‘Serious’ critique of Carney is what loyalty to Canada looks like, Tory critic says

Article content

Carney has said Canada would not sacrifice economic or cultural sovereignty. Majumdar’s reply: show Canadians what was actually demanded. “Quebec’s cultural sovereignty is a core part of our conservative identity. But what exactly was on the table that would have cost us our cultural sovereignty?”

Article content

Counter-tariffs, he acknowledges, are a tool. Conservatives “will pay whatever the price it takes to ensure our sovereignty, our economic security and the livelihoods of our people.” The question is, “if you are going to impose counter-tariffs, explain how it’s going to get to the outcome you want”: a resolution, a long standoff, or a pivot to other markets — and who bears the cost. He wants clarity on aerospace, defence, F-35s, and Arctic or “Golden Dome” arrangements that may have been in play.

Article content

What would Conservatives have done differently? They would have moved faster on the “catalytic” decisions Carney was elected to make: defence production, critical minerals, competitiveness and getting government out of the way of resource development.

Article content

Parliament, he notes, already gave the prime minister wide authority to move quickly. Conservatives put legislation in front of him to repeal “anti-development” rules that keep investment away. “We’re getting accused of not being patriotic just because we don’t believe in a single hammer of counter-tariffs. We’re building a whole array of instruments.”

Article content

Article content

Canada’s strengths should have been taken to Washington in a clear order of national interest: first, the security of Canadians and the border; second, middle-class prosperity and a social safety net that holds the country together; third, alignment with countries that share our values.

Article content

He is unconvinced that turning off oil or gas taps is a serious strategy. It would feed separatist sentiment in Alberta and damage Canada’s reputation as a reliable supplier. A better idea, he says, is a strategic reserve of oil, gas and critical minerals used as a positive incentive for tariff-free trade with allies — “a carrot, not a stick.”

Article content

On China, Majumdar is unsparing. Carney went to Beijing, then spoke in Davos of partnering with “Beijing’s New World Order” while treating America as the global disruptor, “which is not entirely unfair,” he says, “but I think (the disruption) is principally initiated from Beijing.” The result, in his telling, was concessions without a comprehensive trade arrangement, “and then comes July and (Carney) gets hammered by unjustified tariffs because he’s in a position of weakness.”

Article content

Article content

Geography still binds Canada to Washington. “Our competition with the United States is very multi-layered,” he observes, “one of the most complex relationships between two countries in the world. We can’t escape whatever direction Washington chooses to go. Our country needs to have the self-respect to fight for our existence.”

Article content

He does not expect November’s U.S. midterms to rescue Canada. He has seen no signal from Democrats in Congress, Senate candidates or governors auditioning to be president that they would roll back these tariffs. “Waiting to see what an election may reveal is not as important as sharpening our pencil, drafting legislation that makes Canada the economic powerhouse it needs to be for the next half-century.”

Article content

Asking to see the deal is not disloyalty. It is the minimum a self-respecting country should require before it is told to absorb the cost. If the offer really threatened sovereignty, publish it; if it did not, say so. Canadians can handle the argument. What they should not have to handle is a nation-defining trade war on trust alone.

Article content

Article content