USA

With a review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) looming amid President Donald Trump’s trade war, National Post spoke this week with Canadian political and trade policy expert Laura Dawson. Dawson is the former director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where she focused on bilateral economic issues, including NAFTA/CUSMA. She is now the executive director of the Canada-U.S. Future Borders Coalition and a regular media commentator. Much of Dawson’s work involves advising governments, businesses, and organizations on cross-border trade.

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.

In April, just days before he was elected prime minister, I asked Mark Carney whether Canadians ought to start worrying about the state of things down south.

“The U.S. system is one of checks and balances, famously,” Carney began. At the core of the American system of democracy, he went on, “is the rule of law.” He gave a small shrug: “I expect that to continue.” Without taking a beat, “yes,” the prime minister acknowledged, “I’m concerned.”

The Star is desperate to keep the Elbows Up fear mongering con alive.