Canadians want bold action, but Carney is holding back...

Plus more fears on autos and confusion on pipelines.

The Canadian public is open to bold action to boost Canada’s economy, it’s too bad out federal leaders are not. Sure, Mark Carney promised to “Think big, act bigger and move at speeds not seen in generations” but so far his moves have been timid, tepid, not the kinds of actions that would live up to his word.

Which is why the latest poll from Angus Reid is so frustrating, because it shows once again that the public is open to bold moves, such as a export pipeline to Asia off Canada’s northwest coast.

Nationally, and in every province, Canadians support the idea of a pipeline. That includes British Columbia where 30% strongly support the idea, 26% support it while just 17% oppose the pipeline idea and 17% strongly oppose it.

So why is Carney dithering on a pipeline then?

It was worrisome during the election to see him non-committal on this issue, effectively saying a pipeline if necessary but not necessarily a pipeline. Donald Trump is shifting the American economy and changing the global trading order and we need to shift as well.

One of the best things he could do for the economy is to approve a pipeline, or pipelines, to get our products to market.

Keystone dreams at the White House…

Carney was willing to float the idea of reviving Keystone XL when he was at the White House on Tuesday. Strange thing is, Trump approved the cross border section of the Keystone XL pipeline back on June 30 with an executive order, so it's not clear what Carney was offering.

South Bow, the company that TC Energy spun off last year, now controls the Keystone Pipeline and any further interest in Keystone XL. In his executive order, Trump granted, the company a permit for a cross border pipeline.

“Permission is hereby granted to the permittee to operate and maintain existing pipeline Border facilities, as described herein, at the international border of the United States and Canada at Cavalier County, North Dakota, for the transport between the United States and Canada of all hydrocarbons and petroleum products of every description, refined or unrefined.”

Was Carney just offering to Trump that he too would support the project? Was he offering Canadian tax dollars to take the risk out of a project the Democrats have killed twice?

It’s not clear, it needs to be.

Steel and aluminum, but what about auto…

As I wrote yesterday, in politics what you don’t say is often as import as what you do say. Carney and his team were in Washington earlier this week talking about getting a deal on steel, aluminium and energy.

Strangely missing was the word autos.

It’s two days later and we still don’t have a clear picture of what is going on. Is the Carney government getting ready to cut the auto industry loose? I worry the answer is yes and so do many in the industry.

We saw Howard Lutnick’s comments that we have to come second, that auto assembly will be done in the United States. Well, an overlooked part of my column yesterday deserves a second look.

According to one well-placed source, federal officials have already drafted legislation to take us back to the pre-Auto Pact days where there are stiff tariffs for any company that does not have a manufacturing footprint in Canada.

Why would they be drawing up that legislation unless they were prepared to enact it and walk away from decades of policy?

Here’s what one business contact texted me yesterday.

“Any time I am in Washington, I get told the US is going to make its own cars. Canada can still do auto parts,” the contact said.

They went on to say that the Americans say these things in this context, “We aren’t asking for your opinion. We are just telling you this is what is going to happen.”

Is Carney out of cards on the auto industry? Is he playing a bad hand? Is he getting bad advice?

So many questions and not a lot of answers.

Carney praising Trump…

Look, Donald Trump deserves a lot of praise for his work on the peace deal in the Middle East. The hostages are set to be released on Monday and we have to hope that the rest of his 20 point plan comes to fruition.

One thing I didn’t expect to hear though, was Mark Carney standing up in the House of Commons to praise the American president.

Not only did Carney praise Trump but the Liberal benches gave their boss a standing ovation for doing so. These are the people who ran their entire campaign on how evil Trump was, on breaking up with the Americans.

“President Trump wants to break us so that America can own us,” Carney said during the campaign.

That was in response to Trump’s tariffs.

Now the tariffs are higher than during the election, they cover more goods and he wants to tell us Canada has the best deal.

Back to Trump and the peace deal, give credit to the president. But Carney was undermining this deal with his decision to join Britain and France in recognizing a Palestinian State at the U.N.

Carney can’t pick a lane.