Poilievre says Carney 'approved' Ontario's anti-tariff ad that Trump said ended trade talks

OTTAWA — Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Mark Carney “approved” Ontario’s anti-tariff ads, which U.S. President Donald Trump blamed as the reason for ending trade talks with Canada. 

It came the day after Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters that Carney and his chief of staff, Marc-Andre Blanchard, were shown the ads before they aired.

Poilievre, who has been intensifying his criticism of Carney over Canada not yet securing a deal with Trump, says the prime minister must now “come clean.”

“He claims he was on the verge, once again, claims that he was on the verge of getting a deal,” the Conservative leader told reporters.

“Then he approved the ad, and then he blamed the ad for the fact that there is no deal.”

Poilievre did not directly answer whether Ford ought to have pulled the ads sooner but instead said that premiers were “stepping up to fill the void” left by Carney, not yet securing a deal to see U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum lifted, or at least lessened.

Carney, who is currently in the middle of a nine-day trip to Asia, was scheduled to leave Canada as Trump posted on Truth Social late last week that he was ending trade talks with Canada, citing ire over the ads taken out by Ford’s government.

The Prime Minister’s Office has not yet responded to a request for comment. But CBC News, citing a senior federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the federal government was not involved in producing or distributing the ads, according to the broadcaster.

Ford’s government began running the ad campaign, which featured a 30-second and 60-second version, two weeks ago, to the tune of $75 million.

They had been playing during the Major League Baseball championship series and the  Blue Jays’ American League championship, which is attracting strong viewership. 

The ads included audio from a radio address by former U.S. president Ronald Reagan in 1987, saying, “High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse. Businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs.”

In Trump’s posts about the ads, he included a statement from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation (and) Institute, which directed users to listen to the former president’s full remarks from the 1987 speech, as several sentences were excluded from the excerpt Ontario ultimately used for its ads.  

The U.S. president has since said he does not plan to meet with Carney for a “long time,” while the Canadian prime minister has said Canada stands ready to resume negotiations and was close to reaching a deal before Trump ended talks.

Ford announced last week that Ontario was pulling the ads at Carney’s request, but not before they ran during two World Series games last weekend.

The premier has summarized the backlash over the ads by saying “mission accomplished,” given the amount of discussion it has generated south of the border.

Ford has said it was never his intention to “ poke the president in the eye,” but wanted to send a message to Americans about the impacts of the ongoing Canada-U.S. trade war, which was launched when Trump began hitting Canadian goods with tariffs. 

The Ontario premier has also spoken out about how the trade deal Canada was discussing focused on the 50 per cent U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum and appeared not to mention the auto sector.

Carney’s government said it was focused on dealing with steel, aluminum and energy in the current trade talks.

British Columbia NDP Premier David Eby said his province intends to move ahead with its own set of ads targeting Americans over the impact of U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber, which Trump recently increased by 10 per cent.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said she was pleased to see Ontario remove its ads and said it was important to be “ mindful that the U.S. administration is unpredictable.”

National Post

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