LILLEY: Premiers are stepping up to do the job Trudeau won't
Trudeau is either absent on the cross-border issue or making a mess of it which means provincial premiers need to step up.
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Doug Ford isn’t Canada’s prime minister, but he’s looking more like a PM than Justin Trudeau is at the moment. Ford has donned his Captain Canada cape and assumed a leadership role, while Trudeau has either left the stage or made a mess of things when he did show up.
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“My main focus is making sure we get a deal with our closest friends,” Ford said in an interview that aired Sunday morning on WABC Radio in New York City.
Ford was speaking with John Catsimatidis, the owner of WABC, and a personal friend of Trump. In fact, during Trump’s appearance at the New York Stock Exchange last week, Trump gave a shout-out to Catsimatidis, as the two billionaires have been friends for years.
This may seem small potatoes to those who don’t understand politics and the Trump world, but in reality, this is a big deal. Ford was making Ontario’s case and Canada’s case, on a radio show that Trump listens to while speaking directly to one of Trump’s friend’s about why we should avoid a tariff trade war.
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This interview follows on Ford making similar appearances on Fox News and CNBC, two stations Trump watches — and on CNN, a station Trump mocks.
Why isn’t Trudeau making the rounds to make Canada’s case?
We know he isn’t above doing media interviews, although he seems to prefer friendly outlets like CBC or podcasts where the hosts are smitten with him. Still, this is the type of thing Trudeau, or his ministers, should be doing. Instead, they are busy campaigning at home.
Trudeau has been in the headlines in the United States this past week, but for all the wrong reasons – mainly campaigning against Trump.
Last Monday, in Halifax, Trudeau was speaking to the local chamber of commerce when he went off about the American election. Trudeau said Canadians should look south of the border and be worried about changing governments just for the sake of changing governments.
“I think there’s a number of folks in different countries, and I won’t point out any particular one, where folks are going to be wondering about the choice they maybe made in elections. Let’s not be that kind of country in Canada. Let’s be deliberate about the choices we make,” Trudeau said.
As if that shot at Trump — one of many in his chat — wasn’t enough, he went further the next day in Ottawa.
“Just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president. Everywhere, women’s rights and women’s progress is under attack – overtly and subtly,” Trudeau said.
Lamenting that your neighbour elected the wrong person after the election, while facing a tariff threat, is a really dumb move, something the premiers told Trudeau repeatedly during a conference call on Wednesday.
On the issue of actually fixing the border, though, Trudeau has been a mute thus far.
On Nov. 29, Trudeau flew down to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with Trump, a ballsy move and the right one. Unfortunately, as we learned later, Trudeau took the wrong message and has been the subject of mockery and trolling by Trump and his allies ever since.
Trudeau’s message to Trump was that tariffs would cripple the Canadian economy, which led Trump to say that maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could be governor. Since then, and especially since Trudeau’s public musings about Americans being wrong in their electoral choice, Trump and his allies have had Trudeau — and therefore Canada — in their sights.
Premiers, meanwhile, have been stepping up, and not just Ontario’s Ford.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has also made American media appearances making the case that there is work to be done on the border but that a trade war is not in anyone’s best interests. Smith has also put forward an aggressive plan to dedicate 51 Alberta sheriff, drones and more towards the border effort.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has ordered provincial conservation officers to begin border patrols and he’s also said he’s willing to pay extra for RCMP patrols. Kinew, a New Democrat, was the first of the premiers to raise the issue that Canada should increase defence spending, another American concern.
Quebec’s Francois Legault has sent his provincial police force, the SQ, to patrol the border. Ford has said he will support using the OPP, back Windsor Police patrolling the river and look to get helicopters for police in Niagara and Hamilton to increase patrols.
So far, Trudeau’s announcements have been wait and see, something is coming.
As I have written earlier, Trudeau screwed up the 2018 tariff fight with Trump and hurt Canadian workers for nearly a full year before doing what needed to be done. Given past experience, we shouldn’t expect anything different this time.
Thankfully, though, Canada’s premiers are stepping up to do the job that Trudeau won’t.
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