LILLEY: Time for Carney to dump our ambassador in Washington

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As Mark Carney visited Germany and Latvia on Tuesday, his point man on Canada-U.S. relations was in Washington trying to mend fences.

It’s a tall task even after last week’s decision to put the elbows down and rescind Canada’s counter-tariffs on American goods outside of the steel, aluminum and auto sectors. Carney still needs to change up his team. 

Specifically, as I’ve said before, Ambassador Kirsten Hillman has to be replaced because source after source continues to describe her as an impediment. 

Hillman is a career diplomat and has been at Canada’s embassy in Washington since 2017. Before that, she worked at Foreign Affairs leading trade policy and negotiations for the federal government. 

Over the last several months, sources have described Hillman as smart, accomplished, knowledgeable and the wrong person for the job that she is in. 

“Doors are closing to us in Washington,” said one source. 

“We are playing the same game in negotiations as we did in 2017 and it’s annoying the Americans,” said another. 

In 2017 and 2018, Canada would “put nothing on the table and demand everything,” as one Canadian source put it. That didn’t sit well with Robert Lighthizer, who was then Trump’s U.S. trade representative or his top trade negotiator. 

In fact, things got so bad that Lighthizer dropped Canada from the talks and sought a bilateral deal with Mexico. It was only because of Mexico’s insistence that we be brought back to the table that saw us re-enter the CUSMA negotiations. 

The person who is Trump’s U.S. trade representative now is Jamieson Grier. In the last negotiations, Grier was Lighthizer’s chief of staff and privy to all of the talks at the time. He saw how Canada acted, wasn’t impressed and we are apparently acting the same way now. 

How can this lead to a good outcome? 

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At the core of this is Hillman, whose staff signed a contract in March with a firm headed up by Democrats to teach them how to speak to Republicans. The contract, only worth about $8,300, vowed to teach embassy staff how to understand “right-wing messaging” and how to provide the embassy with “interview preparation with a conservative slant.” 

The contract with Signal Group, uncovered by Blacklock’s Reporter, also said they would teach them how to talk to American right-wing media for the cool sum of $2,000 per hour. 

“Signal Group will conduct a one-hour executive-level media training for the embassy,” said the contract. “Printed materials Signal Group will provide concern the conservative media landscape and right-wing message analysis.” 

All publicly available documents from Signal Group show a complete lack of understanding of the American conservative media ecosystem; they don’t have a clue. 

“They never built relationships with Republicans,” one source said of the current ambassador and her staff. 

“She was all in on (Joe) Biden and didn’t expect Trump to win,” said another. 

So now Canada is failing because our ambassador, who is supposed to have relationships with all sides, has no real relationships with Republicans. You don’t need to like them or love them — and many Canadians don’t — but you need to deal with them. 

If you can’t deal with them, if you won’t deal with them or you can’t properly deal with them, then you should leave your job and find another. It seems like that is what Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. should be doing. 

It’s nothing personal, it’s just that Hillman is the wrong person for the job at the moment and is getting in the way of a prospective deal. It’s time to do what is best for the country and step aside. We would all be better for it.