There is only one trade negotiator for Canada and it’s the federal government, Prime Minister Mark Carney said when asked about Conservative MPs meeting U.S. trade representatives.
Conservative MP Jamil Jivani was back in Washington on Wednesday with a handful of Tory colleagues for a meeting with Canadian business interests and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, The Canadian Press reported on Wednesday.
Canadian Ambassador Mark Wiseman was also in attendance.
On Thursday, Carney was asked what he made of the efforts by the Conservatives.
“We’re both free countries, so people can go where they wish,” Carney said.
“In the end, there’s one negotiator for Canada, and that is the government of Canada. Our interlocutors in the United States are generous people, they’re generous with their time and it’s good of them to meet a host of Canadians coming down. But in end they know, and we know that we’re the negotiators,” he added.
The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, also known as CUSMA, is up for renegotiation this summer.
Jivani counts U.S. Vice-President JD Vance among his close friends.
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On Wednesday morning, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was asked who Jivani was meeting with and what he hoped to achieve.
“I don’t have any information on that at this point to share,” he said. “Our MPs have been consistently going to Washington to fight for tariff-free trade.”
Poilievre also said the Carney government “should use every relationship we have as Canadians” to help secure a trade deal with the U.S.
Later in the day, a spokesperson for Poilievre’s office said that “a delegation” of Tory MPs was in Washington “carrying the Conservative party’s Team Canada message.”
That group included Conservative finance critic Shuvaloy Majumdar, foreign affairs critic Michael Chong and MPs Jacob Mantle and Corey Tochor.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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