OTTAWA—Having lost the election to the Liberals, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives say they’re now ready to fight alongside their bitter adversaries in the trade war against the United States.

After months of hyperpartisan sniping on both sides, though, the alliance between the government and opposition is likely to be uneasy—and discernibly different than the last time they joined forces to defend Canada’s trade prospects. 

“We want a good deal for Canada at the end of the day,” Andrew Scheer told reporters on Tuesday, minutes after agreeing to temporarily take over Conservative leadership duties in Parliament. “We’re here to help in any way we can, and we’ll see what the government brings forward in terms of legislation.”

Scheer accepted the role after Poilievre lost his long-held seat, and will fill it while the leader tries to win a federal byelection. But Scheer was the party’s full-fledged leader the last time Canada negotiated a trade pact with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. 

Back then, he pledged the Conservatives would not be “mere observers” in the process, and dispatched Conservative MPs to Washington to extol free trade and promote Canada’s interests—even as his party grilled the government about its approach to negotiations. “Our caucus will continue to assist the government by promoting the merits of free trade whenever they have the opportunity to do so,” Scheer wrote in a 2017 article for Policy magazine. 

Those negotiations ended with the signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which came into effect in 2020.

Neither Scheer nor Poilievre has promised that kind of proactive assistance this time, but their support is in demand. Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed he had reached out to opposition leaders after the election to ask for their cooperation. “I told them that I intended to work with them in order to make our government more effective, support our workers, our businesses, and put our economy back on track,” he said. 

Carney has not been specific about the kind of support he’s asking for, but in a series of post-election media interviews, Scheer left the door open to voting in legislative measures to support workers affected by punishing U.S. tariffs and help Canada to secure a new trade deal.

The party’s former trade minister, Ed Fast, has urged the Conservatives to go further. “I hope that they are capable of understanding the moment that we’re in and that Donald Trump will exploit political divisions within Canada to extort concessions from us,” Fast said in an interview with The Logic. “There now has to be, I think, a pivot away from being a pure, loyal opposition to being a partner in what is presently an economically existential crisis for Canada.”

As trade minister, Fast was responsible for carrying out former prime minister Stephen Harper’s trade diversification agenda, and led negotiations with Ukraine, South Korea, the European Union and Trans-Pacific Partnership countries. He said the government could benefit from expertise in the Conservative party if both sides are willing. “Our party does have many established contacts that could be useful in helping move a [USMCA] negotiation forward in a manner that actually represents a win-win,” said Fast, who retired last month after serving for nearly two decades as MP for Abbotsford.

So far, Poilievre has said his party has no plans to make contact with Trump’s team. “I’ve been operating with the rule of one prime minister at a time,” he said when asked about his outreach efforts during the election campaign. “I’ve been very careful not to do anything to divide Canada’s voice when communicating with the executive branch of the United States government, so that’s why I have not contacted anyone in the U.S. executive administration.”

But Saskatchewan MP Randy Hoback has been quietly building bridges with American lawmakers and has continued that work since the election, Fast said. Hoback, Poilievre’s advisor on Canada-U.S. relations, did not respond to questions, and the Conservative party did not respond to a request for comment.  

Flavio Volpe, a veteran of unofficial diplomacy as president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said he would often run into Hoback during the first Trump administration, when both were making frequent trips to Washington, D.C., to advocate for Canadian trade. He started to encounter Hoback at airports again after Trump’s latest inauguration. Volpe lauded Hoback’s unique perspective and said every party has its own “stars” on the trade file. “I know there’s a robust cluster in the Conservative caucus,” he told The Logic in March. 

Volpe said having Conservatives on board was key during the USMCA negotiations and helped make the case that, for Canada, the issue transcends partisanship. “It helps Republicans understand why Conservatives would be helping a Liberal government, trying to get a better deal for everybody.”