So, the acrimonious end of trade negotiations was the electoral blessing for Mr. Carney that it was widely expected to be, right? Three by-election wins, each delivering more than 50% of the vote to the Liberals, including a surprise flip of a Conservative seat and the whole event giving the prime minister an absolute majority of one in the House of Commons.One would conclude that people must be rallying around the flag? It matters not that the details of what brought those trade negotiations to an end remain as murkily conflicted 10 days later as testimony at a divorce trial. President Donald Trump’s relentless needling was all it took to keep up the temperature, and people responded.Or did they?Some certainly did. But what is surprising, given the high emotional temperature generated by posturing premiers and reflexively anti-American pundits fanning the flames, is how few people actually bothered to vote.It is axiomatic, of course, that voter turnout in by-elections seldom matches turnout in a general election.It is also a matter of record that at 69%, voter turnout in the last general election in 2025 was exceptionally high. It was, in fact, the highest since 1993, and two of the ridings decided on Monday were even higher: in 2025, Beaches-East York turnout was almost 72%..So, some might say comparisons are invidious.But the fact is that on Monday, thousands of people disengaged. None of these three election turnouts reached even a 46% turnout rate, although North Vancouver came close.So much then for Ontario Premier Doug Ford and all his bluster. In his own province, whose industries have the most to lose, turnout in Beaches-East York barely topped 40% – a massive drop of 31.5 points from 2025.Evidently not all Canadians care when the Canada Goose is attacked by the American Eagle. And does it mean nothing to them that President Trump instructed US officials to start calling Lake Ontario, Lake America? Our Lake Ontario? What’s the matter with them?Absolutely nothing.There remains, thank heavens, a remnant that sees something nauseating in the ill-considered jingoism our leaders have been offering and decided to sit this one out..For example, Prime Minister Carney, who declared last week that “You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked … We’re going to hit back.”Come, come. A trade talk failure described as an attack and treated as an act of war?But that set the tone for the week. Later, after Trump mocked Doug Ford on Truth Social as the lesser Ford brother, he told an Ontario radio station Trump could “kiss my ass as far as I’m concerned. We’re going to go at him full steam.”Same week, same premier, on Trump as a schoolyard thief and on cutting the United States off: “President Trump is the type of person that would steal your lunch money the first day and he’d steal the tuque off your head the second day and the third day he’d steal your running shoes. He is not to be trusted whatsoever … I’ll cut them off. You won’t get a grain of sand out of Ontario.”That was the threat to shut off Ontario hydro that lights American houses, and to triple the price of oil, potash, uranium, and metals. When he said that, did Mr. Ford know how much oil comes to Ontario refineries via Michigan?Folks, playground insults are not something in which we want to be recognized as world-class players. Let it go. But thus the youth pastor confronts rebel bikers..MORGAN: By-elections indicate the CPC is up the creek.This is not doing any good. But then, you could see it coming. Was it not Mr. Carney who at the last election asked for a mandate to take on President Trump and accused America of wanting to “own” Canada?.Yes, it was. On his tenth day in office, he asked the governor general to dissolve Parliament and set voting for April 28, 2025. After that meeting, he told reporters he wanted a “strong, positive mandate” to deal with Trump’s tariffs and annexation talk. He said, “President Trump claims that Canada isn’t a real country. He wants to break us so America can own us. We will not let that happen.”Conflict with the US is the Liberal ticket to hanging on to power. Mr. Carney knows it, and it seemed to work. So, there will be more jingoism, no doubt.And purple prose. According to Mr. Carney, “We cannot control the storm that blows in from Washington … Canadians don’t submit to the weather; we thrive in it. We don’t wait to see which way the wind is blowing or surrender to the waves to be storm-tossed by events. We set our own course. We make our own weather.”He really said that. Such soaring elevations of the soul were wasted on the reporters in the Ottawa press gallery who were there. If that’s what Mr. Carney really thinks, he should find an audience of auto workers in Windsor.Meanwhile, Mr. Carney — and Premier Ford — should recognize that they were elected to work things out with President Trump, not get a ‘trade war’ going and milk it for seats in Parliament.Yes, he won three seats. But in Ontario, only one registered elector in five was with him.Time to get serious, sir.
