Liberal Leader Mark Carney, then-newly elected, speaks to then-prime minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa in March, 2025.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Former prime minister Stephen Harper’s endorsement of his successor as Conservative Party Leader, Pierre Poilievre, in last year’s federal election came as a surprise to no one.

Still, that Mr. Poilievre’s rival in the race had previously been named to head the Bank of Canada by Mr. Harper himself suggested that the former prime minister recognized Mark Carney’s leadership qualities well before the country did. The Bank of Canada gig helped make Mr. Carney a global star when the 2008 financial crisis propelled him onto the world stage and, eventually, to the top job at the Bank of England.

The fact that Mr. Poilievre’s résumé did not match up did not stop Mr. Harper from declaring, at a Conservative rally last April: “I am the only person who can say that both of the men running to be prime minister once worked for me. And in that regard, my choice without hesitation, without equivocation, without a shadow of a doubt, is Pierre Poilievre.”

Mr. Carney could not hold Mr. Harper’s endorsement of his Conservative successor against him, and, at an event in Ottawa this week, the two men appeared to have formed a mutual admiration society. At a ceremony to mark the unveiling of........

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