What Doug Ford accomplished on his Washington trip
CBC
When Doug Ford emerged through the security gates surrounding the White House after an hour-long meeting on Wednesday, the Ontario Progressive Conservative leader declined to reveal who he'd actually met.
"I'm not at liberty to say, to be frank with you," Ford said as he stood alongside Quebec's François Legault and Saskatchewan's Scott Moe, two of 11 Canadian premiers who went to the White House at the end of their two-day mission to Washington.
Ford described the Trump administration officials in the meeting as "very high-ranking" but refused to name them. Moments after Ford left, British Columbia's David Eby named them anyway: Trump's deputy chief of staff James Blair and the director of presidential personnel Sergio Gor.
Earlier in the day at a news conference, Ford was asked what success would be out of the Washington trip and set a rather high bar with his answer: "What success looks like is zero tariffs."
Clearly that wasn't achieved, nor is it realistic to think it could be. Still, Ford can count as an accomplishment that he and his fellow premiers got the chance to deliver an anti-tariff message to two senior staff who work directly for U.S. President Donald Trump.
"We appreciate the Trump administration facilitating this," Ford told reporters outside the White House. "People don't get last-minute meetings like this."
He didn't mention how the Council of the Federation — the collective grouping of the 13 provincial and territorial premiers that Ford currently chairs — recently hired a Trump-connected lobby firm at a rate of $85,000 (US) per month to help land the meeting.
If that spending helps chip away at changing Trump's mind about tariffs and contributes to saving the Canadian economy from a recession, the premiers will no doubt argue it was taxpayer money well-spent.
Until that White House meeting happened Wednesday afternoon, plenty of questions swirled about what Ford and his fellow premiers were actually achieving in Washington.
Ford's first event, billed as an address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at a downtown Washington hotel on Tuesday, drew an audience of about 150 people.
It was almost impossible to find an American in the room. The crowd was dominated by a mix of Canadian business people, Canadian lobbyists and Canadian officials.
That made it hard to comprehend who Ford was addressing with his final pitch to the audience.
"Let's stick together," Ford said. "Please get the message to President Trump. This is not a good idea for both countries."
To be fair to Ford, the impact of a public speech in a Washington hotel pales in comparison to the impact of private meetings in the offices of Washington's movers and shakers.
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