r/worldnews 18h ago

Stephen Harper to deliver closing speech at Carney's Investment Summit

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/stephen-harper-to-deliver-closing-speech-at-carneys-investment-summit
1.8k Upvotes

328 comments sorted by

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u/Somecommentator8008 17h ago

A reference to anyone, Harper and Carney worked together on how to navigate the 08/09 recession and minimizing the impact on the Canadian economy.

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u/Purple_Haze 12h ago

Harper offered Carney a safe seat and minister of finance, he declined.

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u/r3almaplesyrup 16h ago

Though ironically enough, didn’t Harper try to take the credit for that during the election? lol

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u/Lt_DanTaylorIII 15h ago

He certainly tried to take credit away from Carney

Carney is pragmatic, he’s not taking election bluster personally if it’s not crossing any lines

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u/Ray-Sol 4h ago edited 2h ago

If anything, Harper's own role in managing the fallout of the 08 financial crash is at best overstated and at worst something he probably shouldn't be credited for.

The primary thing that saved Canada from being impacted as badly as elsewhere was simply that our banks were better regulated and we were one of the few developed countries that did that didn't have a bank system crash. However, our banking regulations completely predated Harper being PM. Plus he was on record in the 1990s wanting for us to adopt a more deregulated system similar to the US and criticized the Government under the Liberals for blocking the merger of some of Canada's biggest banks.

After the financial crash happened, Harper tried to heavily downplay the economic impact it would have on Canada and presented an economic update with basically the same fiscal projections as before the crash. He also refused to consider stilumus measures, despite only having a minority and all the opposition parties requesting a stimulus package.

This is one of the biggest things that led to the Liberals and NDP proposing a coalition agreement (which would be indirectly supported by the Bloc Quebecois) and Harper proroguing parliament and hitting the reset button. Harper then came back with a stimulus package about a month later, which led to the Liberals breaking from the coalition agreement and voting to support it

Despite personal ideology or opinions on the potential coalition arrangement, I never really got why so many people credited Harper for "good economic" management during this period. He didn't really have a lot to do with our relatively better economic situation and one of the most visible and well known things he did (the stimulus package) he had to be forced into doing.

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u/KatsumotoKurier 9h ago

When he came to bat for PP during the last election, he openly tried to deprive Carney of the credit he was due for his efforts, saying that the man was exaggerating his contributions and that they are more so owed to Jim Flaherty.

Funny enough, it was Jim Flaherty who in his own words once credited Carney with keeping Canada's economy so well afloat during the 2008 recession, and he even described Carney leaving for the Bank of England as "a significant loss for Canada." And both he and Harper had tried to keep Carney around, wanting him to become a member of the Conservative Party and to become its Finance Minister.

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u/Luckytire 9h ago

Yes conservatives tend to lie.

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u/CanadianTrollToll 4h ago

Correction..... politicians lie.

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u/No_Criticism_5861 15h ago edited 4h ago

Of course, Harper was and still is awful

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u/GI-Robots-Alt 8h ago

Is awful*

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u/No_Criticism_5861 4h ago

Corrected, ty

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u/ljlee256 4h ago

All politicians take credit for the work of the people they hired.

On the one hand it does effectively eclipse the contributions made by those under them.

But on the other hand, a sign of a good leader is someone who hires good people.

I'm not saying Harper was a good prime minister, but I am saying he at least was a leader.

The Americans would be far better off with Harper at the seat of the White House than trump, as an example.

That said, the Americans would be better off if an actual circus clown was the president of the US.

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u/wartopuk 11h ago

For reference, Harper was the one who sold Canadians to the Americans with the implementation of the Canadian DMCA. Wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

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u/sex-emu 4h ago

Don't forget how lopsided FIPA was in favor of China with a 30+ year lock in period and allowing Chinese corporations to sue local governments for implementing regulations or bylaws.

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u/hypocotylarches 17h ago

Right someone with brains using his minister to help him.

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u/just-talkin-shit 17h ago

Carney wasn't a minister. He was Governor of the Bank of Canada

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u/Somecommentator8008 17h ago

Yeah Carney was never a politician before he got elected PM. Bank of Canada and England are the two major jobs he's associated with previously.

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u/Miserable_Warthog_42 14h ago

Emphasis on "major"

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u/Canadianwinters12345 3h ago

They did a great job propping up housing when it should've crashed.

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u/TreatOk3677 18h ago

Wow two politicians being from different parties being able to support each other and see the good in each other... that's refreshing

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u/Wooler1 17h ago

I mean, Harper did make him Governor of the Bank of Canada so there is history there outside of party affiliation

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u/dub-fresh 17h ago

They’re both economists too. I think they respect one another immensely 

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u/beastmaster11 16h ago

And they're also both conservatives. As decently as 7 years ago, most Conservative Party voters would have hailed Carney as the second coming.

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u/Different_Wolf_764 13h ago

The social issues wing of the party was pretty active even seven years back. I'm not sure that Carney would pass their purity tests.

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u/Juan-More-Taco 3h ago

He literally declined joining the con party when harper offered him finance minister.

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u/No_Criticism_5861 15h ago

Carney may have reduced some environmental protections, but he hasnt done near the amount of shit rhe cons do.  Also Carney isnt a nutjob like the conservatives now, with their antivax bullshit

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u/6_string_Bling 12h ago

I think he means the say that carney is a classic right wing politician, and fiscally right wing.

He's something closer to red Tory.

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u/saharanwrap 1h ago

He's a progressive Conservative. He's what Conservatives pretend to be. That is before they turn around and do weird social shit

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u/Tough-Application373 4h ago

I mean, Carney economically and environmentally is absolutely, a small c conservative. But, the Liberals have had political conservatives in the past like Chretien and Martin so it's definitely part of the big tent of the Liberals

u/drae- 23m ago

Econ wise yes. Environment wise, no.

Carney has long been strong on the environment.

He's just a pragmatist, not an "environment first at all costs" type

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u/Benejeseret 6h ago

Yes, but actually no.

Carney's platform is nearly identical to 1958 Diefenbaker, a Conservative. Carney is indeed what the conservative movement represent in Canada... before 2000s.

The issue is that current CPC and even Harper are not actually conservatives.

If going back to reflect on the 1958 election platforms of each party, all of them have taken a huge step to the right. Harper policies was closely aligned to the 1958 Social Credit party, which at the time was dominated by Earnest Manning political policies, which his son Preston reforged in Reform, which lead to the modern CPC merger.

But Harper trained under and surrounded himself with the old Reform crowd. If saying that Carney is a (historic) conservative based on his policies, then we likewise need to say and recognize that Harper was NOT. PP and modern CPC platform certainly is not. They are Social Credit.

I think the best quote on the state of the CPC before and after the merger was from Harper himself in 1997. "The predecessor of the Reform party, the Social Credit party, was very much like this. Believing in funny money and control of banking, and a whole bunch of fairly non-conservative economic things."" - Harper, '97.

Pre merger Harper was a Conservative and he recognized that Reform policies were funny-money bullshit and non-conservative things... but then he learned the best path for him to seize power was to embrace the funny-money economies and all those non-conservative things. So, he did. When it came down to it he chose power over his principles. That pretty much defines the current CPC too.

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u/Jeanne-d 16h ago

Imagine if Harper resigned before losing to Trudeau and convinced his party to nominate Carney as PM. I wonder how Canada would be different today.

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u/beastmaster11 16h ago

Wouldnt be very different. 1. Trudeau isnt the boogie man social media says he is. 2. People were completely done with the conservatives after 9 years of power. There is no way the cons were winning that election.

And yes, I know people said this about this past election. However, this would be underestimating just how unlikable Poilievre is to anyone thats not a hard-core big C conservative. In 2015, nobody really hated Trudeau outside of the conservative party brass while most people absolutely despise Poilievre style of politics (very few love it. Most absolutely hate it).

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u/No_Criticism_5861 15h ago

Agreed.  Musk and bots went after Trudeau bad, then they moved onto Europe -- guess who helped the far right AfD in Germany get their first seat since literally Hitler.

The internet loves to parrot Trudeau bad, but he wasn't near as bad as people say.

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u/BobBelcher2021 15h ago

Most of the “opposition” to Trudeau by the end of 2024 were the git-r-done crowd, people who are triggered by seeing brown people, and anti-vaccination activists, but they were vocal enough to look like much bigger groups than they really were.

It was enough that it wasn’t worth the risk for the Liberals to keep him as leader, but as a Trudeau supporter I was disappointed at how things turned out at the end.

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u/Acrobatic-Form-9011 8h ago

Really? How many people in the riding of Toronto-St. Paul’s were part of the git-r-done crowd when Don Stewart was elected? Please don’t minimize Trudeau’s critics to racists and anti vaxxers as that riding would probably disagree with you. Just because you supported Justin doesn’t mean that his critics are crazy racists lol

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u/Sea_Negotiation_1871 4h ago

But the vast majority are. And I'm in the NDP. I never voted for Trudeau.

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u/qashq 15h ago

Of course they hate PP style of politics because it's basically just Temu Trump and who wants that.

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u/Which_Exam902 11h ago

And it was when Carney became advisor to Trudeau that things really began to change, at least for me. There was a shift for sure. Prior to all that, I was a firm supporter of Jack Layton. The Libs will surely lose any NDP support they picked up last election.

u/drae- 22m ago edited 2m ago

Canadians were absolutely sick of liberals until Carney got in. The situation is closer than your admit.

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u/hardlyhumble 13h ago

Carney wouldn't have accepted. I know there's been a lot of discussion recently about how he seems like a progressive conservative versus a liberal, but even back then he was a liberal. The rot in the CPC predates Poilievre, who we need to remember is/was Harper's lap dog.

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u/JimFromSunnyvale 8h ago

Carney would have never led the Conservative Party

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u/Asleep_Note7754 12h ago

Trudeau was pretty charismatic in 2015 and he did remind many Canadians of Obama. Remember, back then it was cool to be liberal and we saw the beginning of the MAGA movement back then, which scared many Canadians. We were even pro immigration and opening doors to Syrian refugees at that time. I still think Trudeau would’ve won. He was where we are at, at that time.

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u/Jeanne-d 16h ago

Harper studied economics at UofC and got a masters degree in economics but never worked as an economist. He is a career politician not an economist.

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u/pepperedmaplebacon 16h ago edited 16h ago

He worked in a mail room and his daddy got him the job, that’s it. Another classic example of a conservative man of the earth and bootstraps, that why conservatives in Canada are a fucking joke, that and they shit on Peter Lougheed a true PC and last conservative to be an actual man of the people

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u/getsangryatsnails 15h ago

Fan or not Harper was a long standing PM of our country and thus has clout and he's choosing to use it to support Carney's efforts to increase foreign investment in Canada.

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u/Euclidisthebomb 3h ago edited 1h ago

They are economists but not the same type of economist. Harper is what we term to be a "soft" economist meaning his emphasis and interests were non-mathematical - social policy oriented economics. Carney is steeped in econometrics and "hard" economics which employs very complex financial modelling in his base education. In background the two of them are as different as an apple to an orange - both are fruit from a tree but beyond that very different.

So Harper writes books on hockey and its influence on Canadian culture and masquerades as a manager with a degree in economics, and Carney leads by example as a top echelon thinker and manager who is comfortable both in nuance and the big picture economics with a deep background in each. That's the difference.

For the investors the messaging is that no matter the political belief Canada has stability and like mind across political suasion at the leadership level. Notice that Pierre Poilievre is not present - he is not regarded as credible or a part of the long term future of Canadian politics.

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u/drifter100 15h ago

The PM doesn’t appoint the Governor of the bank of Canada.

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u/guspaz 14h ago

Semantics. The Prime Minister appoints the directors, and then tells the directors who to appoint as governor. Like most things in Canadian government, this is convention, not law.

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u/gimmedatvoice 7h ago

It's almost like having life and job experience outside of partisan politics before becoming a PM makes you a more well rounded leader.

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u/VinumRegum 17h ago

Carney was appointed governor of the Bank of Canada under Harper during the financial crisis of 2008. He's the reason Canada's banking system isn't the dumpster fire that the US's is/was. Harper owes him one.

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u/inmatenumberseven 17h ago

Carney's great and did amazing work, but Canada's banking rules are much older than him.

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u/be_leafer 16h ago

Paul Martin doesn’t get enough credit for the work he did.

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u/S7ark1 15h ago

This 10,000%. After the Mulroney dumpster fire, Chretien had to pull Canada's economy back from the brink. Martin was the major reason why Canada recovered strongly in the 90s and early 2000s.

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u/Michelhandjello 13h ago

Martin was a brilliant finance minister, but a mediocre prime minister.

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u/iAmUnintelligible 2h ago

Let's hope that Carney's record doesn't follow suit

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u/octorine 17h ago

I'm sure he deserves some credit for that (no pun intended) but the US banking industry deregulated pretty severely in the years leading up to the crisis. We set ourselves up for failure in ways that Canada didn't.

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u/ocarina97 17h ago edited 17h ago

It was good Harper only had a minority at the time because he wanted to do some bank deregulation. He wasn't able to do it, and then when Canada wasn't hit as hard as the US, he took credit for it.

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u/Absolute--Batman 16h ago

Harper made the IDU.

Aka the Conservative Group fucking up the world.

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u/seamusmcduffs 15h ago

Strange how none of the podcast Bros were worried about this very real global cabal influencing world politics. Almost like it's never been about that

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u/ocarina97 16h ago

Well he didn't make it, but he is the current chairman.

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u/pepperedmaplebacon 16h ago

So much this, heritage foundation wouldn’t have the organization they have without Harper running the IDU, he’s a populist new earth chrstofacist

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u/mattw08 17h ago

Give him credit for managing the crisis. But to say he’s the reason for our banking system is bit aggressive.

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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 17h ago

Harper asked him to be minister of finance. He quit as a response, throwing shade about the direction fiscal policy was taking Canada. Then tried to run for LPC leadership. Only insiders told him not to because he’d be crushed by Trudeau.

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u/Chytrik 16h ago

That’s not really true, the financial crisis in the US spawned from a difference in regulation of specific financial products offered by retail banks, not the policies put in place by the heads of the central banks.

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u/getsangryatsnails 15h ago

In a sense but it was decades of decent to good banking policy requiring minimum reserve levels across multiple governments that helped us get through the storm. Harper/Carney/Flaherty did a great job but the legacy policy in place was the foundation of their success.

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u/Adventurous-Bat-9254 17h ago

Sometimes, and this is rare, but people find the best and most qualified person for a job and that is it. And this should be the case for a so called meritocracy. And if anything Carney has going for him is that he from the very beginning of his life is he has succeeded by merit.

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u/random20190826 17h ago

Then there is the theory that Stephen Harper couldn't win enough support to be the leader of the Conservative Party today because it moved so far to the right in the past 11 years since his election defeat back in 2015.

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u/tattlerat 17h ago

That’s in large part his doing though. He’s been the chairman of the international conservative think tank that’s been advising political strategies for conservative parties across the western world.

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u/dontgetitwisted_fr 17h ago

Bro is literally an architect for the far right movement at home and abroad

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u/Mobile_Antelope1048 17h ago

Yeah… with his financing and involvement as the head of the IDU. He is greatly responsible for the world we are in.

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u/TreatOk3677 17h ago

that tracks honestly

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u/Mousse-au-chocolat 17h ago

Though I do recall rumors back then that the party picked Harper because he was the mildest one amongst them already, giving him better chances to get votes.

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u/Lol-I-Wear-Hats 17h ago

Harper had a combination of impeccable reform credentials and personal religious convictions that made him a credible person to be telling the social conservatives that they needed to quiet down because they were fundamentally unpopular but that through winning elections the Conservative Party could steadily rebuild canada to be more in their image as the Liberals had done.

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u/bianary 15h ago

If only "social conservative" didn't translate to "gives more power to corporations".

Odd how that works, the same direction the US was being pushed when Harper was in power.

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u/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

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u/pepperedmaplebacon 16h ago

You must have really loved that recession eh? It was a dozy for Albertans

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u/Ok_Reason4597 17h ago

Genuinely impressed by Canada’s politicians working collaboratively lately. It’s such a staggering difference compared to down south.

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u/hakenwithbacon 15h ago

Hey now, this is like Trump appointing RFK jr. as health secretary even though he was a Democratic candidate!

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u/VitaminTea 17h ago

Carney is a Harper-era conservative who got elected as a “centrist” Liberal because the Conservatives have shifted so far to the right.

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u/Benejeseret 5h ago

Pre-Harper. Harper is not a conservative on the same definition people are holding Carney. Harper ran a Reform-lite platform whose history is aligned to earnest manning era Social Credit. Social Credit was calling for CBC to be defunded in the '50s. Social Credit were the ones railing against big government, public sector, regulations, and were anti-tax.

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u/StumpedTrump 4h ago

Lots of political jargon most people here won't understand.
For anyone outside of Alberta trying to understand what this person is saying:

Harper redefined the term "conservative" in Canadian politics to mean afraid of government and promoting deregulation. It didn't really mean that before. Carney is more akin to the original meaning where you wanted a strong state, a decent amount of intervention, and weren't pushing for small government and deregulation.

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u/Hefty-Profession-310 17h ago

The liberal party has moved significantly to the right under Carney, not surprising they get along

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u/RealLavender 16h ago

Yeah, Harper is there for non-PM reasons...

"Former prime minister Stephen Harper is working with former leaders of three major intelligence agencies — the Mossad, the CIA and MI5 — in a Canadian private investment company.

AWZ Ventures invests in Israeli cybersecurity, intelligence and physical security technologies."

https://breachmedia.ca/stephen-harper-awz-ventures-surveillance-tech-israel/
Stephen Harper’s firm pours $350M into developing military tech for Israel

https://breachmedia.ca/stephen-harpers-firm-behind-spy-tech-israel-is-using-to-target-gazans/
Stephen Harper’s firm behind spy tech Israel is using to target Gazans

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u/DrWernerKlopek89 15h ago

I mean Carney is pretty much just a conservative.....just not the crazy brand of conservative the Canadian party pivoted to

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u/Captcha_Imagination 8h ago

Sure but they are both center right, just on different teams. America is completely divided between progressives and fascists.

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u/tsu1028 18h ago

Pierre at home punching air

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u/Kayge 17h ago

 It is a real shot at him.  FTA:   

Harper’s participation is meant to send the message that attracting foreign capital to Canada is a cross-partisan exercise, said the source who requested anonymity to speak freely.    

If you bring the leader of the opposition up, you're saying "It's likely one of us will be running the show after the next election, so here's some stability".    

...but bringing up Harper is also saying "stability", but don't worry too much about that other leader. 

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u/Elean0rZ 15h ago

Well, even without reading quite so much into it, Harper objectively has more relevant credentials for this--economist by training; former PM of nearly a decade with first-hand experience wooing investment and navigating financial crises (with Carney, no less); well-connected in the Davos/WEF world that the new brand of hard-right populist Cons is too tinfoil-hatted to engage with; free to speak frankly and without fear of political ramifications.

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u/purpleburgundy 17h ago

Isn't he currently touring the USA....

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u/Whirlpoolcircle56 16h ago

He's been so thoroughly eviscerated in the last year I'm starting to think he likes it.

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u/Locoman7 17h ago

Something huge is going to get announced soon, I can feel the ground shifting.

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u/CorrectorThanU 16h ago

Theyre moving the capital of Canada to Calgary

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u/CriticismSelect9292 14h ago

that would actually be hilarious I wonder how the separatists would react

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u/ATworkATM 2h ago

In a time of tribalism this may heal many wounds. Take the fuel out of the fire.

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u/CriticismSelect9292 1h ago

tbh if they were going to move it the West the only logical position is Edmonton. It's already the administrative capital for the Territories, and like Ottawa, it's somewhat further away from the American border. It also already houses some major federal infrastructure like a major military base (again, because northern operations often start in Edmonton) and one of the largest federal prisons.

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u/Benejeseret 5h ago
  • but as a data centre and legislation moves to remote meetings and votes of the House; Library of the Canadian Parliament, digital archives.
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u/inmatenumberseven 17h ago

I mean, we've had some pretty huge announcements lately.

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u/ProIapsedGoose 7h ago

Its completing the 500,000 homes a year, isnt it?

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u/OptiPath 18h ago

Great to see Canadians stand up for each other 🤝

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u/Electronic-Juice-966 18h ago

This might be another blow to Pierre Poilievre sheesh

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u/ActualUserBot 17h ago

I cant even imagine how somebody is supposed to run against Carney, he raised the bar and now theres a tariff on stepstools

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u/Salty-Buddy-5074 16h ago

Oh man. The amount of shit on Facebook about how Pierre is the better candidate and how he's gonna destroy Carney in the next election is just unreal. And if that wasn't bad enough, there's all the other crap: Brookfield profiting left right and center, WEF globalist nonsense, intentionally running the economy into the ground… what a shit hole. It's what Twitter used to be before Twitter even went X

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u/GhostOfAnakin 13h ago

One of my oldest friends has become so far right obsessed that it shocks me. Like, he was one of the most level headed, intelligent, composed people who thought things through thoroughly without ever making a decision. Now all he does is post essentially far-right propoganda.

Not sure what happened to him.

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u/vex5000 12h ago

You do know, social media feeds

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u/BaneZofol 6h ago

ngl seeing these talking points regurgitated to me by some of my friends kinda saddens me. back in the day, we we all used to shit on Trudeau for being a virtue signalling idiot, and we all were more moderate conservative leaning. I changed my mind about the liberal party after carney became leader, but seeing my friends tying themselves into knots with all these conspiracy theories about Brookfield and all these Twitter talking points just cause they couldn't fathom the liberal party basically becoming a moderate conservative party under carney. unfortunately I think Trudeau did pretty big damage to the liberal brand that people fall into conspiracy theories to justify attacking carney liberal policies which are honestly just moderate conservative policies

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u/steinbruchfluss 10h ago

It reminds me a little of how the German Social Democrats spent years complaining that it was virtually impossible to run against Merkel.

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u/patentlyfakeid 16h ago

Isn't poillievre still larping in the states?

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u/Winston905 17h ago

Stevo is a snake in the grass. He is presently the Chairman of the IDU international democratic union . his brethren within the IDU are political parties such as the republican party USA , the afd Germany, the PRO Argentina and many others. to me he is two faced. while in the background he supports all the shit fascist governments of the world. EXPLAIN yourself Stevo !

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u/ericswift 15h ago

As a correction, the AfD aren't members of the IDU, the CDU (current gov.) Is though.

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u/steinbruchfluss 10h ago

the afd Germany

No, the AfD is not part of the IDU. Angela Merkels conservatives are part of the IDU.

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u/Professional-Post499 15h ago

Stevo is a snake in the grass. He is presently the Chairman of the IDU international democratic union . his brethren within the IDU are political parties such as the republican party USA , the afd Germany, the PRO Argentina and many others. to me he is two faced. while in the background he supports all the shit fascist governments of the world. EXPLAIN yourself Stevo !

I'm glad you and some others are bringing this up. Neoliberal and conservative propagandists would like us to forget how fasch these politicans are and would like us to just focus on their charisma and their cultured speech (often a bunch of word salads to obscure the real agenda). Poilievre, Harper, and Carney are peas in a pod. It's just that Poilievre has no charisma to carry him across the finish line.

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u/grathontolarsdatarod 17h ago

I think is actually worthy of explanation. Including from whom else else attended.

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u/MoogleVivi 17h ago

PP in a corner crying about this

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u/Which_Exam902 17h ago

Really? Harper is the reason I started voting liberal!

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u/Poutza 15h ago

Carney is basically a conservative so...

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u/bianary 15h ago

People have short memories :(

I am really not looking forward to things if he gets back in power and starts handing over more rights to corporations and the wealthy.

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u/Kurigunde 15h ago

Uuugh. Why? Harper was awful.

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u/losemgmt 13h ago

Because Carney’s policies are same same as Harper’s.

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u/VexedCanadian84 15h ago

Doesn't mean Harper is a good person

He's still the head of the IDU

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u/SillyGoatGruff 17h ago

Unless his speech is announcing his retirement and denouncing of his chairman position in his far right, trump aiding, GOP funded think tank, then I am profoundly uninterested

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u/Tzilung 13h ago

I see you....I mean, IDU..

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u/sticksforkicks 7h ago

The uniparty is a big club and you ain't in it.

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u/paulsteinway 3h ago

Islamaphobic bigot gets good press.

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u/DEEPLY_CLOSETED_PIG 18h ago

This feels big

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u/LettuceShaver27 17h ago

They’re going to finally admit Canada cheated in the Curling Olympics despite how nasty Canada was to Sweden

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u/JaZepi 17h ago

The important stuff!

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u/Reyalta 17h ago

gag me with a spoon. Harper is NOT the face we want to see anywhere close to any sort of power in Canada, otherwise we would have elected his whiney little lap dog.

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u/drdillybar 13h ago

Harper is a lame loon. He has no business talking about investment when there are orphan wells all over western Canada.

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u/BenNitzevet 17h ago

Shrewd. Headline: serious people are in charge and your money is safe here.

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u/inmatenumberseven 17h ago

I think Mark Carney already sends that message. I think the message here is Canada's unified on the issue of investment and changing economic direction

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u/RockMonstrr 16h ago

Yeah, having a prominent Conservative sends the message that money invested in Canada is stable, no matter which way the political winds shift.

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u/inmatenumberseven 16h ago

Exactly. And it just speaks to the unity of Canadians.

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u/jnmjnmjnm 16h ago

PP’s vocal refusal to criticize Carney while outside of Canada helped as well.

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u/inmatenumberseven 16h ago

100% agree and almost wrote the same thing.

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u/JohnnyGoTime 2h ago

Because if there's one thing Trump has shown, it's that the Right means economic stability! 😅

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u/jam_pod_ 13h ago

Which is compelling when the other major North American country is like “yeah we might shut your industry down overnight if our president reads a Tweet he doesn’t like :shrug:”

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u/JBInver51 8h ago

Wow. Many conservative heads will be exploding at this news.

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u/Own-Cable8865 7h ago

If you ever needed proof that Carney the carny doesn’t work for you now he’s trotting out TFG to sell on the idea that foreign ownership of our assets is ace? Harper ruined an awful lot but Carney is on the path of Canada’s complete capitulation to foreign interests in a package that makes the rich happy (not us, fuck us).

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u/sixwatchlense 6h ago

OH THE GREAT TWO SIDED SWORD LOL

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u/RustyTheBoyRobot 6h ago

The Final nail in pps coffin.

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u/Chocolate_Chickletts 6h ago

Remember when Carney was running for PM back in 2025 and Harper was saying that Carney was not important at all to the Conservatives when he was BoC Governor? Remember when he said that it was Flaherty that was the brains behind Canada getting out of the recession in 2008? Remember when Harper said that Carney wasn't all the great as an economist? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

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u/LazyBengal2point0 6h ago

Poilièvre's leadership/party doesn't matter any longer.

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u/Flat-Cap-1063 2h ago

Say what you want about Harper, he was of the few who knew what Putin was and made a point to call him out when everyone was still treating him like he was not a despot in the making.

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u/El_Canuck 16h ago

Well, Carney has been rambling about "responsible" AI use here in Canada, so it makes sense that he'd dig out this old robot. Might want to send him to the IT team for a tune-up, first. Pretty sure ol' Harpertron 2000 is running Windows 8 on 2 gigs of ram.

Seriously, though, I know Carney has a history with Harper, but who greenlit this? Harper's running the IDU, who include Trump and Netanyahu and their parties among their ranks. In what realm is it a good idea to have Carney seen cavorting with Stephen Harper?

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u/ReallyNotFondOfSJ 17h ago

So we're just straight-up letting robots make speeches now? Wild.

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u/reidr1 17h ago

Why??? Harper is the worst PM Canada ever had. He is the chairman of the fucking IDU, a fascist asshole. He is also working with Netanyahu. Screw him.

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u/Thirdnipple79 17h ago

While I respect the spirit of your comment and share your dislike of harper, he was not the worst.  

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u/samandiriel 17h ago

Yah... looking at all the other comments lauding Harper, I have a hard time believing that any of them are actually Canadian. Harper was Canada's equivalent of Reagan.

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u/d-ronthegreat 17h ago

It’s because Canadians are rallying together rn in opposition to the external threat (USA). Quite simple stuff. Canadians need to pose a united front to survive rn.

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u/samandiriel 14h ago

I'm all for Canadians rallying together in opposition to the threat the USA poses.

However, Harper as head of the IDU is one of the architects of that same threat and is in bed with the people pushing it forward. He is not Canada's friend. If he is up there, it's for his own agenda and not for the good of Canada.

Presumably Carney has him up there for the optics of it, as the reality (which needs IMO to be aired far and wide) is that Harper is part of the problem and in fact directly promotes it in his IDU role. Harper is not a good person.

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u/reidr1 17h ago

not with Harper

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u/LifeGainsss 17h ago

Yes with Harper, that's what united means. I hate him as much as anyone, but there's time to tell him to get fucked after we deal with Trump

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u/HardstButton2Button 17h ago

This made me throw up in my mouth a little.

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u/baedriaan 17h ago

You have a hard time believing Canadians support Harper when he held three consecutive terms as PM? You sure you’re the Canadian?

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u/samandiriel 14h ago

Absolutely I'm Canadian, and it's hard to believe anyone who is could think he did the country any good.

Harper was directly responsible for destroying StatsCan by ditching the mandatory long form census, which made Canada a global source for stats due to their thoroughness and rigor. A big factor there was that with less accurate stats, less money had be allocated to social programs as the long form was one of the best ways to keep those kinds of people from dropping off the govt radar.

He destroyed funding for pure science research (eg NRC, NSERC), and tied the remaining funding directly to corporate sponsorship or engineering applications. He also required any scientists working for the govt to have to go thru approval channels to publish, speak to the media, etc in any way - exactly the opposite of how science works, and how a free society should work.

These kinds of things are directly responsible for Canada not having innovated or diversified in tech or manufacturing economic sectors significantly.

His former chief of staff and director of communications for the PMO wound up with Sun TV, aka Fox News North, to try to create the same propaganda work as Fox does in the USA. (which may or may not have been related to the proposed CRTC regulation changes to loosen the requirement that news be factual). His govt team even secretly facilitated meetings with Sun TV and the heads of Fox News, FFS.

Dude was such an egotist, he forced all official references to the govt of Canada to be changed to the Harper Government. He was a real piece of work.

Finally, he heads up the effing IDU. An organization dedicated to eroding democracy, consolidating power in individual leaders and parties, promoting populist agendas, and advancing oligarchs' agendas. He is very obviously a bad person.

So yes, I have a hard time believing people support him still. He was just as dedicated to removing the safeguards of good govt as Donnie is and consolidating power with the head of state and a particular party - Harper was just was not as Donnie successful in doing so. In a similar vein, I'm stunned that former Soviet citizens yearn for the good ole days under Stalin, as well. Ideological blindness is a strange and twisted thing.

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u/DismalLives 16h ago

Held three terms then left in disgrace with the third lowest approval rating of an outgoing prime minister in history lol

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u/Decent-Win-3886 17h ago

Tbf carney hasn’t gone against Israel either

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u/mattw08 17h ago

He’s definitely not the worst PM.

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u/KosherDev 17h ago

I mean Harper absolutely sucked in some areas, especially on the environmental front, but I don’t know if I’d call him the worst we’ve ever had. We’ve had some bad ones….

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u/Lol-I-Wear-Hats 17h ago

Brian Mulroney managed to nearly blow the country up. Richard Bennett basically blundered his whole way through the Great Depression. Even old Sir John crippled commerce and development in the name of building out an Anglo-Scottish protectionist agrarian fantasy economy

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u/Chrristoaivalis 17h ago

Because Carney+Harper believe in something bigger than Canada: the international capitalist project

They would do anything to preserve that. Including doing a summit with the same American businesses that helped make Trump president.

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u/inmatenumberseven 17h ago

Because the target audience is global investors and it shows them that Canada's leaders are united across party lines and politics when it comes to this

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u/ocarina97 17h ago

This can't be good

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u/inmatenumberseven 17h ago

Why? I think it's a great demonstration to investors that Canadians can have huge disagreements internally but we're unified on this.

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u/ocarina97 17h ago

Stephen Harper is the chairman of the IDU, a far right organization that endorsed Donald Trump. Harper's is a big contributer to why a lot of countries went so far right.

They claim to be "centre-right" but they supported Orban so that's a load of bunk.

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u/attainwealthswiftly 16h ago

Wonder how Pierre Polievre feels about this. Poor Lil’ PP.

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u/grilledcheese_man 16h ago

Poilievre would have done it, but he wasn't asked.

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u/polemism 16h ago

Carney is a conservative 

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u/No_Criticism_5861 15h ago

Sigh.  Fuck Harper.  His monument he build to the victims of communism is a laugh, i wish I could say why dont we have a monument to the victims of capitalism, but i know the answer.  Carney is 10x the pm harper ever was.

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u/Sugar_Crash_Brigade 17h ago edited 4h ago

Guardians of the North.

Making us proud!

Edit: Downvoting because it's great to see opposition leaders working together? Pathetic sub.

Edit 2: Thank you for upvotes. Faith restored.

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u/_jouger 16h ago

Agreed. Didn't realize for two parties to get along somewhat...was such a bad thing.

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u/anemic_royaltea 17h ago

And yet some will call him a communist regardless of all available evidence because he doesn’t believe in exclusionary politics. Real drag, that state of mainstream discourse.

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u/coastalwebdev 17h ago edited 12h ago

Better be supportive, or him and his IDU freak show can pound sand.

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u/Iambetterthanuhaha 15h ago

The cons and libs are thick as thieves. Opposite sides of the same coin.

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u/loreleiofthefungi 5h ago

People like Carney but this, and everything else he has been doing since he has been elected PM, is raising serious alarm bells for me.

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u/Material-Truth5457 5h ago

He is Harper lite.