Poilievre should ‘put partisan stripes aside’ and work with Carney amid Trump threat: Ford

Premier Doug Ford spoke on Donald Trump’s tariff wars, the Air Canada flight attendant strike, and more after meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is encouraging federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to “put partisan stripes aside” if he wins back a seat in the House of Commons, amid an ongoing trade war with the United States.

“Work with the prime minister,” Ford said, when asked by reporters on Parliament Hill Monday if he has any advice to offer Poilievre.

“Let’s put our political stripes aside and start working together collectively on large infrastructure projects, on other areas that he can cooperate with the government,” he added, on his way out of a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Ford is in Ottawa to attend the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, but he sat down first with Carney to discuss trade and Canada-U.S. relations.

Voters in the rural Alberta riding of Battle River—Crowfoot, meanwhile, are casting their ballots Monday, in a byelection where Poilievre hopes to win back a seat in Parliament. He lost the Ottawa-area riding he’d held for more than 20 years during the April general election, to Liberal political rookie Bruce Fanjoy.

“All I want to do is move forward collectively as a government,” Ford said, when asked whether he plans to meet with Poilievre if the latter wins the byelection. “I don’t care about political stripes.”

“The person I’m working with right now is the prime minister of the day, and as far as I’m concerned, he’s doing a really, really good job, considering the position he’s been put in,” Ford added. “I challenge anyone try to deal with (U.S. President) Donald Trump, myself included. He’s a different type of cat.”

Both during and in the aftermath of the federal election campaign in April, there were reports of a rift between Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in Ontario and the federal Conservative party.

Leading Conservative campaign strategist and Ford campaign manager Kory Teneycke took aim at Poilievre and his team, accusing them of squandering a 20-point lead in the polls, and calling it “campaign malpractice at the highest level” on the Curse of Politics podcast.

Ford later defended Teneycke, and said he wouldn’t interfere in the federal election, but also pointed out Poilievre never campaigned or contributed during the provincial election that had taken place just two months prior.

Carney ‘doing an incredible job’ amid trade war

Canada has been in a protracted trade war with the U.S. since February, when Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods that he said were related to border security. In the months since, the U.S. president has stacked additional sectoral tariffs, including on steel and aluminum, copper, and autos.

Canadian countermeasures also remain in place.

Carney, meanwhile, was unable to secure a deal with Trump ahead of a much-anticipated Aug. 1 deadline, at which point the U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods that are not compliant with the countries’ trade deal went up to 35 per cent.

“He’s doing an incredible job,” Ford said, when asked whether he believes Carney has been too elbows down on Trump. “He’s working collaboratively with 12 other premiers, myself and working as Team Canada.”

“And he’s doing a very, very good job, in my opinion, put in this position dealing with Donald Trump,” Ford added. “Let’s not worry about Donald Trump. We’ll start focusing Ontario and Canada and all the other provinces and territories.”

The Ontario premier — who’s repeatedly said he’s in favour of taking a hard line on Trump — said his focus is on encouraging investment in Canada to reduce the country’s reliance on the U.S., and pointed to measures like tax cuts and reducing “regulatory burdens.”

“You know, I always said that we can never predict what Donald Trump is going to do, but we can create the environment and conditions for companies to come here and invest and direct foreign investment,” he said.

“I won’t speak for the prime minister, (but) what I what I can tell you, we’re united on the message of, ‘let’s start worrying about how we can be competitive here,’” Ford also said of the ongoing trade dispute. “Donald Trump is so unpredictable I don’t even know what he, if he knows what he’s doing tomorrow morning, so let’s start focusing on creating that environment to attract investment.”

On his way out of the meeting with Ford, Carney described it as “very good,” but did not otherwise take questions from reporters.