Bonded by crisis: Inside the alliance between Mark Carney and Doug Ford
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Doug Ford, a federal Liberal and an Ontario Progressive Conservative, each recently tasked by voters with tackling the economic and existential threat of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.
Carney quietly underscored just how much he values Ford's counsel at the height of the closely fought April 28 election campaign.
In an unusual move, the prime minister carved out precious hours in the days before the leaders' debates in Montreal for a private visit to the premier's home in Etobicoke.
Federal and provincial sources, speaking confidentially in order to recount internal deliberations, confirmed to the Star that the two men huddled to discuss Trump's ongoing trade war against Canada — and to talk politics.
Ford defied the odds Thursday becoming the first premier to win three consecutive majority
Carney's advisers, mindful Ford's PCs had just been re-elected by focusing on Ontarians' unease over the American president, felt the visit was a judicious use of their candidate's time in an abbreviated five-week campaign.
The federal Liberals, after all, were employing the same electoral strategy as the provincial Tories two months earlier.
More importantly, the rookie prime minister appreciated the three-term premier's candour and
political acumen
.
Ford's campaign manager warns that unless the Tories 'get on it quick, they are going to get
Bracing for an onslaught of debate-stage attacks from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, the Liberal chief shrewdly tapped into the experience of the most successful Tory politician in Canada.
Ford, a seasoned veteran of such potentially fraught televised encounters in three bruising Ontario elections, urged Carney to play to his strengths.
It was an argument the premier articulated in more public forums at the Calgary Stampede on Monday and again the following day in an interview with
Newstalk 1010's Deb Hutton
in Toronto.
'I truly believe that, having conversations with the prime minister, he's no Justin Trudeau, I'll tell you that,' Ford assured Hutton, echoing his comments at a joint news conference with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith the morning before.
Their move comes against the backdrop of Prime Minister Mark Carney promising to make Canada 'an
'He's a business-minded person. He's a Goldman Sachs guy, chair of
Brookfield
(Asset Management), chair of Bloomberg, governor of the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England,' he said.
'This guy's no shrinking violet. He's a smart, smart individual. He understands that we need to bring more revenues and be more self-reliant ... within Canada and diversify our trade across the world.'
The personal warmth between the 60-year-olds — born within four months of one another, each into families with two brothers and one sister — began over breakfast at Wally's Grill in Rexdale on March 12.
The Ontario premier and the incoming prime minister held their first in-person meeting at
Carney, three days after succeeding Trudeau as Liberal leader but still two days from being sworn in as prime minister, travelled to Etobicoke for the morning confab.
With no media cameras in tow at the restaurant, though an official photographer was there to document the meeting, there wasn't the commotion or the artifice of a staged political event.
Over poached eggs and tea, the two men had time to chat while aides hovered nearby.
Recognizing Ford, the local MPP for Etobicoke North, two diners approached their table.
'Doug,
you
should be the prime minister,' enthused one of the patrons, praising the premier's 'Canada Is Not For Sale' crusade during the Feb. 27 Ontario election.
Not missing a beat, Ford laughed and motioned across the small table to an equally amused Carney.
'Well, this
is
the prime minister,' said the premier with a grin.
Bonhomie aside, the two most powerful politicians in Canada are adherents to Nobel laureate economist Paul Romer's mantra that 'a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.'
That's why they have both rammed through controversial legislation — Carney's Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, and Ford's Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act — designed to expedite major infrastructure projects like pipelines and rail corridors.
It's why the prime minister has tried to turbocharge the premiers' push to remove interprovincial trade barriers they believe cost the Canadian economy $200 billion annually.
'Listen, there is a real strong relationship there,' a senior federal Liberal said.
'It's credit to Doug. Doug is, as you know, the outgoing chair of the Council of the Federation and he's done a fantastic job as the chair' said the Carney confidante, referring to the rotating role of chairing the premiers' organization.
'Doug has been a very strong ally. He's helped, in partnership with the prime minister, to keep the country united and strong as we navigate the tariffs and our relationship with the United States.'
At last month's
first ministers' meeting
in Saskatoon, Carney and Ford were like impish schoolboys, smiling and sharing whispered asides during the interminable closing news conference whenever the cameras were focused on other premiers.
'The average person wants governments of all stripes to work together and that's exactly what Doug and the PM have been doing. They've set aside whatever partisanship ... that may exist as a trademark of politics,' said the federal Liberal.
'What Doug is doing ... is working shoulder-to-shoulder with the prime minister and other premiers so that we can stitch together the various regional economies under the banner of building these major projects that are in the national interest,' added the Grit.
'This is the way in which we're going to get the economy firing on all cylinders. We're going to get the economy more productive. We're going to get the economy to be more competitive.'
Ford's advisers acknowledge the relationship between Queen's Park and Ottawa can never be all sunshine and roses, but say right now 'it feels very adult and practical and respectful.'
'I shouldn't interfere in the federal election,' Ford told reporters in Mississauga on Wednesday
'It's not without tension for sure — we bark at each other, but it's respectful,' said a senior provincial insider.
Federal Liberals, meanwhile, remain baffled that Poilievre's Conservatives treated Ford with indifference bordering on contempt for most of the past two years.
As reported by the Star earlier this year, the federal Tory leader made his first-ever call to the premier on March 17, days before Carney called the election.
The premier told him he would be too busy governing Ontario, the Star has learned.
Equally surprising, the Poilievre Tories underestimated the Liberal prime minister's bona fides among some loyalists to the late
Jim Flaherty
.
The former federal and provincial finance minister,
who died in 2014
, anointed Carney, a fellow diminutive Irish-Canadian Ivy League hockey player, as Bank of Canada governor 17 years ago.
While
former prime minister Stephen Harper endorsed Poilievre during the campaign
, conveniently ignoring the fact he asked Carney to be his treasurer after Flaherty resigned due to illness, not all Tories followed his advice.
A revered figure among many Conservatives —
including, significantly, the Ford family
— Flaherty thought very highly of Carney personally and professionally.
So much so that a few of his former aides have privately confided they cast Liberal votes for the first time in their lives in part to honour the memory of their beloved boss.
Such expressions of loyalty matter to Ford, whose first deputy premier and health minister was the well-respected
Christine Elliott
, Flaherty's widow.
Similarly, Carney, who marvels at the premier's skills both as a retail politician and as a consensus-builder around the table at the Council of the Federation, was grateful when Ford publicly defended him in Calgary.
'He wants to get things going. He comes from Alberta,' the Ontarian reminded reporters there Monday.
'I have all the confidence that he's going to listen to the premiers and straighten out the federal government once and for all.'
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