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

Former prime minister Stephen Harper speaks ahead of the King delivering speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Blair Gable-Pool

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.

“Just because we have that geographic proximity does not justify the degree of dependence that we have on a single market.”

Harper said he was approached by the government two weeks ago for advice on dealing with U.S. trade policy.

The Canadian Press has asked Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office whether it approached the former Conservative prime minister for advice but has not yet received a response.

Harper told the conference that Canada should no longer rely on Washington for its security.

“While the border is a shared responsibility, let’s make sure we spend a lot more on defence so that we can be independently responsible for our own land, seas and skies, independent of the United States,” he said.

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.”

He said he hopes Americans recognize that they can’t take their international allies and trading partners for granted.

“I really do hope that a realization seeps into the United States,” he told the crowd of American lawmakers.

“Canadians are a combination of just angry and bewildered by what is happening here. And that is very real. And it is very deep and it is across the country, and it is across the political spectrum.”

Harper also said China is undermining global trade through its use of World Trade Organization mechanisms. He said the Pacific Rim trading bloc created through the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership allows Canada to undertake trade with other countries that respect global rules.

He also revealed that he told American officials during his time as prime minister that a military response would be needed to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.

“I have been saying for 15 years at least that the single biggest threat of nuclear war was Iran ever getting a nuclear weapon,” he said. “And I had told American administrations confidentially for years it was my conclusion (that) the only way to ever stop that would be military action.”

By Dylan Robertson.

With files from Jeremy Simes in Saskatoon.