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Stephen Harper on Poilievre, Trump and ‘Far Left’ Liberals

The ex-PM spills the beans to a US conservative YouTuber.

Jen St. Denis 15 Jan 2025The Tyee

Jen St. Denis is a reporter with The Tyee.

From the outside, current Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre looks like a product of modern hard-right conservatism. He frequently references culture war topics like protecting free speech, attacks transgender inclusion, promises to weaken the news media and uses hyperbolic labels like “authoritarian socialist” to describe his opponents.

He’s been deferential to incoming U.S. president Donald Trump and tech CEO Elon Musk, even as the two threaten Canadian sovereignty.

But Poilievre’s mentor is Stephen Harper, who led the Conservative party to successive election victories in the 2000s, relying mostly on his record as a responsible steward of Canada’s economy. Poilievre was an MP under Harper for 11 years.

In 2015, the Conservatives’ reluctance to allow more Syrian refugees into the country and their proposed “barbaric cultural practices” hotline led to support shifting to the more immigration-friendly Liberals.

Things are different today. Canadian politics have become sharply polarized, mirroring trends across many western democracies, where politics have moved sharply to the right and have often become more nationalist and less open to immigration.

In a recent interview with a conservative American YouTuber, Gabe Groisman, Harper firmly defended Canada’s sovereignty in the face of threats made by Trump.

But he also followed right-wing rhetorical trends in describing the Liberals as “far left” and the news media as a hostile force.

Let’s take a closer look at Harper’s ties to Poilievre and what his comments can tell us about the current political moment.

Harper describes federal Liberals as ‘far left’ and hostile to Canadian values

Following a hyperbolic trend now common on both sides of the political spectrum, Harper described the federal Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “far left” and claimed their policies have attacked the very nature of Canadian culture and history.

“[They’ve] pursued a woke agenda that has really denigrated the country's culture and history and institutions, and I think Canadians, if anything, they've reacted more strongly against that than even the economic results,” Harper told Groisman.

His comments echo promises made by Poilievre to celebrate Canada’s history, including the first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, whose role in creating the residential school system and the starvation of Indigenous people on the Prairies has been explored by writers and historians in recent years.

In a press conference Thursday, Poilievre promised to bring back pride in being Canadian. “We need to to honour our past and our shared values,” he said. “We need to live out the dream that started with John A. Macdonald. Yes, I said John A. Macdonald — who believed in an independent and sovereign Canada.”

Harper promised Poilievre is ‘not like Trump’

Harper said he’s known Poilievre since the current Conservative leader was a teenager and said he’d given him numerous jobs — from parliamentary secretary to cabinet minister — while the two sat in Parliament during the Conservative government era (Poilievre was first elected as a member of Parliament at age 25).

“I tell people he not only always performed well in every job that I gave him,” Harper said. “He always got better, which is one of the criteria I use to evaluate people.”

Harper also praised Poilievre’s communication skills and his mastery of social media, which has allowed him to reach voters while bypassing traditional news media. Harper painted Canadian news media as uniquely hostile to Poilievre.

“His social media, videos and presence have far bigger audiences than the traditional media in Canada, which is why he can ignore them, or even from time to time attack them,” Harper said, referring to Poilievre’s practice of aggressively questioning reporters during scrums. “He doesn't need them.... They are the real opponent.”

Echoing Trump’s constant attacks on news media, Groisman told Harper the situation is the same in the United States.

But after talking about how Poilievre has successfully adopted right-wing populism, Harper also spent time in the interview explaining that the Conservative leader is not the same as Trump.

“He is actually much more of a traditional conservative politician than Donald Trump is,” Harper promised. “In government, I think Pierre will be actually much more orthodox in terms of economic policy and other such things.”

Harper said his and Poilievre’s version of conservatism is rooted in being “pro-western, pro-democratic traditions, we believe in the traditions of Judeo-Christian western civilization.”

Harper’s defence of Canadian sovereignty

Harper pushed back against Trump’s threats to Canada, which have included not just threatening to impose punishing tariffs but also suggesting Canada should join the United States as the “51st state.”

“It is true that Canada presently has a modest trade surplus with the United States. The reason we do is because you buy so much of our oil and gas. In fact, you buy it at a discount to world markets — it’s actually Canada that subsidizes the United States in this regard,” Harper told Groisman. “Maybe Canadians, if Mr. Trump feels this way, should be looking at selling their oil and gas to other people.”

When Groisman suggested that Trump’s problem was mostly with Trudeau and his comments could be a tactic to push Trudeau out of office, Harper said only Canadian voters can decide who will be prime minister.

“Whether or not we have Mr. Trudeau as our prime minister is our choice,” Harper said. “As Canadians, we don't tell you who to elect as president of the United States. And so as much as I'm glad to see Mr. Trudeau leaving, this is not Mr. Trump's decision. It's the decision of Canadians.”

Conservative politicians in Canada have reacted in different ways to Trump’s threats.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith travelled to Trump’s Florida home to meet with him to attempt to negotiate a “carve out” from tariffs for Alberta and has said she is opposed to threatening to stop energy exports to the United States. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been firmly rejecting Trump’s threat to Canada’s sovereignty and says a possible energy embargo should not be taken off the table.

Poilievre has focused his criticism on Trudeau’s response to the threats, calling him weak in contrast to Trump’s strong position, and has mirrored Trump’s language, saying he’ll put “Canada first” just as Trump has put “America first.”

To counter tariff threats, Poilievre has said that as prime minister he would talk to union and business leaders in the United States who are Canada’s economic allies to make the case that tariffs would cost American jobs.

Trump ally Elon Musk has echoed Trump’s threats against Canadian sovereignty. In response to a question about whether Poilievre would accept a political endorsement from Musk, Poilievre said he would like to find a way to persuade Musk to open factories in Canada.  [Tyee]

Read more: Politics, Alberta

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