Wab Kinew just wants to watch the world burn.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney briefed the provinces on the details of the coming trade deal with the Americans, the Manitoba premier thought it wise to attack Carney and insult Donald Trump, while also taking credit for any deal in the first place. If Kinew really has designs on the federal Liberal leadership at some point, I suppose this is one way to kick off a campaign …
There is a credible case to be made for simply walking away from negotiations with Trump, given his unprovoked tariff war on the world, and legitimate concerns that he wouldn’t abide by any deal he signs, just as he hasn’t abided by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement that he himself wanted and negotiated.
But once a decision was made to negotiate with the U.S. president and, more importantly, agree to a tentative deal that would thwart new threatened tariffs and reduce existing ones, the premiers should have left Carney to it and refrained from any behaviour that could scuttle the agreement ahead of the Friday deadline.
Kinew had other ideas on Thursday.
A key complaint from the Americans has been provincial rules removing U.S. alcohol exports from the shelves of government-run liquor stores, and excluding American companies from public procurement.
So any deal was always going to require the provinces to restock American booze and adjust procurement rules. For all the complaints the provinces have about Ottawa interfering in provincial areas of responsibility, international trade unambiguously belongs to the federal government.
Even so, Kinew couldn’t wait to rush to a microphone to slag Carney over the deal. “I was told by the prime minister that he wants us to put the booze back on the shelves,” he told reporters. “I wouldn’t say that he was begging us, but what is a step before begging?”
He also said Trump was “weak” and a “bad” person, and said that Carney shouldn’t even finalize a deal that has already been tentatively agreed to. “I think if we kept pushing, I think that we’d probably get more,” Kinew said.
The premier added, “It’s the provincial action on procurement and alcohol sales that have commanded the attention of the American administration.”
This last point may prove to be true, that blacklisting American booze ultimately forced Trump to the table, but that doesn’t give license to the premiers to interfere in international trade. If the industries the provinces rely on are going to get any tariff relief, or be shielded from new tariffs, only Carney and his cabinet, or anyone he appoints, has the authority to negotiate here.
By some estimates, up to 90,000 jobs could be lost if the latest round of threatened Trump tariffs came into effect. It is one thing to theorize what may happen if Canada were to walk away, or hold out for a better deal, but it is quite another to consider the very real human costs of lives upended if Canada is flattened with a 50 per cent tariff rate.
Kinew should have said nothing, as Ontario Premier Doug Ford has done so far this week.
A more level-headed response came from Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, who told CBC, without any rhetorical flourishes, simply that Carney “asked for a couple things from premiers.” Houston also said the request to put the booze back on the shelves was “not even close” to begging.
Now it is possible that Kinew’s little outburst is the result of a blind spot on Carney’s part. How much effort has he put into herding the cats of Confederation?
That said, Kinew did say that he would reluctantly put American products back on the shelves. If he hadn’t, the prime minister is not bereft of tools to force the provinces into compliance. He could have used the federal trade and commerce power, or the peace, order and good government clause in the Constitution to federalize alcohol regulations. That would have invited provincial litigation, but would have solved the problem in the short term.
More aggressively extreme, Carney could persuade Manitoba’s lieutenant-governor to dissolve the provincial legislature and force Kinew into an election. Then the premier would be freed from the expectation that he behave with anything resembling class.
National Post
