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Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper delivered the closing speech at the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto on Tuesday. The summit was organized by the Liberal government and hosted in partnership with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments). Harper, who currently serves as chairman of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation and is co-founder of the investment fund Vision-One Management, said that Canada was right to walk away from trade talks “must pursue diminished reliance upon the United States” to maintain its sovereignty. Read the full text of the English portions of Harper’s speech, below. 

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Thank you very much…. Distinguished guests from Canada and around the world, it is an honour to address you today and to formally conclude this summit. I want to express my appreciation on behalf of myself, and on behalf of the 20th prime minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Jean Chrétien. I want to express our appreciation to the organizers at CPP, at PSP, and the Government of Canada for inviting us here, and also for giving me the podium today.

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The prime minister said to me yesterday, “I really want to thank you for doing this.” I said, “Well, you may want to wait and see what I’m going to say, first.” I used a line from from that famous British TV show, I said, “You know, I am a partisan appointment. Your decision to give me a microphone is a courageous decision, prime minister.”

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In any case, I’ve been delighted to attend this event, and even more pleased to see so many familiar faces in this room today. I have met with many of you in your own countries these past few years, and I consider you friends. And I thank you, each and every one of you, for making the journey to spend this time here with us in Canada. I consider your attendance an act of friendship and a vote of confidence in our country at a crucial time.

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Now I know that, as board chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, you expect me to speak about Canada as an investment destination, and I will. I tell people at AIMCo, we are not an economic development fund. We are global investors. We seek the best returns from anywhere that we can for our clients. And for all those reasons, we have over 40 per cent of our investments in this country, so we see lots of opportunity in Canada. That’s my AIMCo hat.

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However, I am also a former prime minister, and as such, I cannot help but address the current situation that Canada faces. It is a situation in which, given the ongoing violations of our trade agreement by the United States and the current impasse in negotiations, our country felt compelled to walk away and to see a trade war commence in earnest…. This had to be a very difficult decision, but I do believe that our government had no choice but to take this path.

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I say that, as one who has long been, and known to be, a great admirer of America, and one who believes that our close proximity and close relationship to the United States has been among this country’s most precious assets.

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However, it is clear that the current U.S. administration views our level of economic integration as incompatible with our separate sovereignty. Thus, to maintain that sovereignty, we must pursue diminished reliance upon the United States. There will be significant costs to this effort, but those are costs that I hope and believe Canadians are able and prepared to accept.

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I find this all, I do find this all very sad, just as equally necessary. And I believe that, in this necessity, our country will also discover, and is discovering, opportunity…. It is an opportunity for Canada to rediscover a long-term agenda for economic prosperity, an opportunity to realize our true potential as a country, which I believe, to be frank, we have come nowhere close to achieving.

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We in this room all know very well that this is a competitive world, fraught with shifting politics, fragile supply chains, and other transactional pressures, now more so than recent decades. In the face of such change, Canada cannot simply blame external factors or make other excuses to explain away the difficulties that we face. Leadership is defined by taking accountability for what you can control.

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And today, more than ever, Canada must become more internally competitive, more externally connected, and more truly sovereign than it has been. That is the opportunity.

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And obviously, I do want to speak about the Canadian economy. Canada possesses — I know you’ve heard it throughout the conference — Canada possesses a unique economic structure and therefore unique opportunities.

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We have a healthy economic presence across the full range of economic activities: primary, secondary, tertiary, advanced technology. We must be committed to retaining this incredible economic diversity, and we cannot allow the Trump administration to hollow out our industrial capacities.

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Yet, despite this economic diversity, it remains my view that our resource endowment is our special comparative advantage. We have abundant resources, renewable and non-renewable, of every type, way beyond our conceivable needs in almost every category.

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Further, these resources are found in an unmatched rule of law business environment with the highest of environmental standards and far removed from conflict zones. That is a comparative advantage.

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Now, I’m going to keep my comments brief, so I want to focus on one thing. I know that at AIMCo we are rightly known as one of the Maple 8, but dare I say that we are also the Wild Rose 1. That is, the sole major fund based in the province of Alberta. So allow me to speak a bit from that perspective, particularly from the perspective from Alberta’s position as the centre of the country’s energy industry…. As I said repeatedly when I was Canada’s prime minister, Canada should be an energy superpower. Whatever the energy mix of the future, Canada should be a major and a global supplier.

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We are fifth largest in the world in natural gas production, fourth in the production of oil. Notes say fourth in oil reserves — (Suncor Energy CEO) Rich Kruger says third, I’ll take that. He knows more than I do.

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We are third in hydroelectricity. We are second in uranium. All of it today from Saskatchewan, which, with the development of new mines there, will make us the largest global producer within a few years. Great credit for that is, by the way, due to Premier (Scott) Moe and the government of Saskatchewan.

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And by the way, we are not just a uranium miner; we are a builder and refurbisher of nuclear reactors with a world-leading regulatory review agency for the development of SMRs (small modular reactors).

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And of course, as a country, we have plenty of investments in biofuels and renewables, and we possess the raw materials necessary for further development of those sectors.

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In 2015, Canada was poised to become that energy superpower. Today, we are not. Why? Because of deliberate policy choices that followed over the next decade.

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But there is no point bemoaning what is past, especially because the opportunity of becoming that global energy superpower is fortuitously offering itself to us once again.

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I do congratulate our current federal government on the measures it has taken to fast-track major project approvals, especially for projects in the oil sands. These changes are welcome and they are very important.

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However, more does need to be done. The burdens and restrictions that do not exist elsewhere simply must be removed in Canada. And we need to provide comprehensive reform, regulatory reviews, and permitting processes, so that Canada can provide investors with the certainty of a science-based decision on both resource and related infrastructure projects within a fixed and reasonable time frame, as we had set up a decade ago.

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Ironically, if we do not do these things as a country, the Americans will continue to be our sole customers, and they will not lack the urgency that we have lacked here in Canada. Nor will many others in the world.

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That is why I have to say that I am very encouraged by the detailed comments the prime minister made today on doing just some of these things, and I welcome them.

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I believe that Canada’s new government is committed to further reforms in these areas, and committed to their urgency. And I know that our premier, Premier (Danielle) Smith, will continue using that what we call “Alberta diplomacy” to remind our federal government of that.

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Because becoming that energy superpower is no longer just good business. Not only, my view, good politics. It is critical to our prosperity and indeed to our survival as a country. Critical to raising our horizons beyond narrow domestic considerations to address global opportunities and imperatives.

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And to be blunt, we need not worry about demand from either customers or investors, as I have been reminded by many of you in this room and others around the world for a decade. The world is developing an unprecedented demand for energy in all its forms, and they want it from Canada, provided we want to get it out of the ground and sell it.

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But this is not just about other markets. We need this energy not only for its export potential. We also need it right here in Canada for our own reindustrialization and technological innovation, as well as, of course, as a critical signal that Canada is indeed once again a serious investment destination.

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And that brings me back to the purpose of this conference.

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As I’ve said, we are honoured that you have joined us. I congratulate the federal government for holding this conference — I believe the first of its kind in Canada.

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It is such a great innovation that I wish I had thought of it. But we all know that it is only a start, and to realize its potential, we need ongoing determination and urgency here in Canada.

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I do hope that this conference, I do hope that this conference is not a one-off. I think this conference needs to become regular, and we need your input, delegates from everywhere. We need your input to make it bigger and better going forward.

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Now, just in conclusion, I know that you all have come here to discuss commercial opportunities, but it is my hope that in these conversations, you have deepened the trust and affirmed the values upon which commercial partnerships are built.

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Because friends, this country offers something even more precious than our abundant raw resources and our plentiful business opportunities. It offers a mindset of respect, of collaboration, and of partnership.

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No matter their industry, Canadians are fundamentally in the business of building trusted partnerships that benefit both sides. This orientation for partnership has been in Canada’s DNA since our confederation was first established In 1867.

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It is chiseled in our national character, like the granite of the Canadian Shield, and it flows across the boundless expanse of our fresh water. It is also the cornerstone of real value creation, and in that vein, I hope that this gathering is merely the beginning of building such partnerships.

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In the meanwhile, I really do want to thank all of you once again, each and every one of you, for coming here. Godspeed wherever your travels may take you next.

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Merci beaucoup…. God bless Canada.

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