Canada still needs America, and other truths from ex-MP Candice Bergen

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Mark Carney came out swinging after Donald Trump announced his plan to impose 25 per cent tariffs on auto imports. “The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over,” the prime minister declared on Parliament Hill.

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What Carney didn’t say is also telling: how a Liberal government will reimagine Canada’s economy and revive our military capacity.

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With or without Trump’s reordering of the world as we know it, massive change is needed. In the last decade, Canada’s real GDP growth has sunk to the bottom rung of OECD countries. And the federal government’s foot-dragging on NATO contributions exposed our military and security vulnerabilities to the world; we’ve leaned hard on America to defend our homeland.

“But who gave him (Carney) the mandate to say we’re cutting off our relationship with the U.S.?” asks Candice Bergen, former interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and Manitoba MP for Portage-Lisgar from 2008-2023.

“I want to build and make our relationship better, not acquiesce,” Bergen declares. “We need the United States,” she says, and it’s disingenuous of Prime Minister Carney to suggest otherwise. “And I hope Pierre (Poilievre) will really be strong on saying, we need this relationship. We can’t be solely dependent on it, but we need it and we have to build it.

“That’s what Danielle (Smith) is saying. She’s really the only one in the country who is saying that, and I find her to be completely authentic and trustworthy,” Bergen continues.

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“When I hear the president say, ‘I had a good positive meeting with Prime Minister Carney,’ politics aside, partisanship aside, that’s what I want,” Bergen says.

But she’s deeply frustrated with the double standards.

“‘I had a great meeting with Mark Carney, nice white man from the East,’ and the media is just exuding joy. Isn’t it wonderful,” Bergen reports, her tone becoming sardonic. “It is wonderful. But why is it wonderful when a Liberal man does it and it’s treason when a balanced, sensible, strong conservative woman does it?

“Truthfully, Americans are our friends … we need a relationship with the Americans,” Bergen observes solemnly. You can’t just say we don’t need the U.S. any longer as a trading partner, she chides, or “that we’re going to retaliatory tariff our way out this.”

Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s recently elected president, is another female leader who has figured out a way to seriously, calmly deal with Trump’s threats, with no chest-thumping. She’s earned Trump’s respect and been spared his barrage of insults and threats.

“Trump does not want to be weaponized,” is Bergen’s conclusion. The politicians who seem to have been effective with Trump — Claudia Sheinbaum, Danielle Smith — are the ones who are not weaponizing Trump, she asserts.

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And, again, Bergen points out the obvious double standard: It’s completely disingenuous for Mark Carney to criticize Danielle Smith for trying to build a relationship with the Americans, and at the same time, he wants to have a relationship with Trump.

Carney wrote a book on values, but it’s Bergen’s assessment that it’s Sheinbaum and Smith who operate with a core set of values that emphasize relationship, mutual trust, mutual respect, and firm boundaries. “I think it’s EQ,” she says. “It’s the EQ factor, and I think Danielle has it in spades.” And Bergen’s sickened “by how the left wing and eastern media have literally called her a betrayer of her own country because she has spoken to Donald Trump, with respect.”

“She’s been firm,” Bergen assesses. “She’s building a relationship. She is setting strong boundaries around her province … ‘You’re not touching my oil and gas. But our relationship is important and I want it to work.’ ”

Bergen’s now living in Winnipeg, where I reach her for this conversation; her stateswoman-like bearings and quiet confidence are unchanged.

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While no longer on the front lines in politics, she still gets cheap shots across her bow. These days, it’s people accusing her of being a MAGA-supporter. “These are men that literally would not have the courage to speak to me face-to-face,” she scowls and shakes her head. “It’s cheap shots, it’s all the cheap shots,” she grimaces, and conservative women are the easy targets.

The youngest of eight siblings, born in Morden, Man., Bergen credits her upbringing with equipping her to hold the federal Conservative party together after a majority of party MPs voted to remove Erin O’Toole as leader in 2022. That’s in part why I wanted her perspective on this critical ballot question — what federal leadership skills are needed to navigate a Trump administration and hold the country together? While anti-MAGA, “Elbows Up” and confrontational tactics may feel good, and have given traction to political careers, a more even-keeled approach may be more effective longer term, Bergen says.

Think of a family, Bergen suggests. Sometimes dads can escalate things, whereas moms often let everyone have a bit of a temper tantrum and then say: Kids, that’s not how we’re going to do it. Right now, Bergen explains, “I see some of the men in our country encouraging emotional, negative, temper tantrum feelings, that we as Canadians rightfully are feeling. We’ve been hurt by Trump, we’ve been hurt by what he has said, we’re angry, we’re having an outburst.” But, she continues, some of our female leaders seem to be saying: “we have to be strong … but no, we’re not going to do something that’s going to cause us more pain.”

It’s the hypocrisy around how to deal with Trump that most irritates Bergen.

“If you get along with Trump and you’re a Danielle Smith, then you’re bad. But if you get along with Trump, but you’re Mark Carney, you’re good.”

Sheesh.

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