OTTAWA—More than 700 requests flooded in from foreign leaders, CEOs, company representatives and other groups who want to meet up with or invite Prime Minister Mark Carney to attend events in New York City on the sidelines of next week’s United Nations General Assembly.
“That’s a lot like speed dating,” says Sen. Peter Boehm, a former ambassador and international summit Sherpa for several prime ministers.
It’s a number that surprised even the Prime Minister’s Office, which would not comment, but acknowledged some 30 leaders and CEOs have sought meetings.
A senior government source who was not authorized to speak publicly told the Star the invitations have come from all corners into Global Affairs, the UN mission and the PMO, and are a deluge amid an already packed UN agenda.
It signals an international interest in Carney and Canada’s views — “almost a whisper that Canada’s back, rather than a declaration,” said pollster Shachi Kurl, of the Angus Reid Institute. “But is that core to Carney actually keeping his own political house in order?”
At the same time, she said Canadians are starting to show Carney the honeymoon is over.
In fact, in Canada, “You could make the argument that there really never was a honeymoon, but more of a very cordial and warm handshake,” Kurl said.
Carney “never had the kind of swooning, hot, flushed honeymoon that Justin Trudeau had with his approval numbers in the 60s and the 70s. The best Mark Carney has done since February of this year is 57 per cent approval. That’s not bad,” she said, “but he’s not Mr. Darcy” — Jane Austen’s romantic hero. “He’s Mr. Carney,” and people have expectations that he must deliver.
Canadians were prepared to give him the summer to begin to make good on his promises, but Kurl says in the last four or five weeks, “probably since the retaliatory tariffs (against the U.S.) were dropped, Canadians are now evaluating Carney with a colder and a more critical eye,” even as the global glow is still on.
In New York, Carney’s UN agenda includes talks on Canada’s and others’ recognition of Palestinian statehood, which Carney previewed in July and formalized Sunday; how the world will meet its climate targets; and another priority for Canada: a focus on Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian children captured in the war zone.
Sen. Boehm understands the Carney draw.
“Certainly, there would be a lot of people who would want to meet with him for a couple of reasons. He has an international profile. He is still the chair of the G7 because Canada has the presidency till the end of the year,” said Boehm.
Some want “his advice on global markets, the bond situation, that sort of thing,” said Boehm, adding there’s a natural curiosity for newcomers on the international scene, just as there was for Justin Trudeau at first.
When Trudeau burst onto the global political scene after a 2015 electoral upset, there was a wave of excitement in his early international travels. He had celebrity cachet in large part because of his political heritage — son of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau — but was an unknown quantity to other international leaders.
Carney, however, is a known quantity.
He starts out with a reputation on the global stage and knows several international leaders personally, including G7 and G20 heads of government from previous posts at the central banks of Canada and England, the global Financial Stability Board, and the UN as special envoy on climate finance. He and French President Emmanuel Macron knew each other from banking circles, said a diplomatic source. Carney had known U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer since his days as a vocal opponent of Brexit, the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union.
When Carney was in Rome for Pope Leo’s inauguration in May, he racked up a string of “pull-aside” meetings and bilateral chats, including with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and at June’s G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta. a string of 18 world leaders took up the invitation to travel to Canada, where U.S. President Donald Trump attended the Carney-hosted gathering.
The UN General Assembly will be Carney’s biggest international confab, however.
Carney was in Mexico last week to meet with President Claudia Sheinbaum to become better amigos as the U.S. levies hefty tariffs against key sectors in both countries.
Sheinbaum’s more arm’s-length approach — not travelling to Washington and not levying counter-tariffs — has worked thus far for her. Carney, who boasts a close talk-text relationship with the unpredictable American president, has eased off on Canada’s retaliation and made concessions on digital taxes in a bid to do a deal for Canada.
The jury is still out on who is best at handling Trump, and it’s not clear what lessons the Canadian and Mexican leaders learned from each other, or what lessons Carney has to share with the world.
