Here's A Fun Conspiracy Theory: Harper Hijacked The Liberal Party

NOVEMBER 8TH, 2026 | ALLAN RAY

There are conspiracy theories, there are political coincidences, and then there are political developments so extraordinarily convenient that they deserve at least a second look.

Here is one worth entertaining.

What if Stephen Harper and Mark Carney, two men whose political and economic philosophies have considerably more in common than their respective party affiliations might suggest, shared a long-standing understanding about the direction Canada should take? What if the eventual replacement of Justin Trudeau was not simply the product of a Liberal Party desperately looking for a way out of its political predicament, but the culmination of a much broader ideological transition? And what if Carney's arrival was less about saving the Liberal Party than fundamentally changing what the Liberal Party represents?

Imagine, for a moment, that the objective was never necessarily to elect another Conservative government. Perhaps a more effective route was to take control of Canada's governing Liberal Party, retain its electoral machinery, inherit its established voter base and gradually move its economic philosophy somewhere considerably closer to the political centre-right.

It is an entertaining theory. And, as of November 2026, there are some rather interesting facts that make it worth examining. The most intriguing one comes directly from Stephen Harper himself.

The Harper-Carney connection goes back much further than most Canadians realize

On November 3, Stephen Harper released his memoir, Here for Canada: Memoirs of the 22nd Prime Minister. Among its many recollections is an account involving Mark Carney that deserves considerably more attention than it initially received.

According to Harper, he approached Carney in 2012 about joining his Conservative government. Carney was then Governor of the Bank of Canada, having been appointed to the position in February 2008 after the selection process was conducted by the Bank's independent directors and approved by Harper's government.

The interesting part is not simply that Harper wanted Carney.

It is why.

Harper writes that his finance minister, Jim Flaherty, had become increasingly concerned after the 2011 federal election that Carney might be developing political ambitions, potentially including a future bid for the Liberal leadership.

Harper describes this as a serious concern.

He subsequently discussed the situation with his chief of staff, Nigel Wright. According to Harper's account, Wright suggested offering Carney a position in the Conservative government. Such an offer would either bring an exceptionally capable economic figure into their administration or force him to abandon any potential Liberal leadership ambitions while serving in a non-partisan position.

Harper writes that Carney was told he would become the leading candidate for the finance portfolio when it eventually became available, although Jim Flaherty still occupied the position.

There is an interesting discrepancy here. During a 2025 CBC interview, Carney described the conversation as Harper asking whether he would become finance minister. Harper's memoir clarifies that he did not offer the immediately occupied position, but did suggest Carney would be first in line when it opened.

Carney ultimately declined, saying he should remain outside partisan politics. He subsequently departed for the governorship of the Bank of England in 2013.

The significance is difficult to dismiss. Harper had identified Carney as a potentially formidable political figure before Trudeau even became prime minister.

More importantly, Harper was concerned about Carney becoming a Liberal leader.

Think about that for a moment.

The man who would eventually replace Trudeau was once considered by Canada's Conservative prime minister to be such a potentially important political opponent that Harper's inner circle discussed ways of preventing him from entering Liberal politics.

That does not establish collusion. In fact, Harper's account suggests the opposite: he wanted to recruit Carney into his own government partly to neutralize a possible Liberal leadership challenge.

But it establishes something important. These two men knew each other, had discussed political possibilities, and Harper clearly recognized Carney's economic and political potential long before the public began treating him as Trudeau's successor.

The relationship did not begin in 2024. It began more than a decade earlier.

The Trudeau years: A rather unusual relationship

There is another misconception worth clearing up.

Carney was not a member of Trudeau's original 2016 Advisory Council on Economic Growth. That council was chaired by Dominic Barton, the former global managing director of McKinsey, and included business and academic figures such as Mark Wiseman and Michael Sabia. Carney was not among its 14 listed members.

That distinction matters because Carney's publicly documented advisory relationship with Trudeau developed later.

In August 2020, following his departure from the Bank of England, Carney began providing informal advice to Trudeau on the federal government's economic response and eventual recovery from COVID-19.

Contemporary reporting described him as an informal adviser and sounding board. His discussions reportedly covered the social safety net, climate change, infrastructure and immigration.

This was not a Cabinet appointment or an official position inside the Prime Minister's Office. Government officials confirmed his advisory involvement, but the actual content of his recommendations was never published in any comprehensive form.

And that is where things become interesting.

Carney was not some ordinary political acquaintance offering the occasional opinion. He was a former Goldman Sachs managing director, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, former Governor of the Bank of England and one of the most influential figures in international financial circles.

He understood government, financial markets, institutional power and economic policy at a level that few Canadian politicians could match.

By September 2024, his relationship with Trudeau had become considerably more public. The Liberal Party announced that Carney would chair the Leader's Task Force on Economic Growth. The stated objective was to develop ideas for improving productivity, competitiveness and long-term economic growth. Recommendations were intended for Trudeau and the Liberal Party's platform committee.

There was one particularly interesting detail: Carney was advising the Liberal Party leader, who happened to be the prime minister, but he was not actually joining Trudeau's government, the Prime Minister's Office or the Privy Council Office. It was a political advisory position rather than a conventional public-service appointment.

Chrystia Freeland, then finance minister, publicly welcomed the arrangement, despite obvious questions about whether Carney's arrival might overshadow her own economic authority.

So, between the informal advisory arrangement in 2020 and his formal party position in 2024, Carney had become an increasingly important voice around Trudeau.

The public record, however, does not establish that he was continuously directing policy throughout those years. Nor does it reveal a private strategy to replace Trudeau.

That distinction is important.

Did Carney deliberately help Trudeau make himself unpopular?

Here is where the theory gets particularly provocative, although the evidence requires some restraint.

Trudeau's final years were marked by a collection of political decisions that proved extraordinarily damaging to his government's credibility. Some were ideological. Some were poorly managed. Others appeared to reflect a government increasingly disconnected from the concerns of ordinary Canadians.

Consider immigration.

The Trudeau government presided over an enormous expansion of temporary residents, international students and foreign workers. Population growth accelerated while housing supply, health-care capacity and infrastructure struggled to keep pace. It became one of the government's most damaging political vulnerabilities.

In November 2024, Carney publicly acknowledged that Canada had accepted significantly more people than it could reasonably absorb.

He said the country had failed to maintain its values on immigration by allowing foreign workers, students and newcomers to arrive in numbers that outstripped housing, health care, social services and employment opportunities.

This was a remarkable admission from someone advising the Liberal Party.

Carney was effectively acknowledging that the preceding government's approach had been unsustainable. Did he advise Trudeau to pursue those immigration levels? There is no public evidence establishing that. Indeed, the government had already announced significant reductions in immigration targets in October 2024.

But the political implications are fascinating.

An economic adviser who understood the capacity constraints of the country was now helping a deeply unpopular government formulate its economic message. The government had spent years defending its approach, only to have its eventual successor openly acknowledge that it had gone too far.

It was an extraordinarily convenient transition.

Then there was the carbon tax.

In October 2023, Trudeau introduced a temporary exemption from the federal carbon price for home heating oil. The exemption disproportionately benefited Atlantic Canada, creating accusations of regional political favouritism and undermining the government's insistence that carbon pricing was a consistent national policy.

Carney publicly disagreed with the carve-out. He argued for credible and predictable climate policy and questioned the wisdom of creating exceptions without a better replacement.

In May 2024, he again defended the need for predictable carbon policy before the Senate banking committee.

This is important because it demonstrates that Carney was not necessarily advising Trudeau to pursue every unpopular decision. On this particular issue, he publicly questioned the government's approach.

Nevertheless, the carbon-tax controversy became a defining political liability for the Trudeau Liberals. Carney would eventually abandon consumer carbon pricing when he became Liberal leader.

Then there was the capital gains tax increase.

In Budget 2024, Trudeau's government proposed increasing the capital gains inclusion rate from one-half to two-thirds for corporations and trusts, and for individuals on annual capital gains above $250,000.

The policy generated considerable opposition among business owners, investors, entrepreneurs and professional groups.

It was presented as a fairness measure, but the political consequences were predictable: another argument that the Liberals were becoming increasingly hostile towards investment and wealth creation.

Carney did not take over the party until 2025, and there is no documented evidence that he recommended this increase.

However, one of his first major decisions as prime minister was to cancel it.

The government announced the reversal on March 21, 2025, explicitly arguing that Canada needed to encourage investment, builders and entrepreneurs.

That is an interesting pattern.

A Liberal government introduces a controversial economic policy. The political consequences accumulate. Carney becomes its successor and promptly reverses the decision.

The theory practically writes itself.

But we should not confuse political opportunity with proof of deliberate sabotage. There is no verified evidence that Carney instructed Trudeau to pursue these policies in order to make himself a more attractive replacement.

The more defensible observation is that Carney was exceptionally well-positioned to inherit the consequences of Trudeau's political failures while offering a substantially different economic approach.

The Conservative philosophy hiding inside the Liberal Party

Now we get to the part that makes this theory particularly interesting.

Look at the direction of the Carney government since March 2025. It is difficult to argue that Canada has simply elected another version of the Trudeau government. Carney has moved the Liberal Party towards a considerably more business-oriented, investment-focused and fiscally disciplined economic philosophy.

Take the consumer carbon tax.

One of Carney's earliest decisions was to eliminate the federal consumer fuel charge, reducing it to zero effective March 2025.

Importantly, he did not eliminate industrial carbon pricing altogether. The system continues to apply pressure to major industrial emitters, reflecting his preference for market-based environmental policy rather than a blanket rejection of carbon pricing.

That distinction tells us something about his economic philosophy. Carney is not necessarily opposed to the market mechanisms associated with Liberal environmental policy. He is opposed to policies that become politically counterproductive or damage economic competitiveness. This is not traditional Conservative populism. It is technocratic, market-oriented capitalism.

The capital gains decision is another example.

Rather than defending Trudeau's proposal, Carney reversed it, presenting the move as a way to encourage private investment and entrepreneurial activity.

His government has also embarked on a substantial expenditure review.

Budget 2025 established a plan for $60 billion in savings over five years, including reductions in government operations, restructuring, program adjustments and public-service workforce reductions.

The argument is familiar to anyone who followed Harper's economic philosophy: government had grown too large, operational spending needed to be controlled, and resources should be directed towards more productive economic activity.

The latest Budget 2026, released November 5, reinforces this direction.

The government says it has reduced projected direct program spending growth from eight per cent to two per cent, while targeting $400 billion in capital investment over six years.

It also intends to balance day-to-day operating spending with revenue by 2027-28.

That is not a minor adjustment. It is a fundamental reorientation of federal fiscal priorities.

The distinction between operational expenditure and investment is central to Carney's approach. Spend less running the bureaucracy, spend more building infrastructure, attracting investment and expanding productive capacity.

There is certainly an argument that Harper would recognize much of this philosophy.

An energy policy that would have been difficult to imagine under Trudeau

Perhaps the most revealing example is energy.

On October 1, 2026, the federal government officially designated the proposed Pacific Link West Coast oil pipeline as a project of national interest under the Building Canada Act.

The proposed pipeline would transport approximately one million barrels of Alberta crude oil per day to a deep-water port near Delta, British Columbia, for export to international markets.

The project is tied to the proposed Pathways carbon capture initiative and remains subject to further regulatory assessment, Indigenous consultation and development requirements. It is not yet a completed or operating pipeline.

Nevertheless, the political significance is enormous.

A federal Liberal government is now actively advancing a proposed Alberta-to-Pacific oil export pipeline through a national-interest designation.

This is a dramatic departure from the political atmosphere surrounding energy development during Trudeau's earlier years.

The May 2026 Canada-Alberta implementation agreement is equally revealing. It commits both governments to stronger industrial carbon markets, energy development, electricity expansion and increased access to international markets.

It includes an effective industrial carbon-price framework reaching $130 per tonne by 2035 and higher thereafter, demonstrating that Carney's model is not simply to abandon environmental policy but to combine resource development with market-based emissions management.

This is an economic philosophy that prioritizes investment certainty, private capital, natural resources and international competitiveness.

It is considerably closer to a business-oriented Conservative vision than the approach that defined much of Trudeau's earlier political messaging.

Immigration, defence and the national interest

The same direction appears elsewhere.

Carney's government has maintained a much tighter immigration framework than the expansionist approach of the earlier Trudeau years.

The 2026-2028 immigration plan stabilizes permanent resident admissions at 380,000 annually, while reducing new temporary resident admission targets from 673,650 in 2025 to 385,000 in 2026 and 370,000 in both 2027 and 2028.

The government is also increasing the share of economic immigrants.

That is a substantial policy correction, reflecting the political and practical consequences of Canada's population growth outstripping its capacity to provide housing and services.

Defence is another major departure.

Carney's government has reached NATO's two-per-cent spending target and committed Canada to the alliance's much more ambitious defence investment framework.

The government is also placing significant emphasis on domestic defence manufacturing and military procurement.

One does not have to be a Conservative to support these decisions. But the broader priorities are unmistakable: sovereignty, national security, economic independence, industrial capacity and strategic investment.

These are not the priorities that defined Trudeau's political brand.

They are priorities more commonly associated with traditional Conservative arguments about national strength and economic competitiveness.

There is, however, an important qualification.

Carney is not building a small-government Conservative state. Budget 2026 also includes substantial public investment, affordability programs and federal economic intervention. His government is prepared to spend enormous sums where it sees a strategic economic benefit.

The better description is a market-friendly, interventionist economic nationalism.

It is conservative in several economic instincts, but decidedly not a wholesale adoption of Harper's political programme.

So, did Harper and Carney plan this all along?

Here is where we need to separate an entertaining theory from what the evidence actually demonstrates.

Harper's memoir reveals that he recognized Carney's potential and attempted to recruit him in 2012. It also reveals that Harper was concerned about Carney becoming a Liberal leader.

Carney declined the Conservative overture.

Years later, he began advising Trudeau informally, eventually became the Liberal Party's economic adviser and then succeeded Trudeau as party leader and prime minister.

Now, his government is implementing policies that include reduced consumer taxation, the cancellation of a capital gains tax increase, public-service reductions, stricter immigration targets, ambitious defence spending and a major expansion of Canadian energy infrastructure.

There is a coherent political pattern. But there is no documentary evidence of a secret Harper-Carney agreement, no verified evidence that Harper helped orchestrate Carney's leadership bid, and no substantiated evidence that Carney deliberately sabotaged Trudeau through his advice.

In fact, Harper's account of his 2012 approach suggests that he initially wanted to keep Carney away from the Liberal leadership altogether.

That's an important contradiction to the original conspiracy. Still, there is another way of interpreting the story.

Perhaps there was never a conspiracy. Perhaps there was simply a shared recognition among influential people in Canada's financial and political establishment that the Trudeau model had become economically and politically unsustainable. Harper recognized Carney's abilities. Carney understood the limitations of Trudeau's economic approach. The Liberal Party needed someone who could retain its institutional credibility while changing its political direction.

And when Trudeau finally departed, Carney was perfectly positioned to do exactly that.

The real political transformation

The most interesting question is not whether Stephen Harper secretly helped Mark Carney replace Justin Trudeau.

It is why the Liberal Party needed someone like Carney in the first place.

For almost a decade, Trudeau's Liberals built their political identity around a very different vision of government. They emphasized expansive social programming, environmental regulation, public spending and a highly visible federal role in shaping the economy.

Carney has not dismantled that entire legacy. Nor is he governing as a conventional Conservative.

But he has changed the priorities.

The emphasis is now on capital formation, economic productivity, resource development, fiscal restraint in government operations, national security and attracting private investment.

The Liberal Party has effectively exchanged much of its old political language for a new economic vocabulary.

And that transformation has happened remarkably quickly.

The 2025 election gave Carney a minority government, with the Liberals winning 169 seats to the Conservatives' 144. He managed to retain power at a moment when the Liberal brand was still badly damaged by the Trudeau years.

That is arguably the greatest political achievement of his career.

He inherited a party that was facing a serious electoral crisis, presented himself as a credible alternative to Trudeau, and then proceeded to move the government towards a more explicitly investment-driven economic model.

It is a remarkable political rehabilitation.

So, here is the fun conspiracy theory.

What if Harper saw something in Carney in 2012 that the rest of the political establishment only came to appreciate years later? What if Carney's economic philosophy was always more compatible with the centre-right than his eventual Liberal affiliation suggested? What if the collapse of Trudeau's political credibility simply provided the opportunity for a different kind of Liberal government to emerge?

And what if the most effective way to move Canada towards a more Conservative economic direction was never to win a Conservative election at all, but to put a different kind of Liberal in charge?

Do I believe Harper and Carney secretly plotted the whole thing? There is insufficient evidence to make that claim.

But I do believe the political history is worth examining.

Harper tried to recruit Carney. Carney later advised Trudeau. Trudeau eventually left. Carney inherited the Liberal Party and began implementing policies that would have been far more comfortable territory for many traditional Conservatives than the policies of his predecessor.

The Liberal Party remains Liberal in name, and many of its social and institutional commitments remain intact. But economically, it is becoming something rather different. Perhaps the real joke is that after spending years fighting the Conservatives, Canadians may have ended up with a Liberal government that has borrowed a considerable number of their economic ideas. And Stephen Harper, who recognized Mark Carney's political potential fourteen years ago, has just reminded everyone of it himself.

Usually, the most interesting conspiracy theories begin with something that actually happened.