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A recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that 65 per cent of Canadians believe that the 31,000 irregular border crosses since 2017 is “too many people for Canada to handle.”

Harper’s comments echo the argument made in hisrecently released book, Right Here, Right Now: Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption, which urges conservatives to listen to populist grievances, rather than focus on other priorities like tax cuts for the wealthy.

Harper said he see patriotism and nationalism as virtually indistinguishable, but warned against extreme versions of it.

“I would agree that if you get far-right nationalism that’s essentially racial or ethnic in character, it could become a different kind of beast. But frankly, conservatives don’t advocate that kind of nationalism,” said Harper.

Harper was also highly critical of Chinese trading practices and lauded U.S. President Donald Trump for “being the first president willing to take on this.”

“You have a bad deal that provides grossly unequal access and the consequence has been the outflow of millions of jobs from the United States, from Canada, to China with no discernible benefits to our working population,” said Harper.

“As a populist conservative, or frankly I would say as a conservative, you don’t sign deals like that. You sign deals where you know your economy is going to benefit and that lots of people in your economy are going to benefit,” he said.

Harper cautioned against a trade war and protectionism in general, but said the end goal of any trade deal or trade remedy must be for China to open its markets.