While we don’t know what took place behind closed doors, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s

news conference

with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday went about as well as could be expected, for the sole fact that he didn’t pull a Trudeau.

If there’s one thing that can be said about Trump, it’s that the former reality TV star knows how to captivate an audience. His public sit-downs with foreign leaders in the Oval Office are more reminiscent of a stand-up comedy show than the dry, diplomatic affairs we have become accustomed to over the years.

Trump began his remarks by congratulating the prime minister for winning the election and joking about how he was “probably the best thing to happen to” Carney. To which Carney played the part by shooting a wink and a smile at the camera.

Trump then proceeded to boast about his ostentatious redecorating of the Oval Office and how he had apparently brought the Houthis to heel, before giving the prime minister an opportunity to talk.

Again, Carney did what every smart world leader does: he kissed Trump’s butt, thanking him for his “hospitality” and “leadership,” and praising him as a “transformational president” for his work on the economy, border security and the fentanyl crisis.

It may not exactly be what many Canadians had in mind when they voted for a leader who claimed he could stand up to President Trump, but at least Carney managed to avoid a verbal drubbing like the one given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — or, for that matter, to former prime minister Justin Trudeau. Because if there’s one thing we know about Trump, it’s that he knows how to hold a grudge.

Asked later on whether he was prepared to walk away from the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Trump went on a rant about how much he despised Canada’s leadership during the last round of trade negotiations, which took place during his first term. “I won’t say this about Mark, but I didn’t like his predecessor,” said Trump.

“Trudeau, when I spoke to him — I used to call him Gov. Trudeau, I think that probably didn’t help his election­ — but when I spoke to him I said, ‘So, why are we taking your cars … we want to make them our-self.…

“And if the price of your cars went up or if we put a tariff on your cars of 25 per cent, what would that mean to you?’ He said, ‘That would mean the end of Canada.’ He actually said that to me. And I said, ‘That’s a strange answer.’ “

Trump also had some choice words for former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, calling her “a terrible person,” and saying that because she tried to take advantage of the deal, “we ended that relationship pretty much.”

This is the tightrope that Carney will have to walk for the next four years. If he goes into negotiations looking like a housebroken pussycat, as Trudeau did, Trump will punt him to the sidelines and continue to exact his economic revenge on Canada. If he’s overly braggadocios about getting the upper hand in a negotiation with Trump, as Freeland was, the president will have him excommunicated.

There is, however, a very real question about how much headway our new prime minister can make in his dealings with the White House. Although Trump was cordial throughout the public portion of the meeting, he showed no signs of backing down from his trade war or any motivation to work toward a solution that would benefit both countries.

Asked if there was anything Carney could say to convince him to lift the tariffs on Canada, Trump stated bluntly: “no.” The president insisted that, “We want to make our own cars. We don’t want cars from Canada,” and vowed that, “At some point, it won’t make sense for Canada to make their own cars.”

And although Trump insisted he wasn’t prepared to walk away from the USMCA and that it was “a good deal for everybody,” he also brought up the possibility of terminating it and confusingly called it a “transitional deal,” right before saying that it may not even be necessary to renegotiate it.

Trump pretty much summed up his trade policy when he said, speaking broadly about deals he’s forging with other countries, “We don’t care about their markets. They want a piece of our market.”

It’s an odd thing for a man who’s so hung up about trade deficits to say, but it shows that the president thinks of international trade as a zero-sum game, in which there will always be winners and losers. In Trump’s mind, he’s the hero who’s there to ensure that America always comes out on top.

This, of course, is not how economic transactions work in capitalist economies — either on the micro level, when consumers purchase goods and services from businesses, or on the macro level, when looking at trade between countries. By running a trade deficit, the U.S. is no more “subsidizing” Canada than those staying at Trump’s hotels are subsidizing him.

But given that such concepts seem beyond the reach of this president, there’s a very real chance that nothing Carney or anyone else does will convince him to reverse course or deal with Canada as a partner and ally, rather than an economic rival.

Given this reality, one would be right to question how much time and effort our new prime minister should waste dealing with the Trump administration, when more could be gained from strengthening relations with our other allies.

National Post

jkline@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/accessd

• Michael Higgins: Carney and Trump — friends without benefits
• NP View: OK Carney, let’s see how you handle Trump

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s invitation to King Charles III to give the Speech from the Throne this month is a powerful statement of Canada’s independence. It is one clear way in which Carney is measurably better than his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who would have recoiled at the thought of inviting the King over, for fear of appearing to endorse Canada’s colonial past. Carney, for his part, is suggesting he understands that the projection of legitimate authority must be grounded in first principles.

The King isn’t simply the head of state, he is the embodiment of the state, representing something higher and more dignified than the day-to-day business of partisan government. The party in power may change, but the state, personified by the King, remains constant. It is not the individual monarch that matters so much as what the Crown represents.

Carney’s invitation to the King would ideally start the process of reintroducing the monarchy into Canadian political life in a more visible way — for all political power in Canada flows from the Crown. This is a reality embedded within our Constitution and has practical effects on how this country is governed. This is not a technicality. The King is not a mere figurehead, and nor is he a “foreign” monarch, as his role as King of Canada is a quite separate and unique position to his role as King of the United Kingdom.

At the risk of stating something trite, in Canada, political authority is not constitutionally derived from the people. By convention, governments are appointed by the Crown (through the Governor General) based on their ability to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons.

Whether one is a republican or a monarchist, ignoring or undermining the system we have as it exists would, over time, threaten the legitimacy of government in this country. Consider the differing responses to the Freedom Convoy in 2022 and the pro-Hamas protesters marching in the streets and occupying university campuses in 2023 and 2024. One treated harshly, the other with silk gloves. This uneven approach politicizes the rule of law, shaking faith in the ability of the Crown to administer justice fairly.

To use the words of

one scholar of Parliamentary systems,

a constitution is “not simply a set of hard rules enforced through courts, but a form of vigilance.”

And it has been painfully true that successive prime ministers have spent decades failing to be vigilant, instead undermining and diminishing the role of the monarchy. When U.S. president Donald Trump talks of annexing the country, it would be useful if our political leaders were willing to articulate where their own legitimacy comes from — the Crown — otherwise we are lighting a match to our own sovereignty.

But a typical prime minister, instead, views their legitimacy incorrectly as inherent, rather than coming from their role as the Crown’s primary advisor. Any obligations to the Constitution are sidelined in favour of elevating themselves, adopting the practices and manner of an American or French president, where head of state and head of government are one and the same person.

Carney is already no different, posing like Trump, signing a phoney order-in-council, resembling a U.S. executive order, to set the carbon tax to zero. He has also donned a hockey jersey with the number 24 on the back, because he is the 24th prime minister, another Americanism introduced into our politics.

Most damaging of all, however, has been the politicization of the King’s representative in Ottawa. The Governor General, who the Crown exercises power through because the King cannot be everywhere at once, holds enormous reserve powers, and is supposed to be above politics. Instead, prime ministers have turned the role into one to be used for their own ends, particularly since Pierre Trudeau.

Three Governors General named between 1984 and 1995 were former cabinet ministers for the party that was in power at the time of the appointment. Four of the five appointed since, have received their roles for purposes of group representation, rather than any special command of Canada’s constitutional inheritance.

There was Adrienne Clarkson, a former CBC journalist, who attracted negative attention to the role for how much her office spent, and even tried to put herself ahead of the Queen at a function they were both attending. There was Michaëlle Jean, another CBC journalist, who was suspected of harbouring Quebec separatist sympathies, though was ultimately capable in the role. And there was astronaut Julie Payette who quit after allegations she was abusive to her staff.

The current Governor General Mary Simon, who is yet another with experience at the CBC, has allowed the role to be

openly politicized,

permitting her office to be used to promote Liberal legislation in direct and indirect ways. The one Governor General chosen in a non-partisan process for his constitutional knowledge, David Johnson, was, of course, politicized after the fact by the Trudeau Liberals who enlisted him to write a report whitewashing allegations of foreign election interference.

The Crown was once a unifying force, but now, when Canada could benefit from common narratives and institutions to unite behind, it is barely there.

Prime ministers since at least the 1960’s may have wanted to diminish Canada’s traditions in order to elevate their own offices, but it came at the expense of the Crown, putting the true source of their political legitimacy at risk.

National Post

• Philippe Lagassé: A Canadian King in Parliament
• Michael Higgins: Carney and Trump — friends without benefits

I must disclose my background here; I was employed by the University of Saskatchewan for 40 years including 13 years as president. The institution’s distinctive origins combined the development of liberal education with a responsibility to build the province’s agricultural industry, and it did the latter with world-class agricultural programs and research institutes, and with faculty and students of many backgrounds from around the globe.

Now, we are told, the academic personnel in this worldly environment require

mandatory training

on racism: an Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression and Unconscious Bias Faculty Development Program. It is compulsory; those who decline its offerings will be shut out of collegial processes previously thought to be their right as tenured faculty. It was earlier reported that the program emerged from collective bargaining at the initiative of the university’s faculty union; if so, this does not relieve the administration from responsibility; it signed the collective agreement.

“Program” is a euphemism. It is a propaganda module in which scholarly expertise and balance will not be found. It does not appear that the instructor has a university academic post and the program’s ideological hue is revealed in the two required readings, one by Idle No More co-founder Sheelah McLean whose theme is that the success of Saskatchewan’s white people is built on “150 years of racist, sexist and homophobic colonial practices.” The second is by five “racialized” faculty who claim that Canadian university systems are rigged to privilege white people. Dissent, contrary views or even nuance are neither expected nor tolerated here. Opinions that are different are not on the reading list. One participant, a law professor, was invited to leave after 30 minutes because he did not lend his voice to its purpose and orientation; he revealed that he was present because it was required. The purpose of the program is indoctrination and there is no room for dissent.

The program is part of an ideological crusade within our universities, one that includes identity-based admissions and faculty appointments, and discourages those who differ from speaking out or taking issue with its direction. It is not present to the same degree in all of these institutions, but it is visible in most and prominent in many. It disparages merit, distorts our history and rests on the proposition that a white majority population has perpetrated a wide and pervasive racist agenda against others. It takes its conclusions as self-evident and not requiring evidence. It is authoritarian and intolerant, and should have no place in institutions committed to excellence and the search for truth.

The question, of course, is what is to be done. There is a view that “this too shall pass;” it is a fad that will recede in time. But, we must note, these are public institutions supported by tax dollars, and by the contributions of time and money by alumni and supporters. We should not tolerate their politicization and sidetracking of the academic mission in favour of the ideology on display here. The pushback should begin with governments and extend to others who care about these vital institutions.

But first the ideology must be recognized. There is no public uproar and little clamour from within the institutions; dissenting professors and students fear that negative professional and personal repercussions may follow. University-governing bodies stand down or away, not wanting to be involved in controversy. Resistance must come from outside the institutions: governments must insist that the propaganda must end, and they should be joined by alumni, supporters and the general public. The credibility of our universities depends on their willingness to say no.

National Post

Peter MacKinnon has served as president of three Canadian universities and is a senior fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the Aristotle Foundation.

A telling sign of how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to the Oval Office was going was that JD Vance kept his mouth shut, except when required to provide the odd sycophantic guffaw.

At one point, President Donald Trump characterized the meeting with Carney as “very friendly,” unlike the “little blow up with somebody else” (Volodymyr Zelenskyy). Vance, who led the attack on the Ukrainian president in February, this time chortled away on the next couch, like a loyal attack dog on a short leash.

The tone was set: Carney was not to be Zelenskied.

After dismissing a U.S.

military invasion of Canada as “highly unlikely”

 in a recent NBC interview, Trump’s vision of the relationship has apparently been transformed to, in the words of Winston Churchill, a frontier guarded only by “neighbourly respect and honourable obligations.”

A Trump press conference in the Oval Office is a surreal event, as I saw

firsthand with Justin Trudeau in June 2019

.

Carney’s visit was similarly bizarre. Minutes before he arrived at the White House,

Trump posted a rambling missive on social media

, airing the usual grievances about the alleged US$200 billion in American subsidies to Canada.

Yet once installed on the set — Carney acknowledged the theatricality of the event by winking at the camera — Trump layered on the flattery with a trowel. He said he had great respect for “a very talented person, a very good person,” who had pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in the history of politics, “maybe even greater than mine.”

Trump said he has watched the leaders’ debates in Canada and said Carney “was excellent.”

Presumably, he missed the part where the Liberal leader accused the U.S. president of “betraying” Canada.

As with Trudeau’s last visit, an audience with Trump is a stream of consciousness rumination on the president’s recent experiences and conversations. His unique brand of infotainment is characterized by half-formed announcements and policy on the hoof.

Having introduced the Canadian prime minister, he announced that the U.S. will stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen because “they assured us they don’t want to fight anymore.”

He then veered off to talk about an imminent and “very big announcement … one of the most important announcements in many years on an important subject.”

A bemused Carney raised a laugh by interjecting: “I’m on the edge of my seat.”

The prime minister may be new to politics, but he used his brief interventions in the Oval Office to maximum effect, buttering up Trump shamelessly by calling him a “transformational president” and talking about common interests on border security, defence and securing the Arctic. “The history of Canada and the United States is stronger when we work together,” he said, visualizing what a win would look like from Trump’s perspective.

The president was asked about his 51st state comments and said he still believes in the concept. “But it takes two to tango,” he said, pledging not to raise the issue.

Carney’s manners were impeccable, preceding every statement with his signature: “If I may.”

But his rejection of the misguided 51st state concept was unequivocal (he later revealed he asked the president to stop using the term).

“As you know from real estate development, some places are never for sale. We’re in one right now (the White House),” he said. “I’ve been talking to the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign over the last several months, and it’s not for sale and won’t be for sale ever.”

Shrewdly, the prime minister moved on before Trump was able to disagree, and talked about his plan to step up military spending, praising the president for “revitalizing international security and NATO.”

In 2019, I remember thinking that for all his colour and confidence, Trudeau seemed to blanche and shrivel in Trump’s presence. To be fair, the president made his lack of respect obvious in 2017, such as when he used the “comedy finger point” to put Trudeau down during his visit in October 2017. (Trump confirmed his antipathy toward Trudeau on Tuesday, saying he “didn’t like” Carney’s predecessor, or “the terrible person” who worked for him, presumably Chrystia Freeland).

Carney, on the other hand, exited the most intense experience of his brief political career with his dignity intact. During the election he said that if America no longer wants to lead, Canada will, and his standing around the world will have soared as others watched how he handled Trump.

Carney learned Tuesday, along with the rest of us, that Trump considers the USMCA/CUSMA trade deal to be “very effective” — so effective that it may not even be necessary to renegotiate it.

Regardless, as Carney pointed out in his press conference later in the day, the president has indicated his willingness to build a new economic and security relationship with Canada.

But Trump’s prejudices are ingrained, and he rejects evidence that contradicts them.

He is wedded to tariffs on Canadian cars, steel or aluminium and said that he intends to keep them in place until “at a certain point, it won’t make economic sense for Canada to build (autos).”

Carney said discussions with the president over lunch focused on the strategic position of the North American auto industry versus foreign competition, especially from Asia, and the industry’s perspective that continental integration enhances competitiveness.

But that case has not proven persuasive to the president so far.

“Canada is a place that will have to take care of itself economically… It’s hard to justify subsidizing Canada to the tune of US$200 billion, or whatever the number might be,” Trump said.

If you accept Trump’s Looney Tunes version of economics, and equate a trade deficit to a subsidy, that number is US$35.7 billion, from a US$762 billion trade relationship.

Carney was wise not to engage the president in his own lair about such deeply held, if bonkers, beliefs.

But on trade and defence, Canada can’t just wish America away.

Carney had said he didn’t expect white smoke to appear after Tuesday’s meeting, and none did.

But the new prime minister has established a personal rapport and built the foundations of a constructive working relationship with the president.

Carney won the election on the question of which leader voters wanted to negotiate with Trump. Not many Canadians will have buyer’s remorse based on Tuesday’s events in the Oval Office.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca

• John Ivison: Conservatives used a meat grinder on the Liberals. They needed a wooden stake
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The reviews

have been flowing in

for King Charles III delivering the throne speech in Ottawa on May 28,

and they’re mostly appreciative

. Such is the galvanizing power of President Donald Trump that even some skeptics of constitutional monarchy seem to think it’s a reasonable idea in the circumstances — to show America, and the world, that the foundations of Canadian democracy are too robust for any unhinged president to undermine.

“Canada’s existence has been called into question by the president of the United States,” as Carleton University political scientist

Philippe Lagassé wrote in the National Post this week

. “Having the Sovereign, the personification of the Canadian state, open the federal legislature sends a message: ours is a country of institutions that date back a thousand years, inherited from the United Kingdom but shaped by our unique history and aspirations.”

The biggest fly in this ointment is that

Quebec exists, and the potential for nationalist hijinks on or around May 28 is off the charts.

One hopes Prime Minister Mark Carney knows exactly what he might be getting himself into here.

“It’s … striking that, at the first opportunity, Mark Carney turns to a foreign sovereign and an institution clearly hostile to Quebecers, to defend a concept — sovereignty — that this same federal regime has long rejected and devalued when it comes to Quebec,”

Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon fumed in French on social media

.

“Inviting King Charles III to open the new legislature reveals Liberal values that are fundamentally at odds with those of Quebecers, who reject this institution and are committed to democracy and modernity,”

the Bloc Québécois chimed in (translated from French)

.

“What contempt for Quebec! What ignorance of its history!”

author and philosopher Rejean Bergeron exclaimed in Le Devoir (also translated from French)

. “Doesn’t Mark Carney know that a large proportion of Quebecers are allergic to anything (to do with) the British crown? That the national assembly has decided to no longer make the oath to the King of England mandatory?”

A Leger poll in 2023 found 78 per cent of Quebecers

felt it was “time for Canada to reconsider its ties to the British Monarchy,” versus 63 per cent nationwide. (Charles is visiting and addressing Parliament in his role as King of

Canada

, of course, not of Britain.)

That’s not to say the monarchy is a “big issue.” Seventy-eight per cent of Quebecers don’t lie awake at night hating the monarchy, any more than the 59 per cent of Ontarians who also think (per Leger) that it’s time to reconsider the monarchy. But it would only take a few elected officials to create a giant headache for Carney.

Some nationalists are arguing the Bloc’s terminal umbrage at Ottawa isn’t enough this time. In his article in Le Devoir, Bergeron even called the Bloquistes “collaborators.” This has always been a source of contention within the separatist movement. The obvious comparison is

Sinn Féin, whose seven elected MPs at Westminster

don’t swear allegiance to the King, don’t take their seats at Westminster, and don’t collect their salaries — which is only logical, since they don’t think Northern Ireland should be part of the United Kingdom, just as the Bloc doesn’t think Quebec should be part of Canada.

If Bloc MPs did that in Ottawa, they would rob their constituents of a lot of influence.

But they might be able to have their cake and eat it too. St-Pierre Plamondon “achieved (a) breakthrough when he challenged the outdated and colonial custom of requiring Quebec MNAs to swear an oath to the king before being able to take their seats” in the provincial legislature, nationalist commentator

Mathieu Bock-Côté noted in French in Le Journal de Montréal

.

Quebec’s national assembly unanimously passed a bill in 2023 that claimed to unilaterally amend the Constitution to eliminate that obligation

— something it had absolutely no right to do. But no one challenged them on it, so they did it.

“What will the Bloc Québécois MPs do?” Bock-Côté asked, effectively throwing down a gauntlet. “Will they behave like good children? Or will they surprise us with a bold move?”

Meanwhile Québec Solidaire (QS), the third party in the national assembly and the most left-wing, has proposed either defunding the Lieutenant Governor’s position or simply not appointing a replacement for the incumbent, Manon Jeannotte. That is not a fringe position, to be clear: In another of its disturbing cavalcade of unanimous decisions,

in 2023 Quebec’s legislature voted to abolish the Lieutenant Governor’s office

.

“The move could create a constitutional vacuum,”

Le Journal de Montréal reported (in French)

— you need a lieutenant governor to give royal assent to provincial legislation — “but (QS co-leader) Ruba Ghazal points out that MNAs managed to abolish the obligatory oath to the King without creating a crisis of legitimacy.”

Indeed. So, what the heck, maybe you

don’t

need a lieutenant governor to give royal assent to legislation. Who’s going to tell us that we do, if not ourselves? The United Nations? NATO? Maybe nothing matters.

If the Bloc launched a campaign to free its MPs of the most basic obligation of sitting in the House of Commons to swear allegiance to the monarch, would anyone try to stop them — after no one tried to stop them in Quebec? It’s certainly difficult to see why they wouldn’t at least try.

National Post

cselley@postmedia.com

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All of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s big talk about standing up to Donald Trump was exposed Tuesday as a bombastic sham.

At a meeting in the White House with the president, Carney smiled happily when Trump talked about winning the election for him. When the topic of Canada becoming the 51st state was raised, Carney declared that would never happen (would any prime minister of Canada have said any less?)

But when the president talked about shutting down the Canadian car industry and refusing to buy our steel and aluminum, the prime minister was silent. No push back. No standing up for Canadian interests.

Gone was Carney’s fiery rhetoric from the campaign trail and in its place was the mild-mannered, tranquil banker.

No one should expect the prime minister to be rude, dismissive or combative when meeting the president (even if on the campaign trail that’s exactly how Carney behaved.)

But neither should the prime minister be so passive and meek. During the meeting, Trump forcefully laid out his economic vision, no matter the obvious harm caused to Canada and no matter that the prime minister was sitting next to him.

Trump clearly has a liking for Carney, but pleasing the president may not get the results Canada expects or wants.

The meeting began on friendly terms and, for the most part, was affable.

When Trump congratulated Carney on his win, he added, “I think I was the greatest thing that happened to him.”

And he’s right.

Time and again during the election, Carney brought up Trump as the bogeyman who would devour Canada and only he could stop him.

“We are facing the biggest crisis of our lifetimes,”

said

Carney during the campaign. “Donald Trump is trying to fundamentally change the world economy, the trading system, but really what he is trying to do to Canada, he’s trying to break us, so the U.S. can own us. They want our land, they want our resources, they want our water. They want our country.”

It was the kind of belligerence that heightened the fear of too many Canadians.

When the issue of the 51st state was brought up at Tuesday’s meeting, Carney said, “There are some places that are never for sale.”

But Canada was never for sale, a point Trump acknowledged during the meeting. “It takes two to tango,” said Trump, and Canada was never going to be a dance partner.

“I have a lot of respect for Canada,” said Trump, who may never give up his pipe dream of a united North America, but we are foolish to give it any more credence than that.

Yet Carney duped people into buying into the threat, that our very sovereignty was at stake.

But it’s not our sovereignty, but our economy we should be worried about, that has always been our weakness. We have lived under the umbrella of the United States for too long, not just militarily, but economically.

Trump is intent on making the U.S. a self-reliant, economic powerhouse and if that hurts Canada, well so be it.

Even Carney acknowledged as much in the meeting, although his gushing enthusiasm was a little excessive.

“Thank you for your hospitality and above all your leadership,” said Carney. “You are a transformational president focused on the economy (and) a relentless focus on the American worker.”

Carney went on to tout the benefits of the Canadian-American alliance in the auto industry and the advantages of being partners.

But Trump was having none of it, if Carney was afraid to push back, the president certainly wasn’t. Trump’s message was blunt, succinct and was bad news for Canada.

“We want to make our own cars. We don’t really want cars from Canada,” said Trump, adding, “And we’ll put tariffs on cars from Canada and at a certain point, it won’t make economic sense for Canada to build those cars.

“And we don’t want steel from Canada because we’re making our own steel and we’re having massive steel plants being built right now as we speak. We really don’t want Canadian steel and we don’t want Canadian aluminum and various other things.”

Asked by a reporter whether there was any way for Canada to avoid tariffs, Trump replied, “No. Just the way it is.”

In a social media

post

before the meeting, Trump said of Canada, “We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship.”

So there we have it. Trump is now friends with Carney. Carney is friends with Trump and Canada is screwed.

How many times must people be told: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

That’s what the last election should have been about: how to grow Canada, make it self-sustaining, less reliant on America, more in touch with the wider world.

But Carney successfully hijacked the election to make it about Trump and the 51st state.

Carney rode to office on the back of a nightmare, whereas at least Trump gained the White House with a vision about where he wanted to take his country.

The simple fact is Trump is not Canada’s friend. Having accepted that, can we all now just focus on the economy.

National Post