In Ford-Trump ad spat, Mark Carney is looking weak

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Mark Carney tries to bend over as Doug Ford-Donald Trump advertising dispute but instead of looking strong, he looks weak. Now, in addition to apologizing to Trump for the ad, he also says he saw the ad and told Ford not to run it, but did nothing to stop the prime minister.

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After a week of silence on the controversy, Carney commented on the situation Saturday from Korea.

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“I apologized to the president,” Carney said. “The President was offended by the ad and I would not have run the ad, so I apologized to him.”

Carney then attempted to exercise his powers as prime minister.

“I, as prime minister, am responsible for relations with the president of the United States, and the federal government is responsible for foreign relations with the US government,” Carney said.

When asked if he told Ford he shouldn't run the ads, Carney responded with one word: “Yes.” He then said that we all saw the consequences of the ad and what happened.

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Something doesn't add up about Carney's story.

What doesn't make sense here is that Carney remained silent on the issue for almost a week and refused to even admit whether he had seen the ad. The only way the public knew for sure that Carney had seen it was when a reporter asked Doug Ford how he could be sure the Prime Minister had seen it.

“I was with him,” Ford said earlier this week.

Why is Carney now trying to muscle Ford up or perhaps throw him under the bus when he could have had his way when Ford showed him the ad? Let's be clear: Doug Ford is a man of his own, and when he is determined to do something, it can be difficult to talk him out of it.

However, if Carney, as Prime Minister, had directly told Ford that running the ad at this time would be detrimental to the negotiations, then Ford might have been persuaded to abandon the idea.

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Ford made it clear that he was unhappy with the progress of the negotiations. The federal government was keen to reach a deal on steel, aluminum and energy but excluded the auto industry from the discussion.

The move clearly angered Ford and alarmed him, but enough to derail negotiations for the rest of the country?

Surely, if these two men were in a quarrel, they could come to an understanding.

Carney is trying to restore order, which he clearly had a hand in creating.

In retrospect, Carney was weak. We just don't know if he was being weak to Ford by not telling him to stop running the ad, or if he's being weak by trying to hide it now.

All this is happening against the backdrop of another Tuesday's budgetwhich, according to Carney, is “the budget for this time, the budget that the country needs, the budget that gives us control.” It is also a budget that could lead the country to elections, which the Liberals increasingly appear to want to force.

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Of all the parties on Parliament Hill, the Liberals are most committed to electionsmaking threats at every turn, trying to pin the blame on the Conservatives for refusing to support a budget that no one has ever seen.

As part of a budget boost and a possible election push, the Liberals released a two-minute campaign-style ad on Friday. In the ad, Carney talks about his plan to build Canada outside of the American economy.

After campaigning in the April election, Carney clearly lost to Trump. He can't go back to the idea that Canadians should elect him to talk to the American president.

We saw this with Carney's weak stance on advertising and his apology to Trump.

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