Ottawa – Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday that he was urging Ottawa to find new business partners outside the United States.
“I think it is appropriate to say that I am probably the most US Prime Minister in Canada’s history,” Harper told Canadian and US MLAs that the annual Midwestern Legislative Conference in Saskatoon gathered for the meeting.
“We have got some short-term work with the Trump administration. But it is actually a wake-up call for this country to really diversify its trade export markets.
“Just because we have that geographical proximity does not justify the degree of dependence that we have on a market.”
Harper said that he was approached by the government two weeks ago to advise him to deal with the US trade policy.
The Canadian Press has asked the office of Prime Minister Mark Carney whether it has contacted the former conservative Prime Minister for advice, but no response has been received yet.
Harper told the conference that Canada should no longer trust Washington for his safety.
“While Seema is a common responsibility, let’s make sure we spend too much on defense so that we can independently be responsible for our land, sea and sky, independent from the United States,” he said.
Harper said that anyone who sought his business advice a year ago was urged to deepen economic and security relations with the southern neighbor of Canada.
“However, when the government had actually asked me a few weeks ago, my advice was the opposite,” he said.
Harper said that when using a failed economic policy to carry out economic growth through Washington Tariff, the US still needs business partners.
“We cannot just be in a situation in the future where we may be threatened in this way and cannot be taken advantage of,” he said.
“The current government does, you know, get it better from your predecessors.”
He said that he hoped that Americans have to identify that they cannot take their international colleagues and business partners.
“I really hope that a feeling is in the United States,” he told a crowd of American MPs.
“Canadians only angry and what is happening here, it is very real. And it is very real. And it is very deep and it is across the country, and it is beyond political spectrum.”
Harper also said that China is reducing global trade through its use of the world trade organization system. He said that the Pacific Rim Trading Block created through a comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-pacific partnerships allowed Canada to trade with other countries honoring global rules.
He also revealed that he told US officials as Prime Minister during his time that Iran would require a military reaction to prevent the atomic bomb from receiving.
He said, “I have been saying for at least 15 years that Iran was going to get nuclear weapons,” he said. “And I had confidentially told the US administration for years that it was my conclusion (this) that the only way to stop it would be military action.”
– With the files of Jeremy Sims in Saskatoon.
