Ottawa –
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday that Canada needs a “conservative renaissance”, but Pierre Polivre said before telling Canadians how he will run the country. warned that we should wait until the election.
Harper delivered a speech that evening in the Loyal Room at a party staged by the Canada Strong and Free Network, formerly called the Manning Center.
His public appearances are rare for Harper, who retired from politics after being defeated in the 2015 election by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s liberal wing after nine years in power.
Polivre, who was elected party leader last September, appears to have changed things after Harper announced his endorsement of Polivre.
Introduced as a “politician” of the party, Harper began defending the term “populism”, which is often portrayed in a negative or inaccurate light by what he called the “liberal media”.
“Our country desperately needs a Conservative renaissance at the national level,” he told the audience.
Harper reminded the audience that the modern Conservative Party grew out of Western Canadian populism, Quebec nationalism, and the Conservative Party of Ontario.
He said he credited Preston Manning, founder of the Popular Reform Party, the predecessor of the Canadian Alliance, which merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the Conservative Party of Canada.
Harper and Manning then shared the stage on Wednesday for what the organizers called a “fireside chat” about the legacy of the Reform Party.
During the talks, the former Conservative prime minister sarcastically told the crowd about foreign election interference, ‘I hear it’s been talked about’, and signed a supply and confidence pact with the Liberal government to bring the federal NDP to the fore. It was called a “branch factory” for
Only its leader, Jagmeet Singh, could make a deal with the liberals and leave with nothing, Harper told the room.
As for Polivre, whom Harper called a “very little reformer” at the first meeting, the former Prime Minister said that if he formed the next government, Polivre would lead it under far tougher conditions than ever before. said it would be.
Harper, meanwhile, said Polivre’s job as opposition leader was not to outline how he would run the country, but to hold the Trudeau government accountable.
“That’s the job.”
He said that until elections are held, Poilievre and his team will need to develop an alternative vision of what a ready country might look like.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on March 22, 2023.
