Former prime minister Stephen Harper speaks in Ottawa in 2023. Mr. Harper criticized Liberal leadership frontrunner Mark Carney this week as Conservatives ramp up attacks on him ahead of the March 9 party leadership vote.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper has accused perceived Liberal leadership front-runner Mark Carney of falsely claiming credit for managing the 2008 financial crisis and linked him to the Trudeau government’s failure to build energy projects along with increases in the federal deficit.
In a hard-hitting fundraising letter issued Monday to Conservative Party faithful, Mr. Harper said the former central banker is not the right leader to handle U.S. President Donald Trump and his threats of punitive tariffs.
He took direct aim at the former Bank of Canada governor who during the Liberal leadership campaign has played up his role in navigating the 2008 financial crisis alongside Mr. Harper and Jim Flaherty, who was then finance minister.
Mr. Harper appointed Mr. Carney to lead the bank, plucking him from inside the Finance Department to take on the job in February, 2008. When Mr. Carney departed to become the governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Harper praised him, writing that he was a “valued partner” and helped his government “steer Canada away from the worst impacts of the global economic recession.”
Economists also told The Globe and Mail on Monday that Mr. Carney played a key role in helping Canada weather the financial crisis.
But in the fundraising letter, Mr. Harper said Mr. Carney was not involved in the day-to-day management of Canada’s economy during that time.
“I have listened, with increasing disbelief, to Mark Carney’s attempts to take credit for things he had little or nothing to do with back then,” he said. “He has been doing this at the great expense of the late Jim Flaherty, among the greatest finance ministers in Canadian history.”
In January, 2008, Canada's then-finance minister Jim Flaherty shakes hands with the Mark Carney as then-prime minister Stephen Harper looks on.Tom Hanson/The Canadian Press
Mr. Harper wrote: “Let me be clear: The hard calls during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis were made by Jim.”
Mr. Carney has said Mr. Harper offered him the finance minister’s post in 2012. The former prime minister did not say anything in his letter about that assertion. Mr. Harper’s consulting firm did not immediately return a request for clarification on Monday.
In a statement to The Globe, Mr. Carney’s campaign said Mr. Harper was being brought in to bolster Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s own campaign. The Tories have seen their lead in public opinion polling shrink since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in January he’d resign.
“Stephen Harper could have approached Pierre Poilievre about serving as his Finance Minister. He approached Mr. Carney instead,” the statement said.
“In 2025, Mr. Harper is being called on to save Pierre Poilievre from a historic drop in support, but no amount of revisionist history can take away from Mr. Carney’s proven record of economic leadership.”
Economists say both Mr. Carney and Mr. Flaherty played central, if differing, roles in navigating the economic crisis for Canada.
University of British Columbia economist Kevin Milligan said the Bank of Canada under Mr. Carney was heavily involved in the management of the financial crisis. A look at the Bank of Canada archives shows evidence of heavy co-ordination with the U.S. Federal Reserve and other global central banks, he said.
“Canada did a good job through the financial crisis because Mr. Carney worked closely with Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Harper’s government. I think both Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Carney deserve a lot of credit; praising Mr. Carney should not detract from the excellent job Mr. Flaherty also did,” he said.
Former TD Bank economic Don Drummond said Mr. Carney was first out of the gate with monetary policy to shore up Canada’s economy, including bringing down the interest rate. The Harper government stepped up later to use fiscal policy for further stimulus.
“It’s kind of hard to get worked up about, you know, somebody did a better job than somebody else. Monetary and fiscal policy worked quite well together,” said Mr. Drummond, who is now the Stauffer-Dunning fellow at Queen’s University.
Mostafa Askari, chief economist at the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, said Mr. Carney was responsible for introducing the necessary measures to stabilize financial markets, ensuring they wouldn’t collapse, and noted his role in supporting the creation of the Financial Stability Board in 2009, an initiative of the G20 to prevent another financial crisis.
“I am surprised that Mr. Harper said that,” he told The Globe.
When in 2012, Mr. Carney appeared alongside Mr. Flaherty at a joint news conference announcing his impending move to England, the men praised each other for their respective roles.
Of Mr. Flaherty, Mr. Carney said: “His leadership has ensured a timely, co-ordinated response to the crisis, the right measures to promote Canada’s G7 leading recovery, and the tough decisions necessary to keep the Canadian economy on the path to sustainable growth.”
And of Mr. Carney, Mr. Flaherty cited his work on monetary policy and grappling with inflation as accomplishments, adding: “Canada has shone, relatively speaking, in the world during the period of time in which Gov. Carney has served as governor of the Bank of Canada.”
During that same news conference, Mr. Carney was also asked whether he had to give the Bank of England any commitments that he wouldn’t leave the job to seek leadership of the Liberal Party – something he was rumoured to be interested in at the time. He laughed those off.
Liberal leadership race enters crucial phase: getting the vote out
The Conservative Party has turned its partisan guns on Mr. Carney in recent weeks as it appears he is set to win the leadership and with polls showing a narrowing of the gap between the governing Liberals and Mr. Poilievre’s Conservatives. The party is running a major ad campaign seeking to link Mr. Carney to Mr. Trudeau’s policies, using ads on radio, TV and online.
Mr. Poilievre and his MPs have gone after Mr. Carney for saying that he was no longer chair of a major investment company when the formal decision was made to move its headquarters to the United States, despite records showing the relocation was completed during his tenure.
Mr. Carney told The Globe Friday evening that he should have been more precise when he made those comments about his tenure at Brookfield Asset Management.
The Conservatives have also attacked Mr. Carney for being vague about when he would proactively disclose any potential financial conflicts of interest.
He has said he will follow all ethics and conflict of interest rules if he becomes prime minister. This would not require him to immediately disclose his financial interests.
Mr. Harper said Mr. Carney is the wrong man to run the country because he has served as a key economic adviser to Mr. Trudeau.
“We face these threats at a time when Canada should be the wealthiest and most self-reliant economy in the world. We have the resources, the talent and the opportunity to lead. Yet under the Liberals, we have fallen way behind,” Mr. Harper said.
Mr. Harper said Mr. Carney served as the principal economic adviser when the Liberal government blocked pipelines, pushed the consumer carbon levy, hiked immigration numbers and oversaw a massive increase in the federal deficit. The deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year was almost $62-billion.
“Carney has advocated for every one of these bad ideas,” Mr. Harper wrote. “So, the choice is indeed about experience – Mark Carney’s experience in being wrong on all the big issues – versus Pierre Poilievre’s experience in being right on those same things.”
Mr. Carney began informally advising the Trudeau Liberals in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and last fall was formally appointed by Mr. Trudeau to helm an economic task force, a move that came after reports Mr. Trudeau had been courting Mr. Carney to join his government.
Since he declared his run for the Liberal leadership, Mr. Carney has promised to rescind carbon pricing for consumers, build more pipelines, tear down interprovincial trade barriers, cap immigration and balance the operating budget within three years.