Democrats spent the weekend in Canada strategizing with foreign progressives.
The headlining success story was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took over a Liberal Party badly trailing in the polls and won by doing something American Democrats have not yet dared to do — Carney scrapped a consumer carbon tax, killed an electric vehicle mandate, and announced funding to accelerate homebuilding.
The annual conference, organized by the Center for American Progress (CAP), sought to answer one simple question: “Why voters keep choosing the other guys.” The gathering featured former President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). At the summit, Carney shared success stories from Canada, where his progressive party has beaten the populist right.
Slotkin said that progressives have spent too much time lecturing and not enough time delivering. “The most important thing is delivery of services and governance to people. The environmental movement, in general, needs to adjust, and say: ‘We can’t just be about stopping things.’” She added, “The average American is going to struggle to care about climate change if they can’t figure out how to pay their rent.”
President and CEO of CAP Neera Tanden, who previously served as the director of the Biden White House Domestic Policy Council, echoed Slotkin’s statement. She said that attendees “are learning from our example that it’s important for progressives to deliver on results as soon as possible.”
She argued that Democrats were stuck in disagreements over permitting and land use that took focus away from their “ambitious investment plans before voters got to see results.”
The Democratic Party has a growing divide between more moderate Democrats and self-described socialists such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Obama told late-night host Stephen Colbert that he’s not worried about “this so-called rift.”
“There are a bunch of things that we agree on. And it’s really more of a question of, what are the specific things that we have to do,” he said. The Canadian conference focused on those “specific things” the party needs to do — and held Carney up as an example of how to do them.
But Carney has also begun to reposition Canada in terms of the global economy, calling publicly for a “reset” in his country’s relationship with China and openly criticizing longtime ally and trading partner — not to mention neighbor — the United States.
In recent weeks, Carney panned economic ties with the United States as a “weakness” rather than a strength, basing that assessment primarily on tariffs implemented over the past year and a half by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“The U.S. has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression. Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses, weaknesses that we must correct,” he said.
Addressing his nation in late April, he said that American tariffs were hurting Canada’s economy — and claimed that they needed to lessen dependence on the United States. In his address, he outlined his plan for “Canada Strong” — an agenda that has netted 20 new trade deals in less than a year.
Carney has also pushed the country closer to China, traveling to the communist-controlled nation in January to announce a new strategic partnership between the two countries.
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