SNOBELEN: Mark Carney following mistakes with tough-guy promises
· Toronto Sun
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When the Liberal party selected Mark Carney as its new leader (and our new prime minister), I thought it could get interesting. Carney was a well-respected, international bureaucrat. He was obviously comfortable in the rarified air of global hobnobbing.
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But Carney was a political neophyte and politics is a retail business. Could a guy at ease attending cocktail parties be equally comfortable with farmers, welders and the people toiling at workstations far below the executive suite?
The rumours of Carney’s temperament and ego didn’t bode well. People who believe they are the smartest people in any room don’t last in political leadership. Just being smart isn’t enough in the business of making wise choices.
But Carney surprised me in the early days of his political life. He managed his way through an election just fine. Elbows up hit the mood of Canadians perfectly and his opposition seemed frozen in the stark reality of tariffs, 51st state rhetoric and the culture war waging on our southern border.
Helped right Liberal ship
Most of all, Carney was not Justin Trudeau. Following a bad act is a prescription for success on any stage. So, Carney cruised to a narrow victory and began the business of righting the Liberal ship. He may not be a seasoned politician, but he did well, particularly on international stages.
Oddly, his first big stumble came on a bridge. You would have thought that elbows up would be easy on a bridge named for Gordie Howe, but you’d be wrong.
Over a decade ago, it was clear that a new bridge was required to alleviate congestion at the border and remove truck traffic from the streets of Windsor, Ont. In 2012, Canada and Michigan struck a deal called the Canada-Michigan Crossing Agreement. The first Donald Trump administration approved that agreement.
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Fourteen years and a little over $6 billion later, a gleaming new bridge was ready to go. Or not. It seems the Americans wanted to negotiate. Trump said it plainly — the deal “no longer stands.”
About a month after the planned opening, Carney announced a new agreement had been reached, basically on the same terms as the original. This made about as much sense as a flightless golf ball. Turns out the new deal was a surrender. So much for elbows up.
Carney made a series of mistakes with the new deal. He not only agreed to renegotiate the deal with a gun to his head, but he also misled Canadians on the terms of his surrender. Not wise.
Wasted opportunity
Worst of all, he wasted an opportunity to shine a light on the big question clouding the Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA) trade negotiations: Can the United States be trusted to keep agreements?
When the U.S. refused to open the bridge, Carney should have walked to the halfway point and posted a copy of the Canada-Michigan Crossing Agreement. America could either honour the agreement or the bridge would stand as an empty monument to a morally bankrupt nation.
It’s as simple as this: You can’t make a deal with someone who won’t keep their word. With deadlines in the CUSMA negotiations approaching, Carney now says he will be tough. Even he doesn’t believe it.
Carney doesn’t need to be tough; he needs to be clear. The U.S. has slipped into a moral morass with ripped-up agreements littering the world, making negotiations impossible. Carney could have made that the core issue on the Gordie Howe bridge. But he blinked.