Liberal Leader Mark Carney got loud laughs from an audience of the party faithful this weekend when he cracked a joke about a couple of Conservative premiers.
Carney was giving a speech at a Liberal rally in Victoria, B.C. Sunday evening, telling the crowd about Canada's response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.
"We are fighting the Americans everywhere they understand. We're fighting the Americans in the pocketbook. We have retaliatory tariffs on them. We just hit them again in the auto sector," he began.
"We're fighting them on FOX News — which is what they understand," he said, to laughter.
"We're sending Doug Ford onto FOX News to show them that we're not messing around up here."
That was met by even louder peals of laughter in the room.
"And we're going to send Danielle next — no, well, maybe we won't send her. We won't send Danielle," Carney said, referring to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
"Bad idea. Strike that. Just ignore that, back there," he added, gesturing to the media.
You can watch those comments here.
While the Liberals in the room laughed at the joke, some commentators online were not as amused.
It's a strikingly different tone than Carney has used to discuss Smith when asked about her in news conferences with the media, where he has been far more measured. He initially declined to criticize eyebrow-raising comments Smith made to U.S. outlet Breitbart earlier this month.
In the interview, Smith said that Trump's tariffs were benefiting the Liberal Party of Canada politically and that she had asked U.S. officials to “put things on pause” so Canada can have a general election.
In the same interview, Smith said a government led by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would be “very much in sync with the new direction in America.”
In response to that, Poilievre pointed out that Trump himself would prefer to deal with a Liberal rather than with Poilievre on the tariff issue.
Ford, when asked about the joke Monday morning, said that Carney was “joking around” and had just texted him.
“I'm going to be out there on FOX and keep pumping the message to the American people because our message is working right now,” the Ontario premier said. “The Americans are hearing it.”
This story has been updated to add a comment from Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
