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The former prime minister also talked about the influence of technology on voters.

“The fact that all major institutions, established interests, media outlets, may have had a consensus on some issue — no Brexit, no Donald Trump — proved to be irrelevant,” he said.

“With modern technology, people have the ability to get their own information, develop their own views, and define their own interests, network with others who feel the same, and they will make their own political decisions regardless of what established interests or conventional media say.”

Canada, Harper said, has been “virtually unaffected” by an emerging political division between elite and populist interests. But it’s a mistake to believe that the country is immune, he added.

“The reason Canada has not experienced these divisions is really rather simple: in Canada, at least until recently, we had middle class and working class income growth over the past couple of decades,” he said. “Should that change, I predict our politics here will change along the same lines.”

Harper stressed he wasn’t at the event to comment on Canadian politics, but added that he does want to encourage leaders of all political stripes to advocate “fundamentally sound directions in public policy” while also listening and responding to the concerns of ordinary people.

The former prime minister stepped down as party leader after his government was defeated by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in the October 2015 federal general election. He gave up his Calgary Heritage parliamentary seat this past August.

Fourteen candidates are in the running to replace Harper in a federal Conservative leadership vote set for May.

A byelection in Calgary Heritage is set for April 3.