Your argument seems to be that Harper who topped his graduating class in his economics degree and went on to compete a masters in economics despite holding down busy full time jobs at the time and Jim Flaherty voted by the European financial press as the best finance minister in the democratic world were less knowledgeable about economics and public finance than Jean Chretien?  This is an interesting Liberal spin that has been often repeated.   

For the record, Canadian banks were more leveraged and less capitalized than American banks and still are.  What makes their assets safer than the assets held by American banks is not deregulation but that the Canadian government guarantees over half of Canadian mortgages through CMHC.   This plus how few banks we actually have and how chummy the banks, the regulators and the Bank of Canada are certainly did give us an advantage during the melt down.  So did wise fiscal and economic policy and leadership by Harper and Flaherty.