Inevitably, but torturously, this unique moment in the history of this country has come to be understood primarily in hockey terms.
“His elbows have mysteriously gone missing,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said of Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday. “He’s not thrown one elbow since he took office.”
A few hours earlier, a reporter had warned the prime minister that his critics might say something like that in the wake of his decision to repeal some of Canada’s retaliatory tariffs against American products — that while Carney had once spoken of Canada putting its elbows “up,” now those elbows might be said to be down.
“There is a time in a game, in a big game — and this is a big game — when you go hard in the corners with your elbows up. There’s a time in the game when you drop your gloves in the first period and you send a message. And we’ve done that, pretty uniquely in the world,” Carney responded, attempting to broaden the hockey analogy.
It’s time to ‘stickhandle’ with U.S., Carney says, after dropping the gloves early in trade war
“But there’s also a time in a game where you want the puck, you want to stickhandle, you want to pass, you want to put the puck in the net … and we’re at that time of the game.”
Carney might be right — that what matters now is not how well we wield our elbows, but whether we put the puck in the net.
Or possibly we have reached the point at which events are straining the bounds of hockey analogy.
“Elbows up”— the rallying cry popularized this spring by Mike Myers — was undoubtedly a brilliant, nearly Churchillian, bit of political rhetoric. And Carney subsequently enlisted both Myers and the slogan. So if the prime minister is now faced with accusations of putting his elbows down, he has arguably brought it upon himself.
But as a strategy for continental trade negotiations, it was perhaps always of limited use. What if we elbowed the United States in the teeth and it didn’t change anything? Then what?
(Perhaps the problem is that Trump, the former owner of a pro football team, simply speaks a different language.)
What Carney’s move to scrap most U.S. tariffs means for Canadians
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Carney said the purpose of retaliatory tariffs was “to protect Canadian workers and businesses and to incentivize a negotiated settlement with the United States.” Those who are most impacted by American tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles might still see an urgent need to do such things. But months into this trade war, it’s not obvious that this part of Canada’s retaliation was registering as much of an incentive in Washington, D.C. (Canada will maintain tariffs on American steel, aluminum and automobiles — though not at the same level as American tariffs.)
In that case, it might make sense to let this set of tariffs go, whatever the political risk of seeming weak — to stop inflicting the extra cost on Canadians if it no longer seemed to be worth it. And if dropping these tariffs helps jump-start negotiations that otherwise seem to be stuck, then dropping one’s elbows might seem a necessary move.
Poilievre says Carney ‘has not thrown one elbow since he took office’
Carney might be accused of “capitulation” — as Poilievre did on Friday — and Carney might have to worry that his perceived strength on this issue is at risk — particularly after the digital services tax was sacrificed. But for the moment it’s also not clear that anyone else has any better ideas.
The Conservative leader told reporters that he would’ve maintained retaliatory tariffs, with an offer to drop them in exchange for the United States dropping its tariffs. Suffice it to say, it’s not obvious Trump would take such a deal.
Nonetheless, in dropping some tariffs, Carney has increased the pressure on himself to put the puck in the net — to both finalize an agreement with the United States on steel, aluminum and autos and persuade Canadians that it was the best possible agreement under the circumstances.
While arguing that Canada currently has the “best” deal with the United States because CUSMA-compliant products are still exempted from American tariffs, Carney again stressed on Friday that the United States’s disposition toward the world has fundamentally changed.
“The breadth and the depth of the changes in U.S. trade policy have become more fully apparent,” he said. “Specifically, under the new U.S. approach, countries must now buy access to the world’s largest economy, through a combination of tariffs, investments, unilateral trade liberalization and policy changes in their home markets.”
That may speak to fading hopes that Canada can secure a full repeal of American tariffs. But it also underlines the bigger game that is taking shape.
However tempting it might be to think of Canada and the United States as competing hockey teams, they are also intertwined, but unequal, economies. And a century of integration has now put Canada in a difficult spot — as Carney said on Friday, “some of our historic strengths have become vulnerabilities.”
“We can and must adjust to this new reality,” he said. “Canada will move from reliance to resilience.”
On that broad point there may be some emerging bipartisan consensus — even if Carney and Poilievre disagree markedly on how to do it.
Trump says it was ‘nice’ of Carney to remove retaliatory tariffs
The prime minister said his government would soon release a “comprehensive industrial strategy” that “protects Canadian jobs, boosts Canadian competitiveness, buys Canadian goods and diversifies Canadian exports.” Poilievre is pitching a “Canadian Sovereignty Act” that would repeal a half dozen major pieces of Liberal environmental policy.
Above and beyond the current trade dispute, that is the real debate — and where Carney most needs to be able to show action.
Canada’s leaders might still be judged by how and when they use their elbows. But the present and the future demand something more than that.
