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Elbows down may help him survive a trade war.

The prime minister can explain everything. If only Doug Ford will hear him out.

Carney is talking up his new elbows down strategy in hockey terms. Canada’s turnaround on tariff retaliation is not a climbdown, he argues, merely a recognition of new realities.

The time for elbows up was in the first period, not the third. With the game going into overtime, there’s no time to waste in the penalty box.

“There’s also a time in a game where you want the puck, you want to stickhandle, you want to pass and want to put the puck in the net,� he told reporters gamely. “We’re at that time of the game.�

Better to score points by carrying the puck in the high stakes game with Donald Trump, according to Carney, who played hockey in his university days.

But from his own coach’s corner, clad in his metaphorical Captain Canada cape, Ontario’s premier announced that he couldn’t get onside with the new playbook.

Ottawa needs to “hit back hard against U.S. tariffs,� Ford urged on social media, moments after speaking on the phone with the PM.

What happened? Is this the first sign of friction in the Ottawa-Ontario tag team, or merely a difference in tone and tactics?

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre quickly lashed out at “yet another capitulation and climb down by Mark Carney,� adding that the prime ministerial “elbows have mysteriously gone missing.�

Carney’s counter-argument is that counter-tariffs are no longer in the national interest at this stage of the game. What perhaps made sense early on — sending a message of national resolve against the U.S. president’s provocations — needs recalibration.

For all the tariff warmongering from Trump, the Americans have quietly exempted 85 per cent of our exports that qualify for North American free trade treatment under CUSMA (formerly NAFTA) exemptions. Which means that the retaliatory tariffs Canada imposed earlier on U.S. goods coming into the country no longer make sense if they qualify for CUSMA status.

But beyond the tariff calculus, there’s also a strategic calculation over retaliation.

Other than China, no other country has joined Canada in hitting back against U.S. tariffs. Neither Mexico, nor the European Union, nor any other country dared to match America’s aggressive tactics.

Not even Ford’s Ontario stood firm — the premier backed off his early threat to cut off electricity exports to U.S. border states when he came under pressure from Trump and top American officials.

It’s not just that Ottawa has stood largely alone, without international allies. The bigger problem is that Canada’s counter-tariffs were essentially ineffective in getting America to back down.

Canada’s countermeasures failed to forestall tariffs because they had no significant impact on the U.S. economically or politically. Carney says that because the U.S. is at least 10 times bigger than Canada, so it can absorb a punch from Canada more easily.

By contrast, when former prime minister Justin Trudeau imposed 25 per cent tariffs on more than $30 billion worth of U.S. goods, the impact on Canadian importers — manufacturers and consumers — was far greater. Elbows up comes at a cost in bruised elbows on this side of the border.

Thanks to the trade deal shielding Canada from punishing tariffs, the average tariff rate for our exports is 5.6 per cent, lower than what any other country faces, Carney argued.

That’s not to say it’s business as usual. Sectoral tariffs imposed by Trump are still punishing the steel and aluminum and auto sectors — and Canada will keep those counter-tariffs in place.

So who does what next? Ontario’s premier has long played bad cop to Carney’s good cop, giving vent to popular frustrations without risking a direct confrontation with the White House.

This is the first time Ford has publicly elbowed Carney, but it’s not clear whether there’s any serious daylight between them, given their share desire to maintain a united front. Ford’s priority is to keep the pressure on Ottawa to “provide additional supports for the workers and businesses� in affected sectors — which means Ontario’s priority is cash flow, not tariff hikes.

Either way, Carney is clearly charting a new course to take account of new circumstances. Trump’s tariff strategy has gone global, targeting every country on the planet with mixed results, while Canada bides its time under the CUSMA shield.

Carney and Trump talked by phone a day before the announcement, and the U.S. president hailed Canada’s move the next day. More to the point, Trump hinted at more calls to come as they continue “working on something — we want to be very good to Canada.�

Elbows up has its moments. Will elbows down, done right, do the trick when the time is right?