Scott Stinson: As Ottawa asks provinces to end U.S. liquor bans, Captain Canada goes silent

In just about every public appearance he has made over the last few months, Doug Ford has expressed his displeasure with Donald Trump.

Often it comes as an aside to his scripted remarks, as when the Ontario premier, while recently mentioning the importance of trust in a trade relationship, veered off to say that he didn’t “trust Trump as far as I could throw him.” Or, when saying how much he generally likes Americans, he’ll pause and say, “I’ll tell ya, there’s one guy down there I don’t like too much.”

Sometimes his complaints have been a bit more measured. At last month’s first ministers’ meeting in Charlottetown, after the U.S. president threatened to impose 50 per cent tariffs on certain Canadian goods, Ford said his fellow premiers “should be a little more vocal” in defending Canada’s interests. “I feel some days that I’m standing alone,” he said.

But now, with federal negotiators said to be in the final stretches of reaching a trade deal with their U.S. counterparts, one that would avoid the worst of the tariffs that Trump has threatened while offering concessions in return, it is Ford who has gone unusually quiet. While other premiers told reporters on Wednesday after a call with Prime Minister Mark Carney that they were encouraged by his update on the trade talks and felt confident of a positive resolution, Ford was nowhere to be seen. Inquiries to his office were met with a response that there would be no comment forthcoming.

The Ontario premier, who easily won re-election last year while literally wearing a “Canada is Not for Sale” cap on his head, seems to have shelved the Captain Canada bit, at least for now.

But is that an indication that Ford is displeased with the concessions that Carney is prepared to make, or a sign that he is keeping quiet and falling in line with whatever the prime minister has requested, which would include an end to provincial bans on U.S. alcohol?

If the latter is true, it would mark something of a shift for Ford. He has consistently, over a period of months, called for Canada to take a harder line in trade negotiations with the United States, saying that the only way to deal with a bully is to fight back. He has also said repeatedly that he would only allow the provincially run LCBO to return U.S. alcohol to store shelves if Trump rescinded the tariffs that he imposed on Canadian steel, aluminum and automobiles last year. 

Last week, he softened that position somewhat, saying he would be willing to end the ban on U.S. alcohol in the event of “a fair deal.” It’s unknown if Ford would consider the reduction of some of Trump’s tariffs, but not the elimination of them, as meeting his definition of fair, but given his general tenor about the trade relationship with the United States, probably not.

Ford has said that Canada should be willing to reduce energy exports south of the border to generate leverage in talks, and he even briefly threatened to cut off electricity exports from Ontario to neighbouring states last year before a Trump freakout, and a request from Carney, caused him to back off that plan.

It was the Ford government that also infamously commissioned a television advertisement last year, using portions of an archival interview in which former U.S. president Ronald Reagan extolled the benefits of free trade, which caused another Trump freakout that ultimately led to a long stalling of trade talks between the two countries.  

The U.S. alcohol bans have been surprisingly effective in terms of getting a reaction from American politicians and were cited as a key reason for Trump’s threatened 50 per cent tariffs. Ontario alone imported close to a billion dollars worth of U.S. goods through the LCBO before the ban was imposed last year and politicians from states like Kentucky, California and Washington have pleaded with their Canadian counterparts to relent.

Ford, in response to a June attempt from a U.S. Congresswoman to force an investigation of the alcohol ban under trade law, said that Ontatio would “not back down” in its stance that the ban would only be rescinded when the United States dropped “its illegal tariffs on Canada.” 

On a visit to Washington that month, Ford told reporters that his only goal with the alcohol ban was to help force through a beneficial trade deal.

Once such a deal was struck, the premier said, “I’m going to be sitting down and bringing all the liquor back on shelves in Ontario, and everyone’s gonna be kumbaya. It’s going to be good.”

We should find out soon if Ford is indeed kumbaya with the prime minister’s deal.

sstinson@postmedia.com