KINSELLA: Carney a 'bootlicker' for Trump's demands. Just ask Lloyd Axworthy.

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Lloyd Axworthy stirred.

The Manitoba Liberal MP looked around the panelled boardroom in 409-S, the office of the Leader of the Opposition, in Centre Block. “I think I am going to express outrage about this one,” he said to the room. Someone laughed.

It was long ago, 1992 or so. We were gathered for the daily meeting to determine what we — the Liberal Party Official Opposition — were going to ask about during Question Period. I can’t remember what Lloyd had decided to be outraged about. But I remember that he said that.

I was reminded of it again when Lloyd unloaded both rhetorical barrels on Mark Carney this week. The Prime Minister was “a bootlicker,” Lloyd had said, quote unquote. For capitulating to Donald Trump’s demand that Canada scrap the Digital Sales Tax, Lloyd suggested last week, Carney had revealed himself to be a craven coward.

Axworthy continued in his blog post: “A pattern is now set: Trump harrumphs, we comply. What else will we quietly surrender? Cultural industries? Environmental standards, agriculture security, Arctic sovereignty?”

Wow. Shots fired, as they say. So, the obvious question: was what Lloyd said genuine, or was it a bit of political performative theatre? Either way, it was something Mark Carney would be ill-advised to dismiss as the rantings of a Grit ghost.

Lloyd Axworthy, you see, is a Liberal Party giant — a legend, really, going back to the Pierre Trudeau days — who kept the party alive in Canada’s West, for years. He is a stalwart of the Liberal Party’s progressive wing, and someone not to be trifled with. Even at the age of 85.

Lloyd’s broadside should give the current Liberal leader pause, for two reasons.

One, there is a growing suspicion within the Liberal Party of Canada that Mark Carney actually isn’t a Liberal — he’s a closeted conservative. For Axworthy and many Liberals of the Trudeau persuasion, the evidence of that isn’t difficult to locate: carbon tax, capital gains, defence spending, now the digital sales tax. It’s a growing list.

Carney, some feel, may make Liberal-ish noises about the environment or social programs. But, when the chips are down — as they were on the digital sales tax — he reveals his true colours. And they’re not Liberal red.

That’s what the country wanted, that’s why Carney won the election, his acolytes will say, and they’re partly right. The Grits needed to move back to the political centre, and some progressive shibboleths needed to be shivved. True.

But Lloyd Axworthy makes a second important point, one that can’t be so easily disputed: namely, who’s the boss? Who determines Canadian policy, Donald Trump or Canadians?

Because, make no mistake, the U.S. President isn’t done with us yet. Next up: supply management.

For the uninitiated, supply management is basically a system that controls the supply of dairy, as well as poultry and eggs. It’s designed to keep things stable and manageable for our farmers. It is, yes, government control of part of the marketplace. And — key point — it is a practically Holy Writ in the province of Quebec. There, it is sacrosanct.

Conservatives privately (and sometimes not-so-privately) deeply detest supply management. They see it as Soviet-style economics. But, in power, they’ve left it untouched, because they know the backlash in Quebec would be deep and wide.

Consider the parable of Andrew Scheer and Maxine Bernier: the latter lost the Conservative leadership, and his role in the Tory caucus, for opposing supply management. While the former won the leadership largely because of it. Since then, no Conservative has dared challenge the primacy of supply management.

No one should delude themselves into thinking Trump will give supply management a pass. On his Truth Social platform a few days ago, Trump declared that Canada a “very difficult country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products.” That’s supply management.

Every party in the House of Commons is in the record about supply management. On June 26, Bill C-202 passed through Parliament, and it effectively bars Carney from tinkering with supply management in his trade talks with Trump.

Among other things, ending supply management would likely give the separatist Parti Quebecois — now the most popular political option in Quebec — the referendum ballot question they want.

Which all brings us back to Lloyd Axworthy’s characterization of Carney as Donald Trump’s “bootlicker.” What will Carney do, when Trump demands that supply management be ditched, as the digital sales tax was? Will he fight or – as Trump’s press bobblehead said – will he “cave?”

Summers are usually pretty dull for politics. Ask Lloyd Axworthy: this one won’t be.