'A wake-up call': Stephen Harper says he advised Carney team to look outside U.S. for trade growth
OTTAWA — Former prime minister Stephen Harper said Monday he's urging Ottawa to find new trading partners outside the United States.
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'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.
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'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.
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'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.
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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.
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Harper told the conference that Canada should no longer rely on Washington for its security.
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'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.
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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.
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'However, when the government did actually ask me a few weeks ago, my advice was the opposite,' he said.
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Harper said that while Washington is using a failed economic policy of pursuing economic growth through tariffs, the U.S. still needs trading partners.
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'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.
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'The current government does, you know, get it better than their predecessors.'
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He said he hopes Americans recognize that they can't take their international allies and trading partners for granted.
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'I really do hope that a realization seeps into the United States,' he told the crowd of American lawmakers.
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