Your boss walks out of a long, protracted set of negotiations with a deal that’s absolutely vital to your future.
They have two options for how to characterize what they’ve achieved.
Option one. “We got the best deal.”
Option two. “We got the best deal … possible. Under the circumstances. In light of all the pressure. Not to mention the mountain of leverage our opponent was hanging over our heads!”
If you don’t find option two particularly inspiring, you’re not alone. But that, in essence, is exactly the kind of message the boss of Canada’s economy, Mark Carney, will have to deliver as he prepares to sell his government’s trade policy with the United States and China — our two most consequential, and most complicated, economic partners.
That challenge applies to whatever emerges from Carney’s trip to Asia this week, where he’ll likely meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in hopes of easing long-standing trade disputes. But it applies most directly to any announcement of a long-awaited U.S. — Canada sectoral trade deal — once, that is, U.S. President Donald Trump’s temper tantrum over Ontario’s Reagan-themed antitariff ads subsides.
Of course, choices like the one I began this column with are invented luxuries. But they make the point. There is a world of difference between communicating from a position of strength and one of constraint.
How to best communicate from that latter position — how to balance acknowledging the limits of Canada’s leverage while projecting strategic competence — is a question that has defined much of this young government’s tenure.
As Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters before embarking on his first official visit to Asia on Friday, “Look for months we have stressed the importance of distinguishing things we can control and the things we can’t control. We can’t control the trade policy of the United States.”
That’s a message designed to elicit a little sympathy and understanding, to remind Canadians their government is doing the best it can dealing with a radically unpredictable partner. But over the next few weeks, that message will be tested like never before.
Because nowhere is this challenge more acute than in selling a sectoral trade deal negotiated under duress. When the bargaining partner is the same force driving the instability in the first place; when key sectors are certain to emerge bruised; when the wine, inevitably, must be watered down.
The announcement of any sectoral trade deal won’t just be another stage in the wider negotiations with the U.S., it will be a stress test for the government’s entire communication strategy, credibility, and command of the national story.
And to pass that test, the Carney government needs to remember only one thing: the best defence is a good offence.
On an issue like this, the opposition has only two credible messages that matter. First, to point out the flaws of the deal; second, and more importantly, to insist, “we could have done better.”
Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre will argue he would have driven a harder bargain, saved more Canadian jobs, stood toe-to-toe with Donald Trump without blinking, and resolved everything much sooner.
The Liberals shouldn’t waste energy denying the imperfections of the deal. Instead, they should go on the attack and ask him: how?
How exactly does one outflank a protectionist White House? How does an opposition leader who has never sat at a diplomatic negotiating table imagine he’d do better against the most unpredictable U.S. president in modern memory?
That’s the counterpunch Carney needs to throw.
Canadians understand we don’t live in a perfect world. Canadians understand this government is not playing with the best of hands. And a successful offensive strategy will remind Canadians that while they may not like the hand they’ve been dealt, they trust the person playing it more than anyone else.
The fact is, governments sometimes need reminding they don’t need to play defence 24/7. There are moments when going on the offence, when holding the opposition’s feet to the fire for a change, is necessary.
When the opposition’s entire case rests on a hypothetical — a Monday-morning quarterback’s fantasy of a “better deal” that never existed — that’s exactly when you stop defending and go on the attack.
