monday he's urging Ottawa to find new trading partners outside the United States.

"I think it's fair to say I'm probably the most pro-American prime minister in Canadian history," Harper told Canadian and American legislators gathered for the annual Midwestern Legislative Conference meeting in Saskatoon.

"We've got to get something short-term worked out with the Trump administration. But this really is a wake-up call for this country to truly diversify its trade export markets.

….

Harper said that anyone who had asked for his trade advice a year ago would have been urged to deepen economic and security ties with Canada's southern neighbour.

"However, when the government did actually ask me a few weeks ago, my advice was the opposite," he said.

Harper said that while Washington is using a failed economic policy of pursuing economic growth through tariffs, the U.S. still needs trading partners.

"We just cannot be in a position in the future where we can be threatened in this way and not have that leverage," he said.

"The current government does, you know, get it better than their predecessors."

…..

 

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/harper-says-carney-team-sought-191922663.html

 

 

[herbie]

Mulroney would tell him the same thing, go back when the USA comes to it's senses.

[paxamericana]

Small problem with this plan. Your industry is not competitive and you’re competing against the Chinese , known export dumpers. Good luck Canucks.

Your pride is your own worse enemy. 51st, best deal on the table.

Edited July 28, 2025 by paxamericana

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, herbie said:

Mulroney would tell him the same thing, go back when the USA comes to it's senses.

Mulroney and Harper are huge reasons we’re in this mess.  

[herbie]

26 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

Mulroney and Harper are huge reasons we’re in this mess.  

Completely wrong.
Trump and protectionism are 100% of the reason. You can't reverse half a century of free trade by shifting into reverse.
We're making movies and software now instead of relishing in an imaginary rosy future making toilet paper.

Didn't work to retirement bolting wheels on trucks or soldering bits onto motherboards on some assembly line. Those were far from the 'glory days'.

[blackbird]

One of Canada's biggest problems has been electing liberals and left wing politicians.

This has resulted in their blocking resource development in Canada, especially the blockage of pipelines and energy.  They also regulate to death the construction of homes and are wrecking health care systems with mismanagement and neglect of duty to provide services.

[ExFlyer]

13 hours ago, paxamericana said:

Small problem with this plan. Your industry is not competitive and you’re competing against the Chinese , known export dumpers. Good luck Canucks.

Your pride is your own worse enemy. 51st, best deal on the table.

We do not "compete" with China. We take what we need form them and they take what they need form us.

That is not competition but it is trade.

[ExFlyer]

37 minutes ago, blackbird said:

One of Canada's biggest problems has been electing liberals and left wing politicians.

This has resulted in their blocking resource development in Canada, especially the blockage of pipelines and energy.  They also regulate to death the construction of homes and are wrecking health care systems with mismanagement and neglect of duty to provide services.

Oh and, what did Mulroney and Harper do for housing?  Oh yeah...PP was housing minister and built all of 6 homes LOL

Did what for Health care? Oh, nothing  LOL

Did what for Pipeline construction? Huh? Pipelines? What are they? LOL

Did what for Resource development in Canada?  Huh? We have resources?? LOL

I think you had best check the comparisons before you make accusations LOL

[blackbird]

In BC the NDP has been negatively affecting the forestry and mining sector as well with excessive regulations and preserving old growth forests, etc.  This has resulted in the layoff of thousands of workers in various small cities and towns.

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

Oh and, what did Mulroney and Harper do for housing?  Oh yeah...PP was housing minister and built all of 6 homes LOL

Did what for Health care? Oh, nothing  LOL

Did what for Pipeline construction? Huh? Pipelines? What are they? LOL

Did what for Resource development in Canada?  Huh? We have resources?? LOL

I think you had best check the comparisons before you make accusations LOL

You know you're wrong because if you weren't you wouldn't have to lie.

They built something like 300,000 homes or close to a year under harper. That's more than we build now despite having far less immigration. So harper did a lot, things were actually a hell of a lot better. And homes were dirt cheap under Mulroney

Harper funded Healthcare to a huge degree. You caught up what the liberals under correction had fallen behind that. In fact harper funded Healthcare to a higher percentage than the liberals do now or have in the last 10 years

Harper did a lot for resource development. Of course he was frequently blocked because he had a minority government but he greenlit a number of projects.

Now let's talk trade. Harper radically expanded Canada's trade Partnerships, and Trudeau wound up ruining a lot of them. Harper got us the softwood lumber deal, he negotiated better terms for NAFTA, he developed massively higher exports to India and Saudi Arabia, and he created the EU deal which was almost finished when he left.

Justin undid all of that and screwed up the European deal because he didn't understand it. Which wound up making it a bad deal for Canada

[Barquentine]

21 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

"The current government does, you know, get it better than their predecessors."

..their predecessors.. Isn't Harper one of those? And just saying we should diversify our trade? Everyone's been saying that since Trump brought out his tariff plan(s).

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, Barquentine said:

..their predecessors.. Isn't Harper one of those? And just saying we should diversify our trade? Everyone's been saying that since Trump brought out his tariff plan(s).

I would go back much further than that.  Turner warned of this when free trade with USA was being debated. 
 

https://dominionreview.ca/john-turner-has-been-utterly-vindicated-on-free-trade-with-the-u-s/

Let’s take a look at what John Turner said in 1988, a lot of which resonates today. Having first made the case against a free trade deal in the form rational argumentation, Turner began to realize that Canadians wanted to hear the issue distilled into more fundamental and emotive terms – they wanted to hear how what economic dependence on the U.S. would mean for the country they held dear. He didn’t pull any punches: “I believe that Canadians are not going to vote for Brian Mulroney, a man would be governor of a 51st state. They are going to vote for John Turner, a man who wants to be Prime Minister of Canada“.

In the first English language debate of that campaign, Turner delivered a stern rebuke of Mulroney’s support for free trade:

“We built a country east and west and north. We built it on an infrastructure that deliberately resisted the continental pressure of the United States. For 120 years we’ve done it. With one signature of a pen, you’ve reversed that, thrown us into the north-south influence of the United States and will reduce us…to a colony of the United States, because when the economic levers go, the political independence is sure to follow ”

[CdnFox]

1 minute ago, TreeBeard said:

I would go back much further than that.  Turner warned of this when free trade with USA was being debated. 
 

https://dominionreview.ca/john-turner-has-been-utterly-vindicated-on-free-trade-with-the-u-s/

 

Let’s take a look at what John Turner said in 1988, a lot of which resonates today. Having first made the case against a free trade deal in the form rational argumentation, Turner began to realize that Canadians wanted to hear the issue distilled into more fundamental and emotive terms – they wanted to hear how what economic dependence on the U.S. would mean for the country they held dear. He didn’t pull any punches: “I believe that Canadians are not going to vote for Brian Mulroney, a man would be governor of a 51st state. They are going to vote for John Turner, a man who wants to be Prime Minister of Canada“.

In the first English language debate of that campaign, Turner delivered a stern rebuke of Mulroney’s support for free trade:

“We built a country east and west and north. We built it on an infrastructure that deliberately resisted the continental pressure of the United States. For 120 years we’ve done it. With one signature of a pen, you’ve reversed that, thrown us into the north-south influence of the United States and will reduce us…to a colony of the United States, because when the economic levers go, the political independence is sure to follow ”

And were we the 51st state under Mulroney?

No? So John was wrong?

ok then. 

[PIK]

5 hours ago, CdnFox said:

You know you're wrong because if you weren't you wouldn't have to lie.

They built something like 300,000 homes or close to a year under harper. That's more than we build now despite having far less immigration. So harper did a lot, things were actually a hell of a lot better. And homes were dirt cheap under Mulroney

Harper funded Healthcare to a huge degree. You caught up what the liberals under correction had fallen behind that. In fact harper funded Healthcare to a higher percentage than the liberals do now or have in the last 10 years

Harper did a lot for resource development. Of course he was frequently blocked because he had a minority government but he greenlit a number of projects.

Now let's talk trade. Harper radically expanded Canada's trade Partnerships, and Trudeau wound up ruining a lot of them. Harper got us the softwood lumber deal, he negotiated better terms for NAFTA, he developed massively higher exports to India and Saudi Arabia, and he created the EU deal which was almost finished when he left.

Justin undid all of that and screwed up the European deal because he didn't understand it. Which wound up making it a bad deal for Canada

Excellent post, except it fall on deaf ears. But I think as Harper said Carney gets it. So maybe there is hope.

[BeaverFever]

2 hours ago, Barquentine said:

their predecessors.. Isn't Harper one of those?

Lol I had the same thought!

[WestCanMan]

20 hours ago, herbie said:

Completely wrong.
Trump and protectionism are 100% of the reason. You can't reverse half a century of free trade by shifting into reverse.

You're not 'wrong'. 

This is probably 85% Trump's fault, but TBH our country is so divided and weak that we are low-hanging fruit: We are divided provincially, our provinces are further divided into FN's territories which have their own levels of sovereignty, we are divided racially, we are divided by the level of our ancestral ties to the land, we are divided religiously, we are at each other's throats politically, we are divided by class, and we are even divided by gender. 

And it doesn't seem like anyone in the US is upset by Trump's 51st state comments, so this might be something that the GOP and Dems jointly had on the backburner for a while. Maybe even a holdover from the old 54-40 or fight days. 

Think about it... CNN and MSNBC usually call everything that Trump says "racist", or say that it harms America's relationships with their allies, or that it is misogynist, or reactionary, etc, etc, etc, but "Canada as the 51st state" doesn't bother them at all. In fact, it doesn't seem to bother anyone in the US. 

Honestly, of all the Trump comments, this seems like a pretty easy one for the MSM to tar and feather him for, but they just ignore it. 

Saying "Let's take over Canada", right into the live TV cameras, has to be much worse than saying "I just grab floozies by the pu55y" in private, but tat's not th ecase judging by the media repsonse,

 

[herbie]

Oh eat it with your 'divided and weak' line of bullshit. Obvious at this point in time the country's more together than ever.
Only a goddam traitor would tell people otherwise.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, herbie said:

Oh eat it with your 'divided and weak' line of bullshit. Obvious at this point in time the country's more together than ever.
Only a goddam traitor would tell people otherwise.

I have seen you tell people otherwise

And we all know that if poilievre had one you'd be screaming at the top of your lungs. Your hypocrisy is endless

[LinkSoul60]

9 hours ago, CdnFox said:

You know you're wrong because if you weren't you wouldn't have to lie.

They built something like 300,000 homes or close to a year under harper. That's more than we build now despite having far less immigration. So harper did a lot, things were actually a hell of a lot better. And homes were dirt cheap under Mulroney

Try again...  The closest to 300K housing starts in Canada was 273K in 1976 or 271K in 2021.  What's this Harper stuff....?  Brilliant deduction that the cost of living was cheaper back in the late 80's.   Good gawd little man.... seriously

[BeaverFever]

4 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

You're not 'wrong'. 

This is probably 85% Trump's fault, but TBH our country is so divided and weak that we are low-hanging fruit: We are divided provincially, our provinces are further divided into FN's territories which have their own levels of sovereignty, we are divided racially, we are divided by the level of our ancestral ties to the land, we are divided religiously, we are at each other's throats politically, we are divided by class, and we are even divided by gender. 

And it doesn't seem like anyone in the US is upset by Trump's 51st state comments, so this might be something that the GOP and Dems jointly had on the backburner for a while. Maybe even a holdover from the old 54-40 or fight days. 

Think about it... CNN and MSNBC usually call everything that Trump says "racist", or say that it harms America's relationships with their allies, or that it is misogynist, or reactionary, etc, etc, etc, but "Canada as the 51st state" doesn't bother them at all. In fact, it doesn't seem to bother anyone in the US. 

Honestly, of all the Trump comments, this seems like a pretty easy one for the MSM to tar and feather him for, but they just ignore it. 

Saying "Let's take over Canada", right into the live TV cameras, has to be much worse than saying "I just grab floozies by the pu55y" in private, but tat's not th ecase judging by the media repsonse,

 

Americans are far more divided than Canadians are. On any issue.

 

not  only is there extreme partisan polarization and the fact that there 2 parties no longer exist for any purpose other than opposing and obstructing the other party,

not only are there 50 different states with 50 different agendas,

In the USA each and every elected politician including the President, the 538 members of congress, all the thousands of state and an absurd number of mundane municipal official like judges, prosecutors, water commissioners, transit commissioners, county clerk etc who should not be political at all.,,,they’re all self-serving free agents each pushing their own agenda and everything they do is transactional 

To your second point on why Americans aren’t generally upset at 51st state:  I’ll point out that USA is extremely self-centred and chauvinistic. I live in Florida for 5 years 1997-2002 and I you NEVER saw any news outlet mention Canada in any meaningful way much less have a major Canadian political figure on as a guest. I am not exaggerating when I say I can count on one hand all the times in those 5 years the US MSM did a story that featured Canada in any meaningful way.  Nowadays the American MSM outlets do more stories about Canada in one week than they did in those entire 5 years. 2025 might the first time in American history anyone in US MSM news or pop culture has ever said “Canada is our closest trading partner and ally”  and they’re saying it all the time now. 

And I have to tell you when I first went to USA I thought USA was where it’s at and Canada was boring and lame.  But I came back with a much different view thats much more anti-American and pro-Canadian. One of the things that really pissed me off wasn’t so much the American ignorance about Canada, that was expected. It was the absolute indifference and the arrogant attitude.  Worse than having a head full of wrong ideas about Canada, they had absolutely zero thoughts about Canada one way or the other, barely aware of its existence and when you’d share even a small bit of information to help fill that void the’d just shrug it away as not worth knowing and they’d remember nothing. I remember saying that in some ways the indifference was almost worse than if they hated Canada and had a long list of things they knew about our country and despised. All the while they’re endlessly wind-bagging about how USA is #1 at every human endeavour even when that was not the case.  

The above said Trump’s 51st state comments dis receive quite a bit of coverage in US MSM and he did get some direct criticism of it along with his Greenland and Panama comments but and DOGE and ICE and tariffs and Epstein and a thousand other domestic controversies this is lower on the priority list  

 

Edited July 30, 2025 by BeaverFever

[WestCanMan]

14 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Americans are far more divided than Canadians are. On any issue.

 

not  only is there extreme partisan polarization and the fact that there 2 parties no longer exist for any purpose other than opposing and obstructing the other party,

not only are there 50 different states with 50 different agendas,

In the USA each and every elected politician including the President, the 538 members of congress, all the thousands of state and an absurd number of mundane municipal official like judges, prosecutors, water commissioners, transit commissioners, county clerk etc who should not be political at all.,,,they’re all self-serving free agents each pushing their own agenda and everything they do is transactional 

The Americans might be a bit more divided than us, but we're pretty bad. It's like it has become our national pastime.

The LPOC's whole "We committed genocide against the FN people!" shtick was unique to the world of national disunity. I don't know of another country that used that slogan, or why they would.

Quote

The above said Trump’s 51st state comments did receive quite a bit of coverage in US MSM and he did get some direct criticism of it along with his Greenland and Panama comments but and DOGE and ICE and tariffs and Epstein and a thousand other domestic controversies this is lower on the priority list  

There's a lot to criticize, that' true 😂

[PIK]

On 7/29/2025 at 5:46 PM, PIK said:

Excellent post, except it fall on deaf ears. But I think as Harper said Carney gets it. So maybe there is hope.

Spoke to soon. 1st the digital tax and now Palestinian statehood. Does carney really get it? PP would have avoided both those issues. 

Edited July 31, 2025 by PIK

[CdnFox]

On 7/29/2025 at 8:04 PM, BeaverFever said:

Americans are far more divided than Canadians are. On any issue.

 

 

sure, that explains why there's all those American states that are looking at holding referendums to leave America just like we have in Canada and...... oh, wait.....

[BeaverFever]

18 hours ago, CdnFox said:

sure, that explains why there's all those American states that are looking at holding referendums to leave America just like we have in Canada and...... oh, wait.....

That doesn’t mean they’re not divided 

[paxamericana]

On 7/29/2025 at 5:31 PM, WestCanMan said:

And it doesn't seem like anyone in the US is upset by Trump's 51st state comments, so this might be something that the GOP and Dems jointly had on the backburner for a while.

Absorbing Canada is a non partisan issue for America. It’s all up to Canada. The 51st movement will pick up momentum, there are a growing number of people who realize that Canada as a sovereign nation no longer even serve Canadian interests, it’s plain economic bondage. There is a vastly better deal south.

Edited August 1, 2025 by paxamericana