Politics & Power Quote by Stephen Harper

Harper’s line is a small masterpiece of technocratic nationalism: it sells globalization as common sense, not ideology. By starting with “I think” twice, he softens what is essentially a directive - Canada should see itself less as a self-contained polity and more as a node in a market system. The repetition performs modesty while staking out a hard priority: “first and foremost” isn’t a description, it’s a ranking of loyalties.

The key phrase is “trading nation.” It turns a complex country - with regional economies, Indigenous sovereignty claims, cultural policy fights, and a social safety net Canadians often treat as identity - into an export profile. “Trading” sounds pragmatic and historically grounded (fur, wheat, oil, autos), but it also implies inevitability: if trade is who we are, then deeper integration, fewer frictions, and policy deference to competitiveness become mere realism. The “global economy” arrives as an outside force Canadians “understand,” like weather, rather than a set of rules negotiated by governments and shaped by winners and losers.

Context matters: Harper’s conservatism often framed Canada as disciplined, reliable, and open for business, especially in contrast to a more romantic, culturally protective Canadian nationalism. This sentence fits that project. It reassures investors and trading partners while nudging domestic audiences to accept constraints - on regulation, on industrial policy, on redistribution - as the price of membership. The subtext isn’t that Canada participates globally. It’s that the global economy gets to be the reference point for what Canada is allowed to do next.