'Serious' critique of Carney is what loyalty to Canada looks like, Tory critic says - National Post
Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about the trade situation with United States on Aug. 22, 2026. “Reveal the deal, share the deal, read the opposition or others into the deal so people actually have a better understanding of what was comprehensively on the table,” Conservative MP Shuv Majumdar pleads to Carney. Photo by Hyungcheol Park/PostmediaArticle contentBeing the loyal opposition when Trump’s tariffs are hitting Canada is a tricky job, Shuv Majumdar admits.
Some voices treat criticism of the prime minister in a crisis as close to treason. The Calgary Conservative MP, named shadow minister for Canada-U.S. relations on June 30 — days before the July 1 CUSMA review deadline — rejects that.
“Our country is not too brittle to have a debate where the loyal opposition — loyal to the Crown, loyal to the debate for the country — wants the best outcomes for our government and for the prime minister in a tough and unpredictable negotiation,” he says.
Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from the table. He has framed the choice as defending sovereignty and shown little public appetite to reverse course. That may be good short-term politics. It leaves Canada waiting on Washington to blink, or living with a protracted tariff war — while Parliament has not been recalled. The House does not sit again until Sept. 21.
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I want to know how Conservatives would handle the same untenable situation. The messages from various conservative camps have not always been coherent. Majumdar, the point man on the file for eight or nine weeks, is more straightforward.
“My effort has been to be thoughtful, to be serious, to be level-headed, to not be incendiary,” he says. “To stay focused on the national interest and to hold the government accountable.”
He is not calling for silence. “Why would you not celebrate that we have a democracy where we can criticize, thoughtfully? When people say debate is treasonous, they’re undermining what opposition parties exist to do.” Civil society, journalists, think tanks and trade experts all have a role, he adds. “Maintaining freedom is very fragile. It’s so easy to concede freedom in a crisis. The harder work is to preserve that freedom through the crisis.” Canadians should have learned that during the pandemic.
In the meantime the government is preparing support for tariff-hit businesses and an investment summit. Majumdar says Conservatives have stood with Canada and the prime minister since the new tariffs landed in July; he’s “not confident that the government has reciprocated the same statesmanship.”
