The failure of elbows up Carney

[00:00:01][music] >> Hey folks, I'm Rob Breckenridge for nationalpost.com and NP Comment. It's been a tumultuous week for Canada-US relations. A lot of questions about where all of this is going. Mark Carney came into office, of course, just over a year and a half ago with an expectation maybe that things were going to trend in a different direction. That certainly hasn't been the case. Joining us from war is veteran journalist nationalpost columnist Michael Higgins and you can read his latest on all of this at nationalpost.com. Michael, thanks for making time for us here.

[00:00:34]>> Rob, good to be here.

[00:00:38]>> Shaping up to be an interesting week, of course. We have the the threats over the wildfire smoke and maybe there's still another shoe to drop here. But of course, right after that, the announcement of new tariffs being imposed on Canada. What does that signal to you about where this relationship is at?

[00:00:54]>> Oh, well, I mean, certainly the relationship between Canada and the US now is is at an unprecedented lows. And and I think it's it's mainly driven by Trump. But I mean, Canada does have some responsibility here.

[00:01:08]From the get-go, Mark Carney was with the elbows-up campaign, you know, which I think Trump said it didn't antagonize him and that he actually took credit for winning Canada the election. We know that with Trump everything is personal.

[00:01:23]And I think he probably did take a bit of umbrage at that. But since then, I mean, the tariffs, trade war, the relationship has gone down and I think the US has got a lot of a lot of responsibility for that.

[00:01:41]>> It's interesting that at times when when Carney and Trump have have met, there there seems to be kind of an amicable relationship. It's it's almost seemed at times maybe that that Trump kind of like Carney. But then we see on the other side in terms of actual actions and in the relationship itself, there does appear to be a disconnect. There What what should we be looking at in terms of trying to gauge or measure where things are at?

[00:02:06]>> Well, I I I think it's very difficult to do that because you're absolutely right.

[00:02:10]Trump and Carney were at the World Cup final together, sitting close together.

[00:02:16]Trump on Sunday said, you know, I have a good relationship with with Carney. And then he pulls out the terrorist thing.

[00:02:22]You know, in the last 24 hours, Trump has also said, I love Canada. Well, these aren't the actions of a US president who who loves Canada. And so it's very difficult to judge any relationship between the two of them.

[00:02:38]You know, with with Trudeau and Obama for instance, it was very different. You could see that they had the old bromance going and that they they liked each other and that they were pals.

[00:02:49]Um I don't think the same is true of Trump.

[00:02:53]He's very um Well, he's very American focused.

[00:02:56]It's it's all about America and therefore he might say he likes you, but he has absolutely no problems with imposing unjustified tariffs on Canada or saying that he has a good relationship with with the prime minister when in fact all she cares about is America and doing a deal for America and and not really caring about Canada or its position or anything else.

[00:03:19]So it's difficult to judge. It's very difficult to judge.

[00:03:23]>> We mentioned, you know, the elbows up rhetoric from the election just over a year ago and you know, it's pretty clear the liberals benefit from this this element, especially when Trump is antagonistic toward Canada.

[00:03:34]That that's that's kind of a political gold mine in a lot of ways for the liberals.

[00:03:39]What does that tell us about maybe motivations here? Does does the liberal government does Mark Carney want to better relationship with the Americans?

[00:03:47]Does he want to reach a deal with Trump and in kind of almost in a way diffuse this issue.

[00:03:53]>> Well, I think there's two things there.

[00:03:55]First of all, the elbows up campaign.

[00:03:57]I think that was political opportunism for Carney. He saw the opportunity, he went for it. I have to say as a as a politician, it was a great stunt.

[00:04:07]I I disagreed with it. I disagree with it entirely. I think it was very antagonistic. I think it was the wrong thing to do. I think it put us on the wrong platform the the wrong platform wrong foot with with the US. I I think it's it's turned Canada against US people in general and they are not the problem. And so I disagreed with the campaign, but I thought it was a great political stunt.

[00:04:32]It got him elected.

[00:04:34]And I think he could be very satisfied with that from from that political point of view. But going forward, it's not a good thing.

[00:04:44]Going forward, we we we need to be less antagonistic and we need to be more careful about how we negotiate things. I think Canada also took a sort of slower backseat when it came to negotiating negotiating Kuzma.

[00:05:01]The Mexicans were far more advanced in their negotiations. We dragged things out a bit and I think that was a ploy that has backfired on us. We perhaps needed to be more more direct with how we approached Trump and I think we needed to be more subtle in how we did it. Delaying the negotiations over trade was not a very good thing. Um I think we may come to regret that initial elbows up campaign.

[00:05:31]>> There's also that contrast between the elbows up rhetoric and some of the concessions we've seen from the government to the Americans since then.

[00:05:38]Do you sense that there's been some some weakness demonstrated on the Canadian government's part here when it comes and especially now we we see on on the Gordie Howe bridge, and how has that affected this whole dynamic?

[00:05:51]>> Yeah, and and that's the, you know, the elbows up political stunt meeting realpolitik. When when you have to get down to the nitty-gritty and you have to negotiate and you have to deal with with the other party, whether it be the Americans or whatever, then you have to talk realpolitik. And and and and then the US have got a lot of clout. It's all very well saying we won't be bullied as Ford has done uh constantly, but the but the fact of the matter is that they are a huge economy, we are hugely dependent on them. We needed to have opened up our provinces earlier. We needed to have built pipelines. There's a lot we needed to do, and yet we're still reliant so much upon America. And so when America turns around and says, "Actually, we want some of the revenues from the Gordie Howe bridge, or we won't open it." We don't have a lot of pull.

[00:06:41]We we just don't. And therefore, we have to cave. It's not a good look for Carney that he's had to make that concession.

[00:06:48]It goes against the elbows up campaign.

[00:06:51]But those are the facts of what you sometimes have to do. Um and so yeah, it makes Carney, instead of looking strong and elbows up and on the man to take take on Trump as as being weak and indecisive and unable to manage a relationship, which is so vitally important to Canada.

[00:07:10]>> You mentioned some of the delay tactics or the ragging the puck to use a Canadian hockey analogy.

[00:07:15]Uh do you think Carney's trying to wait out Trump a little bit here to to to wait out the midterms, see if if, you know, Trump loses uh maybe some of his political clout, or or even longer term to to try to outwait Trump himself?

[00:07:29]>> Yeah, I think I think that's a possibility. I think first of all, it was a sort of trade negotiation. He actually thought that he might get a better deal in in delaying the things.

[00:07:37]But yeah, I think there's a lot of hopes on on the midterms, and that come November, uh he's going to lose a lot of support. I don't think Trump is going to be the lame duck president that we think he's going to be. We tend to think of other presidents as being lame lame ducks after, you know, the the midterms in their second period. I I He's just so unpredictable. And I think he is just so obstinate and I think he is a man who knows how to wield power that in fact, after the midterms elections, he'll still be a very dangerous adversary for Canada.

[00:08:14]>> Well, maybe that's why Carney still seems to get a little bit of the benefit of the doubt from the Canadian public because Canadians maybe recognize the unpredictability of Donald Trump. I think, you know, as you say, Mark Carney needs to be held accountable for what what he's pledged to do or what he's failed to do. But how much of that Trump factor gives him that that kind of political cover to say, well, yeah, I mean, what are you going to do when you're dealing with a guy like Donald Trump?

[00:08:39]>> Yeah, exactly. We need to know more from the government about how they are going to handle Donald Trump. Uh and we need to know we need to know fast and quickly. The the thing about the Gordie Howe bridge was that they let that fester for a couple of days and they let the Americans come out and say, well, actually, that's not the agreement. And again, that's a bad look for Carney. He should have seized the momentum. He should have said exactly what the deal was. He could should have come out and laid it on the line, even though it was it was a bad look. The details were always going to come out.

[00:09:11]And so, it doesn't look good on Carney in in how he's handling Trump at all. He needs to be more open. He needs to be I think a little bit more aggressive in the way he handles Trump. And I'm not just saying he needs to come out and talk like Ford. Trump is a bully uh and we have to push back.

[00:09:30]That's the kind of rhetoric that I don't think we need to use, but we need to be get bit pushy in how we handle the Americans and and they need to tell Canadians what the story is. I'll give you three examples. The latest tariffs, 25 50% tariffs. And we're targeting the US are targeting dairy, uh the auto sector and alcohol.

[00:09:56]Well, first of all, we are targeting American vehicles because they targeted you Canadian vehicles first of all. So, that was a response in in in relation to that.

[00:10:07]Dairy, well, I'm no fan of supply management and we perhaps should be looking at it.

[00:10:12]But, the US have huge subsidies in their dairy sector. It's over a billion dollars some years. It's It's not supply management, but it's subsidies of a million a billion dollars. So, you know, that again is is another irritant for Canada.

[00:10:27]And And as for alcohol, again, Trump started the trade war and the provinces decided to get alcohol off the sales. Uh I didn't think it was right at the time. It may well have have some good leverage. So, it may have been the right thing to do.

[00:10:44]>> Do you think it's possible then to to moving forward here to to demonstrate some backbone while at the same time trying to repair this relationship? Is it possible to to you know, straddle both sides of that where maybe if Canada is uh showing some some strength that that there's a way that we can do that that that resonates with Donald Trump in a way that almost he can respect. How How do we go about standing up for ourselves and repairing this relationship?

[00:11:11]>> Yeah, you're right. That's a That's a very fine tightrope to walk. Um and yet that's what we expect our leaders to do.

[00:11:18]So, they have to somehow do it. I guess we have to look at our leverage and I guess the leverage is things like oil and potash and critical minerals.

[00:11:27]But, the provinces are going to be very very reluctant to to to sort of start, you know, reducing or or putting tariffs on those.

[00:11:35]I mean, it would just hurt the economy far too much.

[00:11:39]Um and so he needs to push back. One of the things that he probably needs to do is develop a relationship with Donald Trump. We haven't really seen that.

[00:11:47]We've seen, you know, he that they've appeared together. They had a press conference together uh uh uh many months ago.

[00:11:53]He needs to try to develop some kind of rapport with Donald Trump that we can see. And that may have some more clout than, you know, just stepping back and trying to manage a relationship from Canada. He probably needs to go to the US.

[00:12:10]Um and he probably needs to tone down the things like, you know, going to Davos and saying middle powers need to sort of get together and and and battle the mighty America.

[00:12:21]That's not a good look, either.

[00:12:23]Um he needs to stop thinking about middle powers and world powers, and he needs to start handling the relationship directly with with America.

[00:12:34]>> As far as Canadians are concerned in terms of looking for that leadership, but also wanting to understand what's what's going on here, what the government's objectives are. I mean, you know, the mixed messages, the contradictions we got on the Gordie Howe Bridge is an example maybe of Canadians not being leveled with by by their own governments. Is is there a need to to address that side here as far as Mark Carney is concerned?

[00:12:56]>> I think there's a huge uh uh uh issue there. Um you take the Gordie Howe Bridge, but you take some of the negotiations that they've been having with with the US. Um and and there's not been much feedback from that, you know? They need to be more open with with Canadians about what is going on. Where are the trade negotiations at the moment? Uh what what are we asking for? What are we demanding? What are we looking for?

[00:13:21]All's we hear is is Trump's imposing new tariffs, and we will now impose some other tariffs as as as as a retaliation response. But that's not telling us what's going on in the background. What, you know, inform us about what the relationship really is, how how they're dealing with the things, and give us some details.

[00:13:43]>> Absolutely. An important moment for the country. We'll see where it all goes from here. Michael Higgins, appreciate your insight. Thanks for the conversation here today.

[00:13:50]>> Rob, always good to talk to you.

[00:13:53]>> That is veteran journalist National Post columnist Michael Higgins. My name is Rob Breakenridge. Thanks for joining us on this episode. Much more at nationalpost.com.

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