Good morning. When the Conservative Party gathers on Parliament Hill today to mark the 20th anniversary of the modern party’s first rise to power, the governing Liberals might have just as much reason to reflect on what came next. That’s in focus today – plus, the good news and bad news about Canada’s oil exports.

Pensions: The CAAT Pension Plan’s board chair has been suspended pending investigations into a deepening governance crisis at the $23.3-billion pension fund.

Acquisitions: Eldorado Gold Corp., a Vancouver-based company that owns multiple mines overseas, is buying Foran Mining Corp. for $3.8-billion.

Aerospace: Domestic manufacturers are struggling to find clarity after Trump’s threats to strip safety permits for Canadian-made planes.

Stephen Harper’s decade in office reshaped Canada’s trade architecture in ways that are proving vital to Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose efforts to forge new and deeper ties beyond North America are becoming urgent in the face of an isolationist United States. As Conservatives gather to celebrate a momentous 2006 election, I spoke with Harper biographer and long-time Globe journalist John Ibbitson about how the former prime minister’s economic legacy is shaping Canada’s response to a more hostile trading world.

If you look at Stephen Harper and Mark Carney side by side, do you see similarities in how they approach governing?

I think they’re remarkably similar, and they would probably agree that they’re remarkably similar. It was Stephen Harper who first said that Canada was an energy superpower. And what did Mark Carney start saying as soon as he became prime minister? Canada is an energy superpower. They both believe in Canada’s potential as a petrochemical state.

They’re also practical managers. The budget was balanced when Harper arrived. When the financial crisis came in 2008 and the G20 leaders agreed on stimulus, he took the budget back into deficit, then worked hard to get it back into balance by the time he left office. He was a conservative, but a practical conservative. He did what needed to be done.

When you think about Harper’s economic legacy, what stands out as most relevant today?

Certainly economic and industrial deregulation. Sound financial policy. And trade.

Let’s talk about that. How did Harper’s approach compare with earlier governments, and how are we seeing that legacy today?

Jean Chrétien didn’t really believe in free-trade agreements. He preferred multilateral agreements and didn’t particularly like one-on-one deals, so almost nothing got signed during those 10 years.

Paul Martin brought in economist David Emerson with a mandate to get things going. When Harper won two years later, he simply kept Emerson and gave him the same mandate.

Under Harper, Canada signed agreements with Israel and South Korea. He completed the South Korea agreement that we had almost won and then lost. He launched the negotiations that led to CETA, the trade pact with Europe. And he brought Canada into the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

So the trade diversification Mark Carney is pursuing today is very much the child of the diversification that Stephen Harper launched as prime minister.

How did Harper think about Canada’s role in the world more generally?

Harper would have said he was not primarily a foreign-policy prime minister. He would have said he was dedicated to the federation and to the economy of the federation.

That said, Canada played a significant role internationally. He led the push to expel Vladimir Putin from the G8 after Ukraine. Canada played a front-line role in Afghanistan. We were a leader in Libya. Canada was one of the first countries to get aid to Haiti. But that was not how he primarily defined his job.

How does that compare with Carney?

Carney sees himself as an architect of a new world order, based on the absence of the United States as the leader of that order. Harper did not see himself that way.

You’ve talked before about Harper’s approach to federal-provincial relations. How central was that to his governing philosophy?

Harper believed that the best way to keep the country functioning was for Ottawa to stay within its constitutional mandate and not interfere in provincial jurisdiction. In my lifetime, it was the only period I can remember when there was no major existential crisis in federalism.

The Parti Québécois even won government and then probably lost it because they had nothing to push against. Harper was giving Quebec and every other province full room to exercise its jurisdiction.

Do we know yet where Carney falls on that spectrum?