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Speaking before a room full of policymakers from midwestern Canada and the United States, former prime minister Stephen Harper said the ongoing trade war with the U.S. is a "wake-up call" for Canada to diversify its trade and export markets.
"I was — I think it's fair to say — probably the most pro-American prime minister in Canadian history," Harper said of his tenure from 2006 to 2015.
If the current government asked him a year ago for advice on U.S. President Donald Trump being re-elected and wanting to renegotiate trade, he says he would have thought it was a real opportunity for Canada to deepen its economic and security partnership with the United States.
"However, when this government did actually ask me a few weeks ago ... my advice was the opposite," he told the Midwestern Legislative Conference, an annual non-partisan event being held in Saskatoon this year under the shadow of the ongoing U.S.-Canada trade war.
Harper called the trade war unfortunate, but said Canada has become "grossly" overly reliant on the U.S. — "independent of the current disputes" — and there is no reason for that.
"Just because we have that geographical proximity does not justify the degree of dependence that we have on a single market," he said.