Carney says there is 'one negotiator for Canada' after Conservative MPs descend on Washington

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that politicians travelling to Washington who are not part of his government often return home not having learned “anything new” about Canada-U.S. trade.

He added that the same can be said when it comes to gleaning information about the state of ongoing discussions and the status of negotiations.

“In the end, there’s one negotiator for Canada, and that is the Government of Canada,” Carney said, speaking at an unrelated announcement in Oakville, Ont.

“Our interlocutors in the United States are generous people. They’re generous with their time, and it’s good of them to meet a host of Canadians coming down. But in the end, they know, and we know that we’re the negotiators.”

Carney’s comments come after Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, along with some of the party’s other MPs, including its foreign affairs critic Michael Chong, went to Washington to participate in a networking event hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Canada, which saw them meet with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and included other federal and provincial officials.

Citing unnamed sources, The Canadian Press reported Thursday that Greer told those in attendance the “America First” policy ushered in under U.S President Donald Trump was unmovable and that the U.S. was interested in working with Canada on energy issues. National Post has not independently confirmed the contents of what was said.

“It has not been our experience that people have gone to Washington and have learned anything new, nor has it been that they have learned everything that is either being discussed on the table or where the negotiations are in the end,” Carney said on Thursday.

This trip marks the second Jivani has taken since February, where he went to the White House to meet with Vice-President JD Vance, whom he has been friends with since attending Yale Law School together, along with other Trump officials, saying at the time he wanted to extend a hand to the Carney government to help in navigating the Canada-U.S. relationship.

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on Wednesday that dozens of Conservative MPs have travelled to Washington in recent years to fight for “tariff- free trade” and underscored how the party stands ready to fight for Canadian workers.

Ontario MP Shelby Kramp-Neuman, who serves as the party’s critic in Parliament on Canada-U.S. trade, told reporters on Wednesday that she intends to travel to Washington in the coming weeks.

Poilievre, who travelled to the U.S. last month, stopping in Texas, Michigan and New York, has not travelled to Washington himself since becoming party leader back in 2022. He has said he takes the approach of letting the U.S. administration deal with “one prime minister at a time.”

The Conservative leader recently told reporters that his intention was to brief Carney on his trip. During an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, aired last month, he told the mega-popular host that he was texting with the prime minister, whom he would not criticize while on foreign soil.

Poilievre’s Conservatives have criticized Carney’s government for not yet having secured any kind of trade deal with Trump that would see existing tariffs, such as the 50 per cent levies on steel and aluminum lowered or lessened.

The party’s MPs have also called on the government to be more transparent about its plans to manage the relationship with the U.S., given the upcoming July 1 deadline to begin the scheduled review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement.

Carney has characterized Canada’s trade deal with the U.S. as being an envy of its other trading partners, given that goods covered by the trilateral deal continue to be exempt, telling CBC in an interview that aired this week that he did not want to rush into striking a deal with Trump that “disadvantages us.”

National Post

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