Thanks for reading Ottawa Playbook. In today's edition:
→ Ottawa and the premiers try to get it together.
→ The secret to 32 interviews in 24 hours.
→ 27 shopping days until a GST-free-ish Christmas.
→ A banker and a clergyman trade notes on tariffs and trade.
DRIVING THE DAY
DPM Chrystia Freeland and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc met with the PM and the premiers last night to discuss the return of Donald Trump. "Our country is facing a significant challenge," Freeland said. | Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
ON BEST BEHAVIOR —CHRYSTIA FREELAND wants her provincial counterparts to play nice in front of the neighbors.
“Now is really a moment for us not to squabble,” she said last night.
The Deputy PM spoke with media Wednesday evening after a virtual meeting with Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU, the premiers and Public Safety Minister DOMINIC LEBLANC.
Ontario Premier DOUG FORD requested the gathering on Monday before President-elect DONALD TRUMP announced plans to slap a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods entering the U.S.
— On the PM-premiers’ agenda: The border and national security, trade, immigration, visa rules, and defense.
— Post-meeting debrief: Freeland said if leaders can present a unified front she’s “absolutely certain” Canada will meet the challenge of a second Trump administration.
“The people on that call, we disagree with each other about a lot of things. And one of the premiers, who I will not name — I’ll allow him to speak for himself — said with a little bit of a chuckle, ‘I can’t believe I just agreed with Prime Minister Trudeau about so many things,’” Freeland said.
— For the record: Ford issued a release last night saying he advised Trudeau “the federal government has been slow to react and is stuck on its backfoot.”
And Quebec Premier FRANÇOIS LEGAULT said he left the meeting without a “clear answer” on how the PM plans to secure the borders, The Canadian Press reports.
— Setting a political trap: LeBlanc did promise measures to secure the border while challenging the Tories to end the privilege debate in the House that has stalled government work and spending.
“I would find it shocking that the opposition would not allow us to present legislation or spending plans that would increase the ability of the Border Services Agency and the RCMP to do their work,” he said.
— Phone log: Trudeau and Trump spoke Monday — a fact that Freeland continues to hold out as a PM flex.
Last evening on Truth Social, Trump shared that he’d had a “wonderful conversation” with Mexican President CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM on Wednesday. He praised their agreement to stop migration into the U.S.
SIMON ROMERO of The New York Times reports that both leaders described the discussion as positive while offering different descriptions of what Mexico is doing to stave off a tariff war.
— For what it’s worth: Trump has so far been silent on his call with Trudeau, and there’s been no mention of Canada’s efforts to better secure the border.
Where the leaders are
— Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU will participate in an armchair discussion at the Sustainable Finance Forum at Ottawa's Rogers Centre.
— Deputy Prime Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND is in Toronto with no public-facing events.
— Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE and Bloc Québécois Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET have not released public itineraries.
— NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH is in Vancouver where he’ll speak at the BC Federation of Labour’s convention at 10:30 a.m. local time. He will also attend a rally at the convention. Later in the afternoon, he will visit the CUPW Canada Post picket line. Singh also has plans to campaign with VANESSA SHARMA in Cloverdale-Langley City.
— Green Leader ELIZABETH MAY will meet with Fertility Matters Canada then attend Parliament. In the afternoon she’ll host the World AIDS Day Awards Ceremony.
DULY NOTED
— MARK CARNEY delivers a 1:30 p.m. keynote address at the Sustainable Finance Forum.
— Industry Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE headlines an evening party fundraiser for Liberal caucus chair BRENDA SHANAHAN's riding association at an Italian restaurant in Sainte-Martine, Quebec.
— International Trade Minister MARY NG will deliver remarks and take media questions at the CPTPP closing news conference in Vancouver at 2:30 p.m. local time.
HALLWAY CONVERSATION
Flavio Volpe of the Auto Parts Manufacturers Association has been on the horn with reporters almost non-stop since Monday evening. | Flavio Volpe
CALLS OF DUTY — The key to enduring a marathon of media interviews isn't to hydrate, Auto Parts Manufacturers Association president FLAVIO VOLPE tells Playbook. "The secret is some scotch," he says. "A little sip here and a little sip there will get you through."
— 24-hour telethon: When Playbook got on the horn with Volpe Wednesday morning, we were his 32nd interview since DONALD TRUMP's nationwide tariff threat.
And we weren't last in line.
We talked about the questions he's fielding during this potential flashpoint in Canada-U.S. relations, what the coverage misses, and his best advice for Ottawa. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What do reporters want to hear about most?
What's the industry's reaction? It's the journalist community that is most anxious. I got probably 10 times more calls from people looking to see what the reaction is than from people with a reaction.
It's not that people are dismissing the threat. It's that we learned a lot the first time around, and we never broke up the team. We got together quarterly instead of weekly. But everybody is aware of the way Mr. Trump negotiates. We're not little girls and boys anymore.
You say "the team." Do you mean that informally?
I'd say informally, Team Canada. But there are pockets of Team Canada that meet formally all the time. As an industry, we meet all the time with the finance minister and the trade minister and the industry minister. There's been a great informal group of leading associations and advocacy groups that meet quarterly.
And are you trading notes? Planning scenarios?
It's really about trading notes and insight of what's happening on the ground commercially, on critical political contacts people have, whether that's state level or in Washington — or all over Mexico and Canada. There is a really collegial approach to giving other people a head's up on quantitative research, roll-out plans on communications.
A lot of people do this advocacy part differently than we do — white-paper based, quiet consultation. And then there's loud mouths like me. We do our consultation on the front page of The Globe and Mail.
What is the coverage missing?
Nobody really asked whether I think it's actually real. It's not real. The threat of using trade policy to get foreign policy gains is real.
What's your best advice for the Trudeau government?
The one key thing we implemented when required during the [NAFTA] negotiations was a multi-partisan Team Canada. The world has changed. In 2017, Trudeau was in the middle of a historic majority and riding high in the polls — and looked rather magnanimous when he brought prominent Conservatives and NDP politicians into the group.
I'm not naive. I know that if we had an election today, we'd have a different government.
But there's no reason people like [Conservative MP] RANDY HOBACK and [NDP MP] BRIAN MASSE can't be inside an official tent right now. There are others like [Conservative MPs] RYAN WILLIAMS or ADAM CHAMBERS, who are close to the leader, but also either have a trade responsibility or are from manufacturing jurisdictions that would understand Canada-U.S. trade.
This is as much a request of the leader of the opposition as it is of the prime minister. Find the right people to be on that team. If we want to be confidential about it because it serves our political interests that way, who cares? It doesn't matter to me. You don't have to hold hands.
— Worth noting: The Globe’s CAMPBELL CLARK wrote last night: “This isn’t 2017. There isn’t going to be a united front to meet Mr. Trump’s trade threat. Mr. Trudeau isn’t going to get everyone to put on the team jersey.”
TONIGHT ON THE HILL — The government’s GST bill is almost certain to pass.
Two developments led us here:
→ The Liberals caved to NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH.
To pass the bill, Liberals need the help of at least one major opposition party. To gain NDP support, the government split a bill that originally featured a two-month “holiday GST break” and C$250 checks for almost 19 million Canadian workers.
The checks are now expected to be introduced in a separate bill, once Liberals decide if they are going to expand eligibility as New Democrats have demanded. It’s an idea Liberal MP CHAD COLLINS also supported — and, as the Toronto Star reports, says he was threatened by his party for doing so.
CATHERINE LÉVESQUE of the National Post reports that Liberal MP DAVID MCGUINTY says he’s been relaying concerns from seniors and the disabled community in his riding “about the cheques that they will not be receiving.”
→ The NDP has agreed to help the Liberals temporarily suspend the Tory-fueled privilege debate. As CP points out this morning, “this bill is the first new legislation to be debated in the House since the end of September.”
ALSO FOR YOUR RADAR
CARNEY BLARNEY — MARK CARNEY cracked a joke at the expense of a priest on Wednesday.
During a fireside hosted by the Cardus Institute on Rideau Street, Carney referenced "2001: A Space Odyssey," a film that tackles the perils of AI.
His stagemate, RAYMOND DE SOUZA, joked that the movie was before his time. Surely, Carney deadpanned, De Souza was not disregarding a text simply because it predated his birth.
Like, say, the Bible.
→ Comedic skills: Unlocked.
— Three takeaways: The banker and the clergyman traded notes for more than an hour.
Here's what perked up our ears:
→ On tariffs:"Assume the bad thing is going to happen," Carney advised. "Assume we're going to have a very bad trade war." Always better to be prepared.
→ On trade:The former central banker referenced a conversation about trade objectives with an official he did not name in the first Trump administration. The official prioritized "more families staying together" and "fewer opioids" — unconventional policy goals "far removed," Carney said, from traditional economic theories of "comparative advantage."
→ On immigration:"We didn't live up to our values," he said. "In real-time you can see that we had much higher levels of foreign workers, students and new Canadians coming in than we could absorb" — a trend, he said, driven in part by pandemic-era business advocacy for more workers amid a tight labor market.
— Today in Ottawa: Carney will deliver a keynote on “transformational leadership” at the Sustainable Finance Forum.
MEDIA ROOM
— Our colleagues in Brussels report that the European Commission is pushing plans to dramatically cut the number of people working at many of its embassies to beef up staffing in countries where it feels the bloc has a strategic interest.
— “Governments will have to try harder to make Canada a more competitive economy,” KEVIN CARMICHAEL writes in The Logic. “There is lots of low-hanging fruit.”
Spotted: Members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, singing “White Christmas” outside the House of Commons ahead of a scrum with NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH.
PM JUSTIN TRUDEAU, delivering post-premiers' meeting remarks at the "Irish Night on the Hill" event at the Sir John A. Macdonald Building. In the crowd: MPs, senators, diplomats and Hill staffers, Irish and otherwise. New-ish ambassador JOHN CONCANNON posed for plenty of pics.
Bloc Québécois Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET, dropping by the more intimate St. Andrew's Day celebration of all things Scotland at the British High Commissioner's residence in Rockcliffe Park.
Noted: The mayor of Kensington, Prince Edward Island, just resigned in a dispute over pickleball courts. The Canadian Press has details.
ON THE HILL
Find the latest House meetings here. The Senate schedule is here.
11 a.m. Housing Minister SEAN FRASER and Minister of Citizens’ Services TERRY BEECH will be at the House human resources committee to take questions on Supplementary Estimates.
11:30 a.m. Canada’s interests and engagement in Africa top the agenda at the Senate foreign affairs committee where 33 senior government officials are on the witness roster.
11:30 a.m. The Statutes Repeal Act for 2024 is the focus of the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee.
3:30 p.m. WARD ELCOCK will be at the House public safety committee as it looks at electoral interference and criminal activities in Canada by agents of the government of India.
Behind closed doors:The House finance committee will work on turning its pre-budget consultations into a report.
TRIVIA
Wednesday’s answer: “She's a champion, no asterisk. She's just a champion.”SCOTT RUSSELL was talking about Sen. CHANTAL PETITCLERC.
Props to MALCOLM MCKAY, PATRICK DION, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, AMY CASTLE, VINCENT LAMBERT, KATELIN CUMMINGS, JUSTIN MARGOLIS, NANCI WAUGH, HIM MUNSON, JOHN DILLON, PATRICK ST-JACQUES, RAY DEL BIANCO, MARCEL MARCOTTE, KATIE FEENAN, CHRIS RANDS and LAUREN KENNEDY.
Today’s question: First elected in a by-election on this date in history, this parliamentarian would go on to serve in the House for 16,411 days.
