Conservative MP Jamil Jivani speaks at the annual Canada Strong and Free Network in Ottawa in May.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
In the days leading up to the collapse of trade talks with the United States, audio of recent remarks U.S. Vice-President JD Vance made at a Republican fundraiser in New York were leaked to The Canadian Press news agency.
In his comments, Mr. Vance derided Prime Minister Mark Carney for attempting to “out-tough Donald Trump” in the negotiations. He said there was “this guy Pierre Poilievre” who was the leader of the federal Conservative but a “non-entity” in the trade discussions.
He did have praise for one person, however: Conservative MP Jamil Jivani.
“But the quiet sort of behind-the-scenes story is that this, like random MP who has a good relationship with us has been a pretty effective advocate,” Mr. Vance said.
Now who would leak such a thing?
Carney tried to ‘out-tough’ Trump in trade negotiations, Vance says
Mr. Jivani, of course, would be the same “random MP” who was a friend of the Vice-President’s at Yale Law School. The same “random MP” who is in a fantasy football pool with Mr. Vance and with whom he appears to be in regular contact.
Indeed, the same “random MP” who in February went solo to Washington to speak with White House and state department officials about the trade talks, and who gave an interview with the right-wing American news outlet Breitbart in which he disparaged Canadians for throwing “an anti-American hissy fit” in response to U.S. tariffs that were inflicting pain on many workers in this country.
The same “random MP” who said Mr. Carney’s threat of dollar-for-dollar tariffs on the U.S. in response to the additional 50-per-cent tariffs the Americans just imposed on a raft of Canadian products was “an overreaction.”
In another world, say, one in which Stephen Harper was leader of the Conservatives and not the wounded duck that is Mr. Poilievre, Mr. Jivani would have long ago been handed his hat and told to take a hike. Not only is he an embarrassment to his party, he is increasingly a menace to the country.
He has become an unapologetic shill for a corrupt and vulgar U.S. administration intent on owning this country – a walking billboard for the benign, unseemly acquiescence it demands from Canada and the rest of the world.
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Mr. Jivani suggests the dollar-for-dollar trade threat of Mr. Carney’s is an overreaction. Does he not recall his party’s own platform in last year’s election? The Conservatives ran on imposing dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs “maximizing impact” on American companies.
Any political party that feels it needs to put up with the sort of rogue actions of which Mr. Jivani is engaging is a party that is lost. And the Conservatives are horribly lost at the moment. Mr. Poilievre’s leadership has become a joke. It’s now being routinely called out by influential conservatives in any number of ways.
Dimitri Soudas, director of communications under Stephen Harper and a key strategist and confidant of the former PM, went on X to outline the many reasons that the Conservatives’ call for the government to release the entire text of the U.S. trade deal it rejected is misguided and contrary to the country’s best interests.
In a detailed public takedown of the Conservatives’ position, he said in summary: “You can demand accountability for why negotiations failed. But you don’t hand the other side your playbook for the next round. It’s called negotiating against yourself.”
Why do many Conservatives insist on behaving like the failure of trade talks is all Canada’s fault? Former federal Conservative cabinet minister under Mr. Harper, Jason Kenney, may have sourced out the answer. It’s contained in a fresh Angus Reid Institute poll which showed that 43 per cent of those polled who voted Conservative in the last election believe Mr. Carney “showed poor judgment by allowing negotiations to fail.”
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That is in contrast to the 69 per cent of the broader public who believe Mr. Carney displayed strength in refusing to accept terms that were not in Canada’s best interests.
In other words, Mr. Kenney said on X, one half of Conservative voters “are radically out of step with super majorities of the broader public in every region” of the country.
Which brings me back to Mr. Jivani.
He may think that what he’s saying is smart and calculated to appeal to that pro-MAGA wing of his party that he will need if he hopes to ascend to its leadership one day, which is clearly his ambition.
But even if he does one day supplant Mr. Poilievre, he will never lead his party to victory. Canadians will never forget which side he was on when the country faced its greatest crisis in decades.
And it wasn’t Canada’s.