It is difficult for an outsider to get a clear idea of how the Canada-U.S. trade discussions are developing. As frequent readers may recall, I was seriously embarrassed at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s hokey election masquerade as Winston Churchill translating the Scarborough Bluffs into the White Cliffs of Dover and shaking his righteous Canadian fist at the much-maligned U.S. President Donald Trump on the farther shore “trying to break us.” He all but promised to fight in the fields and hills (and wine cellars of Rockcliffe and billiard rooms of Westmount and the indoor swimming pools of Rosedale). My civic disappointment was tempered by my longstanding opinion that in politics, anything that works, no matter how outlandish, is acceptable if it isn’t illegal. The vapid farce of Carney’s “finest hour” narrowly passed that test, even if it reflected no credit on him or his voters.