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At the closing news conference after meeting Asian leaders in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Monday, Mark Carney said something curious. When asked whether Donald Trump really called off trade talks with Canada because Doug Ford broadcast an antitariff ad quoting former president Ronald Reagan, the prime minister said: “I would suggest you take the president at his word for his reasons.” This doesn’t make sense. First of all, it is never wise to take Trump’s word for anything. His extraordinary political success is based on a cascading wave of untruths, moulding an alternative reality with a barrage of lies. “Canada has been ripping us off for a long time,” Trump said in Malaysia. “One of the most difficult countries to deal with has been Canada.” Should we take Trump’s word on that as well? Carney is extraordinarily well-prepared for the terrible situation in which he finds himself. He has as complete an understanding of the world economy as anyone, hard-won experience in crisis management and deep connections to the people around Trump. But when the US president rejected Canadians’ charm offensive while both men were in Asia, Carney did not look sure-footed. This is a huge setback for Canada. While manufacturers are trying to dodge US tariffs by moving plants south, Carney has been working hard to get a better deal. He unilaterally announced that Canada would not, after all, collect a Digital Services Tax — which should, in an ideal world, be a purely domestic matter. He even flattered Trump when he visited him in the Oval Office. The charm offensive worked for a while and we got back to the table, working on a deal that would cover steel, aluminum and energy. The two sides were close to an agreement until Trump announced that the Reagan ad was such an unacceptable interference in domestic American politics that he would impose another 10 per cent tariff on Canadians and send us away from the table. It is anything but clear if the ad is really what killed the talks, or if, as Lisa Raitt speculated on CTV on Tuesday, that the Canadians at the table rejected an American demand, which led Trump to blow up the whole thing. If that is what happened then Carney was unwise to say that the ad is what did it, because, as Ford promptly revealed, he saw the ad before it was broadcast, and presumably did not object. The Carney-Ford bon cop/bad cop routine has seemed like a good idea up to this point, but the situation is getting dire. Carney’s answer on the ad question reminded me of his disingenuous answer back in March when pressed on his role in moving the headquarters of Brookfield Asset Management Ltd to New York from Toronto. His legalistic and non-forthcoming answer back then did not meet the standard we ought to expect from our political leaders, and suggested that he had not yet realized how different it is to account to voters than to a board of directors. Carney is right not to negotiate in public and wise to be travelling around trying to diversify our trading relationships; but he is still new to politics, a subtle business that involves forthright accounting to the public. In a way, Carney is lucky that Conservative critiques of his government are overly broad. Pierre Poilievre is attacking Carney for having failed to get a deal — as if Trump is a normal president. He even criticizes him for wasting time travelling to Asia to find new markets for our products, which is just dumb. Poilievre is likely taking this tack because he thinks Canadians made a terrible mistake in electing Carney, which, polling shows, is not what most voters think. It would be better for Poilievre to complain that the Carney is keeping us in the dark and remind him that he is prime minister, not CEO, of Canada, and ask him to do a better job of explaining his plans to Canadians. And Carney would be wise to do that even if Poilievre is making the wrong attacks.
