This article was published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Washington office, the Center for North American Prosperity and Security (CNAPS.org). It originally appeared in the National Post.
By Brian Lee Crowley, March 5, 2025
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre needs to shed his aversion to speaking to American audiences. It would be good for his electoral prospects, but much more importantly, it would be good for Canada.
When the next federal election looked to be a referendum on the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the likely outcome was a huge parliamentary majority for the Conservatives. That era is over and the likely ballot question now is who can best defend Canada’s interests in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s erratic and vengeful behaviour towards us.
The Liberals now benefit from being the party of experience, and may soon have a new leader with extensive international experience and a record of being stand-offish toward the United States. You can count on the fact that when an election is called, the Liberals will run against Donald Trump and portray their Conservative rival as “Trump lite.”
According to recent polls, the gap between the two main parties is rapidly closing and Poilievre and his team have been slow and uncertain in their response. When it comes to making appearances in the U.S., the strategy in the past has clearly been to avoid that country altogether, presumably on the grounds that any popularity Poilievre might enjoy with the American right would be used against him in Canada.
The new political situation changes this calculus radically, however. Poilievre now needs to neutralize the charge that he is a thinly disguised MAGA Republican in snowshoes.
There is no better way to do this than to go to Washington and prove that he is a vigorous defender of Canada’s national interests. Get on a prestigious think-tank or national press gallery platform. Call out Donald Trump. Explain that the Conservatives believe in a close relationship with the United States but that does not mean they will accept a perversion of that relationship for Trump’s transactional benefit.
Tell the Americans directly that ever since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the U.S. has invited Canada to work with it to build closer relations on a broad front. Donald Trump is trying to change the rules of the game, unilaterally and grotesquely exploiting the vulnerability that America invited Canada to accept.
As Frank Buckley, a Canadian teaching at George Mason University near Washington, D.C., said to me recently, “When you agree to economic integration through free trade, the implicit promise is there can be no subsequent opportunistic shakedowns. He needs to call the Americans perfidious and tell Donald Trump he is making an enemy of his closest friend and there is nothing he can possibly get from it.”
Our American friends need to hear what they can expect from a Conservative government, namely that it will accept justified criticism on matters where Canada has demonstrably failed to live up to our part of the bargain with the U.S., such as defence spending, Arctic security, organized crime and border management. But he also needs to make it clear that his government will expect Washington to honour its commitments to Canada and to understand that this country’s sovereignty in not open for discussion.
Unlike the premiers, who came down hat-in-hand and accepted private meetings with humiliatingly mid-level White House staff, Poilievre should not seek to sit down with Trump or his staff. The purpose of his trip should be to put Washington on notice that a Canadian Conservative government will be willing to do business, but will not indulge Trumpian antics and will defend Canada’s interests and its integrity.
The added benefit would be that Donald Trump admires people who stand up to him. He despises Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who wants favours from the president when it suits him but is happy to mock and criticize Trump when he’s not around. And he likely thinks that Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney personifies the smug technocrats he came to battle in Washington.
A show of strength would cause Poilievre’s stock to rise within the administration and congressional circles, where Canada desperately needs credible spokespeople. And he would have the perfect retort to his opponents at home who accuse him of being a closet Trump admirer and acolyte: “I bearded the lion in his den, waved the Canadian flag and told him a Poilievre-led government would be a fierce negotiator and a firm defender of our pride and prosperity.”
Pierre Poilievre can no longer rag the puck. He has to be bold and show what he is made of and why he is still worthy of Canadians’ votes. The road to victory for him lies, in part, through Washington.
Brian Lee Crowley is the managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an independent non-partisan public policy think-tank in Ottawa.
