Kelly McParland: Strains appear in Ford-Carney bromance

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Mark Carney. Photo by Adam Huras/Brunswick News/Postmedia; Blair Gable/Postmedia

Article content

I’m just guessing here, but it seems possible the ad campaign was the start of the problem.

Article content

Until Doug Ford’s Ontario government launched a two-week U.S. ad blitz challenging the Trump administration’s trade practices, Ford and Prime Minister Mark Carney were getting along swimmingly.

Article content

Article content

Since their breakfast get-together at a Toronto-area diner in mid-March, things between the two were all handshakes and smiles. The polished egghead PM and the folksy high school graduate premier had found a sweet spot across the political divide that usually separates their two parties.

Article content

Article content

Then the difficulties started. Ford’s October ad, featuring clips of a tariff-critical Ronald Reagan, unsettled Carney’s delicate trade talks with Washington, predictably annoying the preternaturally sensitive occupant of the White House.

Article content

Article content

Nothing on either front has been the same since. Carney’s “negotiations,” if you can call them that, consist of U.S. representatives issuing demands, threats and a varying range of insults while Canada’s respondents roll their eyes and look for a soother large enough to fit the jaws of an oversized, uncontrollable baby in mid-tantrum.

Article content

At that point in the Ford relationship, Carney had little leeway for complaint. He’d happily glommed onto the whole “elbows up” ploy when it suited his agenda, and Ford is nothing if not up-elbowed to a fault. The Ontario leader refuses to cave to U.S. entreaties to return American alcohol to store shelves, urges tit-for-tat retaliation for every U.S. tariff hike and projects all the penitent fervour of a former Trumpist admirer who’s come to see the light.

Article content

Ford is also no diplomat, arguing that, since bullies only respond to strength, Ottawa should include oil, gas, electricity, fertilizer and anything else the U.S. needs and Canada supplies as weapons against U.S. assaults.

Article content

Article content

“We are an energy powerhouse, and we could dismantle the U.S. if we wanted to,” he proclaimed at a gathering of premiers. “They need to feel the pain, rather than us constantly feeling the pain.”

Article content

Article content

Without naming names, he questioned Ottawa’s tactics of jollying along the Americans, agreeing to moderate concessions while focusing on the bigger picture of continental trade talks.

Article content

“I’m losing patience … we can’t keep rolling over,” Ford said. “We always seem to be on our back heels. We need to be on the offence, not constantly on the defence with President Trump.”

Article content

That couldn’t have sat well with Carney, who can get snippy at the slightest hint of criticism from a questioning journalist, much less a high-profile premier.

Article content

Ford nonetheless remains all-in on Carney’s push for big projects with big investments. He’s got a bundle of his own: a tunnel under the country’s busiest highway, a 3,300 km oil pipeline from Alberta to Ontario, a long-sought all-season road to Ontario’s far-north, mineral-rich “Ring of Fire” that the premier claims will create 700,000 jobs and add $22 billion to the province’s economy.