OTTAWA — Former prime minister Stephen Harper is taking shots at Liberal leadership front-runner Mark Carney's economic record days before the party gathers to choose its next leader.
In his bid to win the Liberal leadership, Carney has campaigned on his economic record as governor of both the Bank of Canada and later the Bank of England.
His campaign website says Carney "guided Canada through one of the most turbulent economic periods in modern history, protecting jobs and helping ensure that Canada came out stronger."
In a Conservative party fundraising email released Monday, Harper accused Carney of taking unearned credit for steering the Canadian economy out of the global financial crisis more than 15 years ago.
While Harper appointed Carney to run the Bank of Canada at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis, he said in the email that it was then-finance minister Jim Flaherty who made the "hard calls."
He went on to argue that Carney does not have experience with managing the Canadian economy on a daily basis and said the man he appointed to run the central bank has been "wrong on all the big issues."
In a statement issued to The Canadian Press, a spokesperson for Carney's campaign claimed that Harper's attack was an attempt to salvage Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre's electoral chances in the federal election widely expected to follow the Liberal leadership campaign.
"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," said Carney's campaign in an email.
Harper's recent comments about Carney are very different from the praise he offered in 2012, when Carney was leaving the central bank to take on the top job at the Bank of England.
In a media statement issued at the time, Harper said Carney did an "admirable job" of fulfilling the Bank of Canada's mandate through a period of economic uncertainty and was a "valued partner" in the government's efforts to stabilize the economy after the recession.
Flaherty, who died in 2014, is also on the record praising Carney's work.
Chisholm Pothier, Flaherty's director of communications during the financial crisis, said in a post on the social media platform X that while Flaherty and Harper provided political leadership, Carney played a "big role" in responding to the crisis through monetary policy.
"Trying to erase that for partisan reasons is, well, beyond disgraceful," he said in a reply to a post from Poilievre's wife, Anaida Poilievre, about Carney "claiming the legacy" of Flaherty.
When the U.S. housing bubble burst in 2008 and banks around the world faced imminent collapse, Carney was only a few months into his tenure as governor of the Bank of Canada. He dropped interest rates to historic lows for the time and took steps to ensure Canadian banks had enough liquidity to maintain their operations.
A variety of commentators at the time praised Carney's actions, which — along with actions taken by the Harper government and the tightly regulated Canadian financial system — were credited with helping to protect Canada from the worst of the global financial crisis.
Carney was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2010 for his efforts.
Harper's attack comes less than a week before the Liberal party meets in Ottawa on March 9 to choose its new leader.
Carney has out-fundraised his leadership rivals: former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, former government House leader Karina Gould and ex-Liberal MP and Quebec businessman Frank Baylis.
The Conservative party has taken a steep hit in federal polling in the weeks since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation.
U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated threats of steep tariffs, and his comments about making Canada a U.S. state, have also shifted the political spotlight in recent weeks.
Carney's campaign said in the statement Monday that "Canadians know that Pierre Poilievre and his team bring no experience or plan to protect our economy, and no ability to stand up to Donald Trump in a national crisis."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2025.
Craig Lord, The Canadian Press
