By Don Newman

January 23, 2025

The race for the Liberal leadership and contest to be the next prime Minister of Canada is down to two serious candidates with a chance of winning and the defining issue that will determine the outcome is clear.

It is no big surprise that despite other entrants the only people with a chance of emerging victorious when the votes are counted on March 9th are former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, former governor of the Bank of Canada and of the Bank of England, Mark Carney.

And it is no surprise that the defining issue of the race will be who can best handle the erratic and dangerous President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Freeland is touting her defence of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the first Trump Presidency that resulted in a slightly changed but generally intact treaty, the Canada United States Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). Carney is arguing that his two-decade career in international finance and the contacts and experience he has acquired during it have better equipped him than anyone else to take on Trump.

So far, Carney is leading Freeland in endorsements from ministers in the cabinet of soon-to-be retired Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But the race for delegates, endorsements and money is just beginning and as the British liked to say “There is many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.”

The newly re-inaugurated Trump has already shown that past experience dealing with him may only go so far. After four years out of the White House, Trump II is more combative, more outrageous and more powerful than in his last incarnation.

This is not diplomacy-as-usual; it requires a whole other skill set. And candidates have to articulate what they will bring to the table.

This time, Trump won both the votes in the Electoral College to elect him President and the popular vote, a target that eluded him last time. And this time, his Republican Party won majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The majorities are small and party discipline in Congress is less controlling than in the House of Commons in Canada, but for at least two years until congressional elections could shift the balance, close to total control seem to be in the Trump’s hands.

Also, this time around Trump has filled his cabinet and his White House staff with people who are personally loyal to him, rather than people from more traditional Republican, military and business backgrounds. It was those people who were able to be a brake on some of his more outrageous instincts between 2017 and 2021. Trump would be angered and fire some of them but this time he has saved himself that trouble by appointing loyalists who are more likely to enable his impulses and plans than provide guardrails to keep his actions on a more mainstream path.

But perhaps the clearest signal that this time Trump will be even more difficult to deal with has come in the past few days since his inauguration. His address at his 2017 inauguration was dark and threatening. This time, there were plenty of threats but it was also boastful, rude and self-congratulatory.

Those are all dangerous traits. They are dangerous because they mask insecurities which, when challenged, can make the person harbouring them lash out, fly off the handle and act irrationally. Trump’s talk of a “new golden age” for America, where he will solve all problems, create record prosperity, and inspire a new respect for the United States around the world is worse than delusional.

His continual talk about subsidizing Canada with American tax dollars and poking us about becoming the 51st state is not only rude and provocative, but he can’t be bothered to get his facts straight. The alleged subsidy he has cited — which doesn’t exist —  ranges from $150 billion to $200 billion and is based on fuzzy math combining defence spending and trade deficits that only he can calculate. Not the behaviour of a rational or serious person, but the behaviour of a dangerous an unpredictable man.

That is the kind of relationship the new leader of the Liberal Party will have to deal with. While Freeland dealt with it indirectly during the CUSMA negotiations, that was limited exposure. And, even allowing for British eccentricity, it’s doubtful that Carney ever encountered such volatility at the Bank of England. This is not diplomacy-as-usual. It requires a whole other skill set. And candidates have to articulate what they will bring to the table.

In the leadership, each will have to put forward how they might do it. So should Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, if he wants to convince Canadians they should try a new team to  handle the threat south of the border.

Contributing Writer and columnist Don Newman, an Officer of the Order of Canada and lifetime member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, is Executive Vice President of Rubicon Strategy, based in Ottawa.