Canadians Can Handle the Truth

Mark Carney told the truth about an unthinkable risk. Peter MacKay's objection wasn't that he was wrong, but that he said it out loud.

There was a moment in Mark Carney’s interview with the New York Times this week that should make every Canadian stop and think. Not panic. Think.

Carney was asked whether, during the past 18 months, he had seriously considered the possibility that the United States might use military force against Canada. According to Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Times’ Canada bureau chief, who was in the room, Carney didn’t jump on the question. He paused for several seconds, took a deep breath and appeared to think very carefully about the words he was about to use. Then he answered. Yes, it had been considered.

He called it an “extreme tail risk,” something extremely unlikely. But when you’re responsible for the risks facing a country, failing to prepare for something just because it’s unlikely would itself be irresponsible.

That may have been the most Mark Carney answer imaginable. He’s a risk manager. Central bankers don’t get to prepare only for what they think will happen. They stress-test the system and ask what happens when the assumptions fail. The question isn’t just what I think will happen. It’s what could happen, what it would cost, and whether we’re ready if it does.

Talk to Americans. No, not like that.

Peter MacKay doesn’t see it that way. The former Conservative foreign affairs and defence minister went on CTV on Thursday and called Carney’s comments “irresponsible and irrational.” He even complained that Carney had given the Times a long interview, wondering when he’d last given that kind of time to a Canadian journalist.

Think about that for a moment. Two weeks ago, Pierre Poilievre went to New York to make Canada’s case directly to Americans. He went on CNBC and, to his credit, said he wouldn’t attack his prime minister on foreign soil. Now Carney sits for an hour, on the record, with ten New York Times journalists, and a former Conservative minister goes on Canadian television to attack him for it. Talk to Americans. No, not like that.

To be fair, there’s a real point buried in MacKay’s complaint. Chantal Hébert made it this week on Peter Mansbridge’s The Bridge: Carney should be doing more long-form interviews with Canadian journalists, and I agree. But that isn’t what MacKay was arguing. His problem wasn’t the audience Carney skipped. It was what Carney said to the one he reached.

The China comparison

MacKay said words like “war,” “rupture” and now “invasion” were taking Canada from “retaliation to provocation,” and that what we really needed was to get back to the bargaining table. Then he said Carney’s comments were in the same category as “doing training exercises with the Chinese.”

To be fair, China didn’t come out of nowhere. Earlier this month, Canadian defence officials sat down with China’s military for their first formal defence talks in eight years, and Conservatives didn’t like it. There are real reasons to be cautious about China, including espionage, interference and Taiwan, and those deserve a serious debate. But they were talks, not training exercises.

And look at the logic. MacKay’s worry is that Carney is provoking Washington. Talking about invasion scenarios provokes Washington, and talking to China provokes Washington. So what was Washington doing on Thursday? The night before, Donald Trump personally went out to Joint Base Andrews to greet Xi Jinping. Thursday morning, Xi got a ceremonial welcome at the White House, complete with a military flyover, followed that night by a state dinner. The President of the United States was rolling out the red carpet for the President of China, and on the same day a former Canadian defence minister was on television warning that Canada talking to China might upset the Americans.

Listen to MacKay’s interview again and notice what every criticism has in common. The Times interview was a problem because of how the White House might react. The language was a problem because it might provoke Washington. The Davos speech came up as one more thing the president had reacted to. China was filed under provocation. His yardstick for every Canadian decision was the same: how will Washington take it? Not once did I hear him ask whether a decision was good for Canada.

Conservatives have always talked about patriotism. If patriotism matters, you say Canada first, and you say it loudly. MacKay never said it once. Every question came back to the relationship and how Washington would react. He’s entitled to that view, and there’s an honest case for putting the relationship first. But then let’s introduce him honestly, not as a voice for Canada’s interests but as a voice for keeping Washington happy.

Washington talks to whoever it wants. Canada is supposed to check first. That isn’t a partnership. That’s asking permission.

Flip the script

The CTV host pointed out that Carney had simply been asked a question and answered that governments have to manage every risk, even the remote ones. MacKay said Carney should have “flipped the script” and talked instead about fighting side by side in every war since the War of 1812, about NORAD, NATO and Five Eyes. In other words, don’t answer the uncomfortable question. Give the reassuring answer.

Here’s the problem with that advice. As Chantal Hébert pointed out, Carney really had three possible answers. He could say no comment, which everyone would read as a yes. He could say it never crossed his mind, which would be a lie. Or he could tell the truth: it’s an extreme scenario, but it’s our job to think through every scenario when someone keeps saying he wants to annex you.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Times reporter in the room, made the same point from the other side of the table. If Carney had dodged, she said, it “would have been very noticeable.” In her words, “We would have parsed the evasion.” The non-answer MacKay wanted would have been the story. Instead, Carney took a long pause and answered carefully. “I think he wanted to be honest,” she said. “I think he didn’t want to lie.”

I was still working on this piece when MacKay showed up again, this time on CBC’s Power & Politics, saying he didn’t know what kind of “political game” Carney was trying to play. Carney was asked a question and answered it honestly. That’s not a game. The game was what MacKay recommended: dodge the question and change the subject.

Then he asked, more or less, whether this is what we want Canadians reading in the New York Times. Not whether it’s true, and not whether it’s wise, but whether Canadians should be reading it at all.

Then came a hockey analogy. Running around with your elbows up, he said, just gets you penalized and hurts your team.

I have a different view of that. I played the role of the enforcer. My job wasn’t to score. My job was to make sure my teammates had the space to do what they needed to do to help us win, and nobody took liberties with our best player while I was on the ice. In the summer of 2024, I ran into that player’s father, and all those years later the first thing he brought up was how I used to clear space for his son. That’s what elbows up means. It isn’t recklessness. It’s making sure the other team knows there’s a price for running your guys.

And the penalty box only works if the referee is neutral. In this game, the other team is also the referee. Washington decides what counts as a penalty, and last October it called one on an Ontario TV ad. A team that’s afraid of the penalty box in that game doesn’t stay out of trouble. It just gets pushed around.

The F-35

MacKay then pointed out that all this was happening while Canada’s first F-35 was being flight-tested in Texas. Imagine, he said, we’re buying the F-35 and the prime minister is talking about war. And then he said it flatly: we are buying the F-35.

The government hasn’t decided that. Canada’s first jet did fly in Fort Worth this week, with barely a word from Ottawa, but the government is only firmly committed to 16 of the 88 jets, and the rest are under review. Maybe the F-35 is the right plane. People who fly fighters make a strong case for it, and the government’s own evaluation reportedly favours it. But the question behind the review is the same one Carney raised about Starlink. The F-35 runs on American software, American parts and American updates, and once you’ve seen a dependency used as leverage, you can’t unsee it.

It’s also worth remembering whose file this was. In 2010, it was Peter MacKay, as defence minister, who announced Canada would buy 65 F-35s without an open competition. Two years later, the Auditor General found the government had lowballed the cost by about $10 billion, and the Harper government hit the reset button. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about why he brought it up.

Put the whole day together and the pattern is hard to miss. Don’t say it. Don’t let Canadians read it. Don’t push back. Buy American. Every instinct points in the same direction, and it isn’t toward Canada.

A former defence minister should know better

MacKay revealed the contradiction himself. Asked on CTV about planning for an American contingency, he said Canada didn’t envision an invasion, then added that if it did, “we wouldn’t be discussing” it on television or in the New York Times. Well, which is it? Is considering the possibility irresponsible, or is admitting you considered it irresponsible? Those are very different arguments.

Canada’s current defence minister, David McGuinty, settled it in two sentences: “It is normal. All militaries in the world spend time analyzing risk scenarios.”

A former defence minister should also know that Canada and the United States have planned for war with each other before. In 1921, a Canadian officer named James “Buster” Brown wrote Defence Scheme No. 1, a plan for Canadian raids into the northern United States. By 1930, the Americans had War Plan Red, and Halifax was one of its main targets. Nobody thought either country was about to invade. That’s what militaries do. They plan for the things everyone hopes will never happen.

Canadians are adults

The idea that Carney’s answer will frighten Canadians gets weaker the closer you look. This isn’t even news. Back in January, the Globe and Mail reported that Canada’s military had modelled how it would respond to an American invasion, relying on insurgency and hit-and-run tactics. Canadians read it, and nobody panicked. People went to work, paid their mortgages and kept watching the news.

So when Carney was asked about it eight months later, he didn’t reveal a secret. He confirmed, in the most general terms possible, something Canadians already knew. He called it extremely unlikely, and he refused to say anything more. That’s not fearmongering. That’s treating Canadians like adults.

MacKay wants to manage what Canadians hear so they don’t get anxious, and he wants to manage what the prime minister says so Washington doesn’t get upset. Carney seems to think the country can handle the truth. I think he’s right.

You can’t unsee it

Carney’s Starlink comment may be the simplest explanation yet for what his government is doing. Once you’ve seen economic dependence used as leverage, you can’t unsee it. Once you’ve seen tariffs justified with claims about fentanyl and the border, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve heard an American president talk about Canada as the 51st state, you can’t unhear it.

On Wednesday, Trump posted that Canada is “allowing millions and millions of people into the Country, essentially unchecked and unvetted,” causing “problems that will soon be too big to handle,” and that it “will end very badly.” Then, asked about Carney’s comments, the White House said Trump has done “more than anyone” to protect Canada.

We’ve already watched claims about fentanyl and the border become the justification for economic measures against Canada. A responsible government doesn’t assume every new claim is meaningless. It watches, it prepares and it asks what comes next. The question isn’t whether Donald Trump is going to invade Canada. The question is what Canada should prepare for when the President of the United States keeps inventing new reasons to treat Canada as a security problem. Nobody has a crystal ball. That’s why serious governments plan.

Punished anyway

MacKay’s other argument is that all this talk just makes Trump angrier and pushes a deal further away. Trump did go after the Davos speech. The next day he said “Canada lives because of the United States,” and pulled Canada’s invitation to his Board of Peace.

But he was punishing Canada long before Davos. The tariffs came first, and so did the 51st-state talk. Last October, when Ontario ran an ad quoting Ronald Reagan during the World Series, Trump cut off trade talks and piled on another 10%. An ad. If a provincial ad is enough to blow up negotiations, the idea that Canada can avoid punishment by choosing its words carefully doesn’t hold up. Washington’s reaction isn’t something Canada can manage by being polite.

MacKay says we’re further from a deal than we were 18 months ago. Fair enough. But 18 months of worrying about how Washington would react didn’t get us one either.

In the game, or in the bleachers

MacKay brushed off the Davos speech too: “Middle powers unite. Well, that’s the European Union.” That speech got a standing ovation. Finland’s president called it one of the best speeches ever given at Davos, and NATO’s secretary general said Canada was back.

Since then, other countries have been doing what Carney described. Japan is building military ties with Australia, India and Indonesia. Japan and South Korea are openly debating whether they can still count on the American nuclear umbrella. Europe is signing trade deals across Asia. And no wonder. Last month, Trump ordered the Pentagon to substantially reduce military exercises with South Korea, one of America’s closest allies, and his reason was “my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.” If you’re sitting in Seoul, you don’t need a New York Times interview to tell you to plan for the unthinkable.

These are governments responsible for their own countries’ security. They’re in the game. Peter MacKay is in the bleachers. He’s out of step with Canadians too. A Pollara poll at the end of August found 68% approve of how Carney is handling the United States, including four in ten Conservative voters.

Paradigm lock

While all of this was happening, Pierre Poilievre stood up in Question Period on Thursday and talked about diesel. Diesel matters. Farmers pay it, truckers pay it, and eventually we all pay it. But listen to the framing. How many taxes can we cut? How can a global energy price be turned into another attack on Mark Carney?

It’s the same playbook Conservatives have been running for years on inflation, housing, the carbon tax and Justin Trudeau. Build the exchange, get the line, cut the clip. That works when politics is the story, but politics isn’t the whole story anymore. Canada is dealing with sovereignty, defence, Arctic security, critical infrastructure, technological independence and the reliability of the country that has anchored our economy and our security for generations. Those questions need more than another clip. They need statecraft.

I think Canadian Conservatives are caught in a paradigm lock. For decades, Canada became more and more integrated with the United States through the Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, continental supply chains, integrated energy and autos, and NORAD, NATO and Five Eyes. That system gave Canada enormous benefits. It also gave us concentration, and concentration becomes risk when the assumptions holding it up change.

The old Canadian answer to an international problem was simple: call Washington. Defence problem? Call Washington. Trade problem? Call Washington. Security problem? Call Washington. Call 1-800-USA. That’s the world a whole generation of Canadian politicians learned their craft in. Peter MacKay isn’t the Conservative leader, but he’s a good example of how that generation learned to think.

Mark Carney has a different mental map, shaped by Canada, Britain, Europe and international finance. So when Washington becomes part of the risk, his answer isn’t to repair the dependency. It’s to reduce it. Not to end the relationship, become anti-American or refuse to negotiate, but to reduce the risk.

Carney told the Times he speaks with Trump frequently, that there’s a good deal to be had, and he even put potash on the table. Then he put the condition as plainly as it can be put: “All they have to do is respect our sovereignty. It’s not that hard. We’re reasonable people.”

MacKay talked about the bargaining table, NORAD, NATO, Five Eyes and the risk of upsetting the White House. What I didn’t hear him talk about was sovereignty, and that’s astonishing, because sovereignty is the issue. MacKay is worried about protecting the relationship. Carney is worried about protecting Canada’s freedom to act within it. Those are not the same thing.

We need a better opposition

Here’s where my criticism of the Conservatives becomes almost the opposite of partisan cheerleading. Canada needs a strong Conservative opposition right now. Desperately.

Carney is making decisions that could shape this country for generations. Defence spending, trade deals, European partnerships, energy and industrial strategy should all be challenged. Somebody should be asking whether he’s moving too fast or too slow, spending too much or in the wrong places, and whether Canada can actually deliver what he’s promising. That’s what a serious opposition is for.

But you can’t pressure-test a strategy you haven’t bothered to understand. You can’t challenge a risk assessment by complaining that admitting the risk makes people uncomfortable. And you can’t warn that Canada talking to China will upset Washington on the same day Washington is throwing a state dinner for Xi Jinping. That isn’t scrutiny. It’s politics, always politics.

The world changed. Canada noticed, Canadian voters noticed and Mark Carney certainly noticed. The Conservative Party still seems to be waiting for the old world to come back, and it may not. Canada can’t afford an opposition whose main strategy is another tax cut, another clip and another call to 1-800-USA.

We need them to be better than that. Not for Mark Carney. Not for the Liberal Party. For Canada.