Stephen Harper did not endorse Mark Carney on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. That would be going too far.
But the former Conservative prime minister did turn up at Carney’s Canada Investment Summit and say the Liberal government had “no choice” but to walk away from the latest U.S. trade talks. Canada, Harper said, now has to reduce its reliance on the United States. That puts him surprisingly close to the central economic argument Carney has been making.
Perhaps we are witnessing the birth of a new political party.
I suggest the Liberservative Party of Canada.
No formal merger would be required. That would involve lawyers, conventions, votes and probably Elections Canada. The easier course would be for Liberals and Conservatives to simply discover that, on a growing number of the large economic questions, they have wandered into the same room.
Red and blue could be combined into purple. Leadership conventions could be held at the Bank of Canada. Candidates would need experience managing at least $50 billion and the ability to use the word “productivity” repeatedly without alarming financial markets.
Mark Carney would be the obvious first leader. Harper could become chairman emeritus. Jean Chrétien could also be chairman emeritus. The Liberservatives would be generous with emeritus positions.
Pierre Poilievre presents a more difficult problem. He would presumably remain Leader of the Opposition, although it might become increasingly unclear what he was opposing. His task could eventually be reduced to complaining about the tone in which Liberservative policies were announced.
Consider the Canada Investment Summit itself. Carney assembled hundreds of executives and asset managers, set a target of attracting $1 trillion of investment over five years and talked about energy, infrastructure, critical minerals and getting things built. He also proposed bringing private investors into the operation of Canada’s four largest airports, while retaining public ownership of the underlying land and assets.
If Stephen Harper had organized such a meeting, would anyone have been surprised?
There would still be differences within the new party. Liberal Liberservatives would want major projects approved rapidly after extensive consultation. Conservative Liberservatives would want them approved rapidly before extensive consultation. Several years could be spent consulting Canadians about which form of rapid approval they preferred.
Deficits could finally cease to be a source of disagreement. Liberal deficits are investments. Conservative deficits produced by tax reductions are letting Canadians keep more of their own money. The Liberservative solution would be to call them strategic tax-relief investments. Once renamed twice, they might disappear from the public accounts altogether.
Climate change could be handled in much the same way. Canada would dramatically increase energy production while dramatically reducing emissions. The bridge between the two would be the word “pragmatic.”
And we could finally settle the ancient Canadian argument over whether governments should pick winners. The Liberservative Party would be firmly opposed to governments picking winners, except when providing tax incentives, loan guarantees, infrastructure, regulatory approvals or several billion dollars to companies selected through a rigorous process designed to identify likely winners.
There is something else about the emerging Liberservative consensus that interests me more.
At the investment summit, we heard a great deal about capital, productivity, major projects and competitiveness. Carney said there is a new Canadian consensus around building and trading more. Harper spoke about sovereignty and reducing dependence on the United States. These are important questions, especially given what has happened to Canada’s relationship with its largest trading partner.
But where does the person living on $733 a month on Ontario Works fit into the great new consensus?
Perhaps nowhere.
That too would be familiar territory for the Liberservatives. Liberal and Conservative governments have disagreed profoundly about many things, but the basic architecture of Canadian poverty policy has proved remarkably durable. We can find billions when a battery plant, pipeline, data centre or major industrial project is said to be essential to Canada’s future. When someone on social assistance asks how $733 is supposed to last a month, suddenly the government encounters fiscal constraints.
This is where the joke becomes less funny.
A political consensus around investment may be exactly what Canada needs. President Trump has forced some questions upon us that we could comfortably avoid when the United States seemed permanently dependable. Harper and Carney finding common ground on Canadian economic sovereignty is not in itself evidence that our political system has collapsed. It may be evidence that circumstances have changed.
But consensus has its blind spots. If both major political traditions come to agree that Canada’s great task is to mobilize capital, accelerate projects and improve productivity, somebody still has to ask what all that prosperity is for, who participates in it and what happens to people who cannot.
Maybe the Liberservative Party will get around to that at its second convention.
The first one is apparently already underway.
And nobody bothered to tell us.
