Madam Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister called himself the master negotiator, bragging that he alone could land a deal with President Trump by July 21. He puffed out his chest, promised “elbows up” and told Canadians he was ready to fight, but now that he has failed, he shrugs, asking, “Who cares?” and says he does not have a “burning issue” to discuss with the President.
In months, he went from lacing up his gloves to throwing up his hands. He has not negotiated; he has surrendered. While he wanders the world for photo ops, our workers are getting knocked to the mat.
Conservatives care, and so do the 40,000 manufacturing workers in Ontario whose jobs have vanished since April, not because of global forces, but because the Prime Minister fumbled the negotiations and left Canada without a deal, without a plan and without a lifeline. Those workers do not have the luxury of saying, “Who cares?” because their mortgages care, their grocery bills care and their futures care.
Will the Prime Minister look those 40,000 workers in the eye and tell them he cares about their jobs, their paycheques and their livelihoods, or will he just keep throwing up his hands, walking away from the table and asking, “Who cares?”