One thing I respect about Mark Carney is that he's managerial. That's the same quality I liked in Stephen Harper. You aren't dealing with an ideologue. Guys like Carney and Harper tell you when it is bad, that it is bad. They don't sugar coat it. They don't pump you up.
Justin Trudeau was a very different kind of man. He rallied the troops on the eve of battle, even if the outcome was going to be defeat. Maybe that's a bad thing. You know? Setting unrealistic expectations.
Then again, maybe being realistic isn't all that great either. That's a discussion for another time.
Regardless, yesterday Donald Trump went off the rails again, gave a rambling speech about how everyone is mean to America and he announced 25% tariffs on all imported automobiles.
What is unclear is if this is just for finished assembled automobiles or also for parts. Mark Carney stated the government had to review the technical language of the executive order Trump signed. The likelihood was that this is for both finished products and parts.
Trump has made it clear he wants cars in the United States to be 100% made in the United States. That wish is unrealistic.
Still, as stated, this was a direct attack on the economies of Ontario and Quebec, and on Canada as a whole.
Mark Carney gave a statement to the press and it was subdued. He laid out the lines that this is unjustified, unfair, and ultimately hurts both countries. What was absent was the feeling that we were going to thump Trump over the head with counter tariffs. Sure, they are coming, but as Carney admitted last week - there's really little we can do and our limits are within sight.
Maybe you think I'm wrong here.
My argument is that Mark Carney knows that he has to set honest expectations on the trade war. He's poised to win a large majority government of 185+ seats. It won't be a minority. He won't be relying on other parties to get legislation through. It will all be on his shoulders.
If he allows himself to be over sold and then under deliver, it will sour the public on his government very quickly. There's no faster way on being a one term Prime Minister than completely failing in the first few months.
Just ask Joe Clark. He didn't even make it a year.
We all recall Doug Ford with this 25% surcharge on electricity that got repealed 3 hours after Trump threatened even worse reprisals. Trump has also threatened worse, again, if he thinks Canada and the EU are working together. Yeah, as insane as that sounds that is what Mark Carney is facing as Prime Minister. I am glad I do not have his job.
That was a muted statement he gave. Sure, we had the lines of we'll endure. We'll prevail. Blah, blah, blah. It was muted though and the reality is, our Canada Goose might be cooked unless someone in the USA can scare some sense into Donald Trump.
Last time it was the big three auto makers that called him up and talked some sense into him. This time he made it clear that they had a month to get their plans together and this is happening.
What can Carney do? Retaliatory tariffs? Yeah, that's the standard play from the book. Sure the government will do that. There's a problem this time.
The Americans that don't want them have no power to change policy, and the Americans that want them (those supporting Trump) don't care that they'll be hurt in the process. They believe a year or two of pain is worth it. You cannot fight a cult member on ideas or with facts or logic.
The problem is our automotive industry cannot handle those kinds of tariffs for a year or two. Six months is going to be brutal. Retaliatory tariffs won't keep Ford and GM plants open after six months and in the USA no one is going to spend $10,000 more for a car made in Canada when the one made in the USA is regular price.
None of this is a slam or an attack on Mark Carney. It is just a very simple statement: he can't make this go away. He can't fix this. Poilievre couldn't fix this either. Nor could Singh, May, or anyone else.
As a few commentators mentioned yesterday, the realization is sinking in that we might be in real trouble.
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