LILLEY: Landmines await Carney, Poilievre as they tiptoe toward difficult meetings
Carney to face Trump at White House, Poilievre to face Tory caucus Tuesday in Ottawa after election loss
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It would be understandable if both Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre were not exactly looking forward to their respective schedules on Tuesday.
Carney is headed to Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, who is once again talking about Canada as a potential 51st state, while Poilievre is headed to Ottawa to meet with the Conservative caucus after the election loss.
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One is looking to save the country, the other is looking to save his job and while both are hopeful, let’s just admit that things could go sideways for either one of them.
While Trump didn’t raise the idea of Canada being the 51st state in his phone call with Carney last week, he did say he would raise the issue when they met. Trump made that statement during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that aired over the weekend.
“He called me, he was very nice and I congratulated him,” Trump said.
“He had a victory. It’s a very close victory. It’s, you know, there’s no majority or anything. So that’s going to make things a little bit difficult, I think, for him to run.”
It’s that last part that is the wild card for Carney heading into this meeting, Trump has noticed that it was a close election and that Carney doesn’t have a majority. Trump loves to measure everything and it’s easy to imagine him saying that Carney doesn’t have a big mandate like Trump does or at least believes he has.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump acted like he had no clue about the meeting.
“I don’t know. He’s coming to see me. I’m not sure what he wants to see me about, but I guess he wants to make a deal. Everybody does,” Trump said.
Carney is scheduled to arrive at the White House at about 11:30 a.m., there will be a lunch meeting and it appears plans for the two men to appear in the Oval Office together in front of the media. There have already been instructions shared with those media outlets travelling with Carney on how many Canadian journalists will be admitted into the Oval Office for a photo op.
Depending on Trump’s mood and the issues occupying his mind at that moment, this is where things have the potential to go sideways. Will there be a rant about Canada’s lumber or dairy, complaints about the auto sector or Canadian movie productions?
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Whatever happens, Carney will need to keep a calm demeanour without looking subservient to Trump.
In Ottawa, Poilievre will be having a very different day. He’s just returned from visiting Consort, Alta. — the home of Conservative MP Damien Kurek, who has agreed to step aside and let him run in a byelection to remain leader of the Opposition.
It’s a pretty safe Conservative seat and at this point it looks like Poilievre’s hold on the leadership of his party looks safe as well. Speaking to MPs from various factions, including some who didn’t support Poilievre in the party leadership race in 2022, there doesn’t appear to be an appetite for changing leaders again.
Compare that to the day after the last election loss, Sept. 21, 2021, and Bert Chen, a man I had never spoken to but who held a position on the Conservative party’s National Council, was calling to tell me why Erin O’Toole had to go. At this point, there have not been public calls from people within the Conservative party for Poilievre to go.
That doesn’t mean he is safe for the long term, however; it took from September 2021 until February 2022 for O’Toole to depart as leader and Andrew Scheer lost the 2019 election that October and stayed on as leader until December.
Will there be a faction in the wings looking to make a change at the top? That won’t be known for some time, but Poilievre is safe for now.
Carney will also be safe once he’s back in Ottawa. He may not have the majority he wanted and he may be reminded of that by Trump, but at this point there is zero appetite in Ottawa for sending voters back to the polls for another election.
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