NDP leader says Carney needs to update Parliament on trade talks

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OTTAWA — Interim NDP Leader Don Davies is accusing Prime Minister Mark Carney of not being transparent about negotiations with the U.S. on getting President Donald Trump’s tariffs lifted.

Davies said Wednesday that Parliament has not been kept in the loop on what Carney and Trump are talking about behind closed doors, or whether Ottawa has involved stakeholders in negotiations with the U.S.

“Previous Liberal governments have made quite a deal out of appointing different stakeholders from society to be present in advising them. Yet we don’t know anything about that in these negotiations,” Davies told reporters outside the House of Commons just ahead of question period.

“It’s time that Carney government became more transparent with Canadians, let us know who’s negotiating, and definitely explain to Canadians why he’s pursuing deeper military and economic integration with the United States when he promised Canadians that he would do exactly the opposite.”

Carney declared during the recent federal election that Canada’s old relationship with the United States, based on deepening economic integration and military co-operation, had come to an end and he vowed to stand up to Trump in the face of steep U.S. tariffs.

The Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley reported last week that a draft, high-level proposal on a new trade deal between Ottawa and Washington had been drawn up, according to multiple sources.

The proposal would see both countries agree in broad strokes on ways to move forward in the trade relationship, Lilley reported. According to sources, highly contentious issues like Canada’s supply management system for dairy and the digital services tax that is opposed by all sides in Washington would be put off into the future. 

The Prime Minister’s Office is neither confirming nor denying that report.

Asked by reporters about talks on the U.S. tariffs, Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the government’s “end game” is to have all of Trump’s tariffs removed, but he referred journalists to Carney and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc for the most up-to-date information.

“It’s a very dynamic situation,” Champagne said. “We’ve been engaging with our friends in the United States. You know, we talk to different people in the administration.”

But Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand breezed past reporters who shouted questions at them on Wednesday, while LeBlanc was not seen in Parliament.

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford publicly confirmed the secret, top-level discussions last week, saying that Carney and Trump are in “deep discussions” on trade and working “around the clock to get a deal.

“They’re right at the brink,” Ford said in Toronto on June 5.

Pete Hoekstra, Trump’s ambassador to Canada, said in an armchair talk at the Canadian Club of Ottawa on Wednesday that he thinks there’s a “possibility to have a great deal.”

He said that “all indications” are that the two countries could reach a “very positive agreement,” but couched that “there’s also the possibility you could end up with something like no deal or whatever.

“Until a deal is announced, you really won’t know what’s it in it,” Hoekstra said.

Trump has insisted that Canada could join his unbuilt Golden Dome continental missile defence program at a cost of $61 billion.

Carney confirmed last month that he is in talks with Trump about the project.

“It’s something that we are looking at and something that has been discussed at a high level,” Carney said at a press conference in Ottawa on May 21.