EDITORIAL: Pragmatic leaders adjust while game plan remains

“There is a time in a game, in a big game — and this is a big game — when you go hard in the corners with your elbows up. There’s a time in the game when you drop your gloves in the first period and you send a message. And we’ve done that, pretty uniquely in the world. But there’s also a time in a game where you want the puck, you want to stickhandle, you want to pass, you want to put the puck in the net … and we’re at that time of the game.”

— Prime Minister Mark Carney

“His elbows have mysteriously gone missing, and this call follows another concession.”

— Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

To understand the current state of negotiations between the United States and Canada, there is a need to read between the headlines — and the increasingly tortured hockey allusions — coming out of Ottawa these days.

Late last week, Mark Carney announced that Canada would be removing several retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods that are compliant with the three-nation U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.

While Canadian tariffs on U.S. vehicles, steel and aluminum will remain for the present time as the Liberal government attempts to continue trade talks with the Trump administration, tariffs will be lifted on dozens of UMSCA-compliant U.S. goods at the start of September, according to a CBC report.

This will include everything from coffee and tea, and fruits and vegetables, to alcohol, shoes, motorcycles, radiators and mining tools, and everything in between. The list is eclectic, as you can see.

In announcing the decision, Carney noted that the U.S. had stated that it would not be imposing tariffs on Canadian goods that were also UMSCA compliant, which he called a positive development.

“Canada and the U.S. have now re-established free trade for the vast majority of our goods,” Carney said.

While this is true, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the tone coming out of Ottawa these days is more conciliatory than during the last federal election, when the anti-American rhetoric was at its peak and politicians were falling in behind angry Canadians who seemed more interested in defending Canada’s sovereignty.

Certainly Carney’s critics have noticed, with suggestions in the media and by Mr. Poilievre that he has capitulated with demands out of Washington, D.C., and gotten nothing in return. But that would not be entirely true.

At the start of the month, Carney had already signalled that dropping some of Canada’s retaliatory tariffs may be part of a plan to keep the United States at the table, and that seems to be the game plan that Carney is employing here. At the very least, all these tariffs were doing was making everyday items that Canadians use far more expensive than they needed to be, and Canadians will hopefully start seeing a difference on their grocery bills at least come the fall.

And if it keeps the Trump administration at the table, then perhaps it may be worth dropping a trade irritant that nobody wanted in the first place.

This is what pragmatic leaders do — they change with the needs of the moment. But so much of these negotiations are happening behind closed doors, and it’s difficult for Canadians to see the long game. That information vacuum is an unhelpful reminder that Canada elected a business-minded economist into government, someone who does not have the experience of a long-serving politician.

And with the House not in session, and a nebulous budget still in the works for the fall, it has allowed his detractors more oxygen.

Nevertheless, it remains clear that Carney’s view of the unstable new trading relationship between the U.S. and Canada has not changed since his memorable speech last March in which he said that “Canada’s old relationship with the U.S. is over.”

He said as much on Friday, noting that countries “must now buy access to the world’s largest economy, through a combination of tariffs, investments, unilateral trade liberalization and policy changes in their home markets.”

What that means for the future of Canada-U.S. relations and any future free trade deal is anybody’s guess. As America’s largest trading partner, Canada certainly does have some leverage.

It’s worth remembering that Canadians hired Carney to try to keep the Canadian economy from going off the rails even as it was under attack by our southern neighbours last spring. Most of us also expected him to curb Donald Trump’s “51st state” rhetoric and shield us from the U.S. president’s infantile whims and volatile behaviour.

Even after Carney told Trump to his face that joining the U.S. “would never happen,” we have not witnessed the financial collapse that pundits warned against when trying to take on the U.S. economic powerhouse.

Even in the face of ongoing trade uncertainty with the U.S., the Canadian economy has continued to show signs of resilience thus far. And while job growth, particularly in the private sector, took a hit in July, inflation slowed to 1.7 per cent that same month.

It’s also noteworthy that Canada has significantly increased its international trade this year, though there is far more work to do before Canada can enjoy some measure of economic resilience rather than continued reliance on access to the U.S. market.

Elbows up or elbows down, the rhetoric isn’t really the point. At the end of the day, Carney will be judged by what kind of deal he hammers out with the United States, and ultimately what kind of economy we’re left with.

And for most Canadians, the ongoing game metaphor really doesn’t capture the seriousness of the fight in which we find ourselves.

-Brandon Sun