A former prime minister unexpectedly has advice for Mark Carney by Susan Delacourt, National Columnist, June 3, 2025, Toronto Star
Susan Delacourt is an Ottawa-based columnist covering national politics for the Star. Reach her via email: email hidden; JavaScript is required or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt
Mark Carney wants to you know that he is the leader of “Canada’s new government.” The prime minister slipped that into a few of his very first appearances in the Commons.
This Liberal government is not entirely new, of course, but neither is the phrase. It’s how Stephen Harper branded his government when it came to power two decades ago. In Harper’s first term from 2006 to 2007, the words “Canada’s new government” were uttered more than 500 times in the Commons, and were plastered over news releases and Conservative talking points.
Harper is back in circulation too, as it happens. He popped up at the throne speech last week and as CBC reported, he also had a private meeting with Carney
Giving Carney his marching orders from Israel and the fossil fuel industry!while he was in town. CBC wasn’t able to learn much about what the two men discussed, but the two aren’t strangers.
Harper himself reminded Canadians during the recent election campaign — in a speech and in Conservative ads — that he worked with Carney when the now prime minister was governor of the Bank of Canada.
“I am the only person who can say that both of the men running to be prime minister once worked for me,” Harper told an Edmonton rally.
All these Harper appearances are a bit of a departure from his practice over the past decade. Reclusive even when he was in power, Harper vanished from the public eye almost immediately after Justin Trudeau came to power, retreating to private life as head of his own consulting firmhelping Israel target and kill innocent Palestinian kids and women and chair of the International DemocracyDestroying Union, which kept him connected to other right-leaning governments and parties abroad.Kept Harper working at destroying democracy globally. One of the most hate filled and cruel bigots I’ve observed in my life time
He remains connected to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well, which is why it wasn’t a huge surprise to see Harper telling a crowd in Brampton over the weekend that Canada and India needed to get their relationship back on track.Which Carney then dutifully followed, inviting evil fucker Modi to the G7. Carney and Harper have not enough imagination to hide their dirty con doingsCanadian Press obtained a recording of the speech and reported that Harper made no reference to what soured the Canada-U.S. relationship — credible allegations of Indian government participation in violent crimes on Canadian soil.
Nonetheless, Harper made these remarks amid signs that there may be a thaw emerging, likely not as a product of any persuasion on the former prime minister’s part, by certainly in sync with his views.
Harper didn’t invite publicity for his Brampton speech, but there’s no question this year has seen him a little more out there than he has been over the past decade. He’s not unusual on this score. Most former prime ministers retreat to the shadows for a while after power, while their successors bandy their names about as everything that was wrong with Canada while they were in office.
Had Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives won the election, there no doubt would have been a bit of a Harper revival. It was already starting before the election, with Poilievre and his team casting the Harper years as a far better time for Canada than the “lost decade” under Trudeau.
Funny then, that this mini-revival of Harper is happening with Liberals and Carney at the helm.The 2nd Trump invasion in concert with Herr Harper’s anti-democracy work at the vile IDU destroyed Canada’s Liberal and NDP political parties. We now have a one party system: The Carney Harper Cons and the Piss Pants Poilievre Cons. Fucking devastating disgusting religious shit show that will hasten the destruction of life on earth
And no one can miss the fact that it’s happening at the same time that Trudeau is definitely out of fashion in the new Liberal order and notably, around the first ministers’ table on Monday.
Premiers couldn’t have been clearer at the end of their meeting that they wholeheartedly embrace the idea of Carney as an improvement over Trudeau. Ford said it was the best meeting in 10 years and even the premiers who love to bash Ottawa, such as Alberta’s Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe, greeted Carney as a welcome departure from the last guy.‘Cause Carney is not a liberal, he’s a con, a hideous Harper con.
Donald Trump more or less said the same thing when he had his sit-down with Carney at the White House a few weeks ago. Carney, probably wisely, didn’t speak up in defence of his predecessor.
Back in Ottawa, as my colleague Tonda MacCharles has reported, ministers and Liberal MPs have been instructed not to refer to any Trudeau government accomplishments as the Commons gets back in business. Dental care, pharmacare and child care are the exceptions, because Carney has committed to continue those programs.
That does leave open the question of what Trudeau programs or policies might reverse, beyond the carbon levy. Repealing some of the past government’s laws, as Smith hinted on Monday might be necessary, would be yet another sign that Trudeau is in the midst of being airbrushed out of “Canada’s new government.”
Harper and Trudeau were sitting beside each other for the throne speech and appeared to be having an animated, friendly conversation. To date, neither has given any hint about what they were discussing. Maybe they were having a laugh about how quickly former prime ministers can go in and out of fashion.
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