Why the new U.S. administration won't have much time for us

In this June 8, 2018 file photo, President Donald Trump talks with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a G-7 Summit welcome ceremony in Charlevoix, Canada (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)

Rudy Husny is a former political advisor and strategist for the Conservatives in Ottawa. Former director for the Minister of International Trade in the Harper government from 2011 to 2015, he was also an advisor to the Leader of the Opposition. He is now a consultant, speaker and political analyst for Noovo and CTV News.

A few days before the 2019 federal election, I received calls from the embassies of G20 countries. I was a senior adviser to Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer at the time. Their request was simple: if the Conservatives won, how could we arrange congratulatory calls from their leaders to Scheer in the hours following the election results?

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They wanted to ensure they were at the top of the call list. We set up a protocol between myself and my chief of staff at the time, Marc-André Leclerc, who was in Regina for election night, while I was at the Conservative Party’s HQ in Ottawa.

It wasn’t the likely outcome but countries were ready for any scenario and reached out directly to us, though political channels, not Global Affairs Canada.

Last week, we learned in an interview on Radio-Canada’s Tout le monde en parle with retired career diplomat Louise Blais, that when Donald Trump won his first U.S. presidential election in 2016, the Prime Minister's Office struggled to find a phone number to contact him.

File photo of Louise Blais, senior special advisor of U.S. and international affairs at the Business Council of Canada, speaking at the Canadian Club in Ottawa on Nov. 9, 2023. (Kamara Morozuk / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In the end, Blais, who was Consul General of Canada in Atlanta at the time, used her contacts to obtain a phone number for Trump’s penthouse in New York. Blais said she wrote the number on a napkin and provided it to Justin Trudeau’s office, so he could call the winner.

This illustrates the level of preparedness—or lack thereof—of the Trudeau government, which failed to establish prior relations with the new president-elect.

Fast forward to today. Yes, Prime Minister Trudeau did have a call with President (re-elect) Trump. He wasn’t the first to do so, as was the case with President-elect Joe Biden in 2020. He wasn’t the last, either. I guess he learned from the struggles of 2016 and their mistakes. Actually, no—they made new ones.

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For the past year and since Pierre Poilievre was elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the Trudeau government has used repeatedly the name of Trump and his MAGA movement in various not-so-veiled ways to portray Poilievre as the "Donald Trump of the North."

Yes, Trudeau did call Trump after the assassination attempt, which was a good deed. But how many times has Trudeau and his team used Trump’s name to attack Poilievre in the House of Commons during Question Period, in parliamentary committees, and during press conferences? Frankly, I don’t know—I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is greeted by U.S. President Donald Trump as he arrives at the White House in Washington, D.C. on October 11, 2017 (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Sean Kilpatrick)

In 1969, Pierre Elliott Trudeau stated that, after the unity of the country, the priority of a Canadian prime minister is to maintain a strong relationship with the United States. It was the same for Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, and Stephen Harper.

Even Justin Trudeau has said: “Canada’s relationship with the United States is one of our most important and enduring partnerships.”

So my question is: why would a prime minister of Canada gamble with the country’s most important and enduring partnership for cheap political points? Yes, Justin Trudeau is desperate. But at the end of the day, he is the prime minister, and he should rise above this and conduct himself as a statesman. But, no. He made the same mistake as in 2016—he thought the Democrats would win.

We don’t vote in the U.S. The standard line is that we’ll work with the government that the Americans choose. It was a colossal diplomatic mistake made by Trudeau not to follow that route. Not the only mistake, unfortunately.

Case in point: It was just announced that Rep. Elise Stefanik might be appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Rep. Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor. In 2022, Stefanik co-signed a letter criticizing Canada for approving the sale of a Canadian company involved in critical minerals without proper national security screening. Another strike against Trudeau.

So, let me sum this up: Trudeau tried to make a free trade agreement with China and got rebuffed. He was late to ban Huawei. He delayed the purchase of the F-35 fighter planes. He doesn’t spend two per cent of GDP on defence spending. We are not part of AUKUS or QUAD. We are in turmoil with India. President Trump didn’t like him during his first presidency, and it is not going to improve after Trudeau's many statements against him.

Even his newly-appointed U.S. ambassador to the UN holds a grudge over Trudeau’s policies on national security screenings for critical minerals.

And the Trudeau government just announced a cap on oil and gas emissions -- which is essentially a cap on production -- targeted at Alberta. That’s shooting ourselves in the foot—like we needed that. Even former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau stated that the timing of this announcement doesn’t make any sense. We export energy to the U.S.! The Canada-U.S. energy file is one that we can talk about with the new Trump administration.

From my experience, the new U.S. administration won’t have much time for us. They read the polls. Why would a new administration, focused on their first 100 days, spend time and energy with the Trudeau government until an election is called in Canada?

By the way, Trudeau is going to a G-20 summit next week. I guess G-20 heads of government won’t fight for a bilateral meeting. Our diplomat will, but he is damaged goods—well past his expiration date. It’ll look more like Trudeau’s farewell goodbye tour, same as President Joe Biden.

It’s time for a change. And to reset Canada-U.S. relations.