When Doug Ford emerged through the security doors that surrounded the White House after a one -hour meeting on Wednesday, Ontario’s progressive conservative leader refused to reveal who he had met.
“I’m not free to say, be honest with you,” Ford said while standing next to François Legault from Quebec and Scott Moe from Saskatchewan, two of 11 prime Canadian ministers who went to the White House at the end of his two days mission to mission to Washington.
Ford described the Trump administration officials at the meeting as “very high rank”, but refused to appoint them. Moments after Ford left, David Eby from British Columbia appointed them anyway: Trump’s Cabinet Deputy Director James Blair, and presidential staff director Sergio Gor.
Early in the day at a press conference, Ford was asked how success it would be outside Washington and established a fairly high bar with his response: “Success is zero tariffs.”
Clearly, that was not achieved, nor is it realistic to think that it could be. Even so, Ford can count as an achievement that he and his teammates had the opportunity to deliver an anti-tariff message to two higher employees who work directly for the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
“We appreciate the Trump administration that facilitates this,” Ford told journalists outside the White House. “People don’t get last minute meetings like this.”
Several Canadian prime ministers argue what left their meeting with officials of the administration of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in the White House. The prime ministers were in Washington on Wednesday to present the case against US tariffs on Canadian goods.
He did not mention how the Federation Council, the collective group of the 13 provincial and territorial prime ministers that Ford President currently, recently hired a lobby company connected to Trump at a rate of $ 85,000 (USA) per month To help land the meeting.
If this expense helps change Trump’s minds on tariffs and helps save the Canadian economy of a recession, the prime ministers will undoubtedly argue that it was the money of well -spent taxpayers.
The first Ford event mainly attracts Canadians
Until that White House meeting occurred on Wednesday afternoon, many questions revolved on what Ford and his teammates were really achieving in Washington.
The first Ford event, announced as a speech to the United States Chamber of Commerce at a hotel in the Washington center on Tuesday, attracted approximately 150 people.
It was almost impossible to find an American in the room. The crowd was dominated by a mixture of Canadian entrepreneurs, Canadian lobbyists and Canadian officials.
That made it difficult to understand who Ford was heading with its final launch to the audience.
“Let’s join,” Ford said. “The message arrives at President Trump. This is not a good idea for both countries.”
To be fair with Ford, the impact of a public speech on a hotel in Washington Palece compared to the impact of private meetings on the offices of Washington’s engines and agitators.
Ford and his fellow prime minister had a moment of face with a handful of members of the Congress, including a Republican senator, as well as seven members of the House of Representatives: four Republicans, three Democrats.
None of them are known names in Canada, but two of the congressmen who met the ministers feel in the powerful Committee of forms and means. That matters because the committee has jurisdiction On all taxes, tariffs and other income collection measures.
In other words, if you want allies with Congress muscle about tariffs, that is your people.
Call with Trump’s “tariff man”
Ford did what could be said that it is his most important connection with the Trump administration before traveling to Washington. He had a call with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for the Secretary of Commerce, also known as The Tariff Man.
Several reports indicate that when it comes to tariffs, no one in the Trump administration is more influential than Lutnick.
CBC News was the first to report that the call had happened, after detecting a line in a new Ontario government brochure that said Ford had gathered or spoken with “incoming cabinet secretaries.”
Ford personnel confirmed that the call took place recently, but refused to reveal more details: how long it lasted, which was discussed or even a vague description of the tone of the conversation.
The US trip. He plays in the Ontario elections
It is worth seeing how all this political effort centered in the United States of Ford plays in the other important political effort that is on his dish at this time: winning the ontarium elections on February 27.
For Ford and its PCs, two days in Washington they meant two days not in Ontario, two days without facing difficult questions about the many problems that matter for ontarium voters who are not rates and Trump: The shortage of family doctors, Emergency room waiting times, The cost of living, Housing supplyeither Ford registration in government.
Canada’s ministers announced their plans to come to Washington on January 10. That means that when Ford triggered the provincial elections at the end of January, he knew that the trip would occur in the middle of the campaign.
When choosing the electoral moment, Ford and the PC strategists around her clearly believed that a side trip to Washington would not damage her campaign and almost surely expected her to help. Ford has another trip to the capital of the United States scheduled next week, to coincide with a meeting of state governors.
The Prime Minister of Ontario, Doug Ford, who is in Washington along with all the prime ministers of Canada, said the goal is to connect with Republicans and Democrats and communicate than Canada and the United States are stronger together, and that tariffs They will hurt both sides of the border.
Ford’s video in Washington speaking hard about tariffs and describing your meeting at the White House plays well in national news, and there are many ontarium voters watching.
For Ford opponents, connecting on the path of the return campaign to Ontario, it has been a challenge to obtain clear blows against him for Washington’s trip.
“It is not there in Washington to protect our jobs because the only job you want to protect is yours,” Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie said Tuesday at a campaign stop in Toronto
“The fact that Doug Ford is in Washington at this time and has made it very clear that he is 100 percent behind Donald TrumpI think it is causing many Ontario inhabitants to wonder if it will be there to defend our work, “said NDP leader Marit Stiles at a campaign stop in London on Tuesday.
Taxpayers covered some costs
The Ontario PC party paid Ford’s travel costs, its political personnel and the two PC-Sash-ministers who came to Washington, Stephen Lecce and Vic Fedeli.
Provincial taxpayers, however, paid the cost of hosting the speech event of the Ford United States Commerce, producing a brilliant brochure that summarizes the vision that Ford calls “AM-CAN CONSTRUCTION STRENGTH“And organize a network event only by invitation in the Library of Congress where Senator Kevin Cramer, North Dakota Republican, was the special guest.
The Ontario’s political ethics regulator has given the OK to Washington’s trips, which indicates that it is in line with the so -called caregiver convention that allows urgent governmental businesses during an electoral campaign.
“Commercial disputes and the imposition of tariffs constitute an urgent matter in public interest,” said a spokesman for the Integrity Commissioner in a statement to CBC News.
The statement says that cabinet members can carry out such business “provided that activities are not used for partisan purposes.”
While this suggests that the Ontario PC party cannot use the Ford Washington lobbying efforts in the campaign announcements, the game strategists almost surely tell their trip as a great victory.
