Carney's weakness on a pipeline, not dancing to the YMCA, a new ambassador in Washington and selling more oil to the Americans...

Plus sending a Mulroney to Washington and which World Cup games we will get.

It was nothing but pure weakness, Mark Carney and his Liberals voted against the Conservative motion in favour of a pipeline to the West coast. That would be the pipeline project that is in the Memorandum of Understanding that Carney signed with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith less than two weeks ago.

As I wrote about in my Toronto Sun column, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives lifted the language for their motion from Carney’s own MOU.

What’s shocking though, and something I addressed in the column, is that Carney should have voted for the motion and thanked Poilievre for supporting his policy. He can’t due to the divisions in his own party.

All of this reminded me of a story I was told months ago, Carney was at a meeting in Calgary with the oil and gas industry. He heard them out, he let them vent and explain their frustrations and then said he agreed with much of what they had said but, “I have a caucus and cabinet to manage.”

That shows true weakness by Carney, he should be telling his MPs to get in line. They’d all be unemployed if he hadn’t taken over the Liberal Party last March.

He can’t and won’t do it.

Let’s get the right ambassador in Washington…

I’ve been saying for a long time that we need a new ambassador in Washington. In fact, for a while I was saying it so often that I was boring myself and so I stopped bringing it up.

Now, as I had predicted months ago, Kristen Hillman will step down in the New Year.

This should have happened back in the spring, Ambassador Hillman has not been helping Canada over the past several months.

This isn’t a comment on Ambassador Hillman’s great skills and abilities or her intelligence, which I have never questioned. This is a comment on her skills and abilities not matching the needs of the job.

Hillman is a trade negotiator and I’m told a very good one, but her personality isn’t fit to be a diplomat. Ahead of the American election last year, Hillman had made no inroads into the Republican Party to ensure she had contacts with the Trump team or the people that would fill his cabinet and top jobs in the administration.

That is literally the job of the ambassador.

It doesn’t matter if you like the party, you need to know who to talk to, who has access, who can help get you what you want. Hillman was so sure Biden and then Harris would win that she pretty much ignored Republicans.

It’s one of the reasons, but not the only one, that our diplomatic team aren’t well liked at the White House.

Lots of Canadians in the Elbows Up crowd will like that Hillman isn’t liked by Trump’s White House. If you or a loved one are unemployed because of the tariffs and turmoil, you may feel differently.

Over the last year I’ve spoken to diplomats, politicians - including Liberals - and plenty of business people about Ambassador Hillman. The consensus is that smart as she is, this was not the job for her.

I wish her all the best in her next endeavours and I’m sure we will have an awkward encounter in person in the next while.

Who should the next ambassador be…

It was last May that I first mused about who should be the next Canadian ambassador to the United States. I suggested that Carney appoint a conservative to the position and listed off names like Peter MacKay, Rona Ambrose, Jason Kenney, former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and former British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell.

But in the end, I chose a different name after a friend dropped her name in my ear.

Perhaps the best choice is the less obvious one, Caroline Mulroney.

Currently serving as president of the Treasury Board in the Government of Ontario, Mulroney has connection, American experience and of course that famous name. Around Queen’s Park she’s known as someone who knows her files and knows how to get things done.

Mulroney would be able to go into meetings and speak to Republicans about her father’s friendship with Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush. At the same time, she could invoke her father’s friendship with Democrat stalwarts like Teddy Kennedy.

I still think she’d be good for the job, she hates talking to the media but can charm anyone else who doesn’t have a camera or microphone. Whether she’s interested in the job, that I don’t know.

Shortly after the column was published I ran into the minister near Queen’s Park and she just smiled and graciously said thank you when I mentioned the column.

That’s the answer of a diplomat.

Whoever the appointee is, I truly believe that Washington and all of our top diplomatic posts should be held by politicians. You can staff them up with career diplomats for support, but in D.C., London, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo and others it should be a political person.

Ambassador Pete says the Yanks want more oil…

Pete Hoekstra is Donald Trump’s ambassador to Canada, and a former politician. Depending on your view of how he’s doing, you may think my idea of former politicians as ambassadors is a bad idea, but I’ll stand by my view.

In an interview with National Post, Ambassador Pete said that any future deal between Canada and the United States will include more oil heading south.

“What the expectations are on oil is that there would be more oil capacity, production and export opportunities down to the United States,” Hoekstra told National Post in a wide-ranging interview on Monday.

“That’s what we’re looking for.”

On the one hand, we want to sell more oil, the question is do we want to sell it to the Americans.

This isn’t a political consideration, it’s an economic one. We sell our oil at a discount to the Americans because so much of our oil is landlocked.

West Texas Intermediate is trading at a spot price of $58.38 USD, which is far too low. What is worse is that Western Canadian Select is trading at $46.53 USD.

That’s a 22% discount that could be lessened if we were selling to Asia or Europe as well. That discount is also blowing a hole in Alberta’s budget at the moment, none of this is good.

We should support the fact that Donald Trump has already approved the cross-border portion of the former Keystone XL pipeline, but we still need other pipelines to export to countries other than the United States.

Carney didn’t dance to YMCA…

The FIFA World Cup draw last week was weird beyond belief. I’ve told a few people if you like the weirdness of that event, you will love Canada joining the Eurovision song contest the way the Carney government wants us to.

Anyway, we’ve got a couple of good games - potentially Canada vs Italy on June 12 and Panama vs Croatia on June 23. Panama is ranked 30th just under Canada at 27th but Croatia is ranked 10th, ahead of Italy at 12th and not yet in the tournament.

Anyway, PM Carney was at the Mayor’s Breakfast in Ottawa the other day, it’s a fine event I’ve attended many times. During their conversation, Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe was talking to PM Carney about going to Washington for the draw.

“It’s always fun to go to Washington,” said Sutcliffe during an almost hour-long conversation.

“Always fun,” responded Carney with a laugh. “Well, I don’t think I’m ever going to forget that experience. It’s the first time I haven’t danced to the Y.M.C.A. when it came on, but there you go.”

It’s hard not to dance to the YMCA. I could read this as an anti-Trump gesture, I’ll read it as a grown man in a serious job not wanting to be on camera dancing to a 1970s disco hit.

I’d do the same thing.