Carney was finally in the House, but his opponents had already lost interest in the war

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In recent days, it’s been as rare to find Prime Minister Mark Carney in Parliament as it is to spot the elusive boreal owl in the woods around Ottawa.

A nine-day foreign trip, on top of a prior mission to China, plus breaks in the parliamentary schedule, and important prime ministerial business have all kept him from the House of Commons: On Monday night, for example, he couldn’t attend the take-note debate on the Iran war because he was at a community fair in his Nepean riding.

But on Tuesday, there he was, sitting in the Commons for Question Period. He made a late change to his schedule that had previously indicated he’d just skip it, so now the Prime Minister would be in the Commons for nearly an hour. There isn’t much time before he leaves for Yellowknife and Norway on Thursday.

Finally, the opposition would get the rare chance they craved to call the Prime Minister to account for his position on Iran, which they had loudly denounced as incoherent.

But by Tuesday afternoon, they’d lost interest.

MPs press Carney on Ottawa’s response to fallout from Iran war

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre kicked off Question Period with a mash-up of queries about Iranian terrorists in Canada’s streets and food inflation and carbon taxes. The idea that the Conservatives would push the Prime Minister to clarify his contradictory positions on the war in the Middle East was so 24 hours ago.

The Conservative Leader asserted the Iran war had been allowed to “spill onto our streets” and that “after 10 years of Liberal immigration and Liberal open borders, they have allowed criminals, terrorists and illegal guns to enter our country.” A few minutes later, he’d switched to food inflation.

It’s worth noting that Mr. Poilievre opened his questions with an assertion that Canadians can’t control war in the Middle East – and several Conservative MPs repeated the line that Canadians cannot control what happens overseas. So why ask a whole bunch of questions about a faraway war?

Certainly, the contradictions in the Liberal government’s stand on the war in Iran weren’t all cleared up in Monday night’s parliamentary debate.

Initially, when the United States and Israel first launched air strikes, Mr. Carney issued a statement of support, arguing Iran was a sponsor of terrorism and it must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted regime change. Three days later, Mr. Carney suggested the U.S. and Israeli strikes violated international law and de-escalation was the best course.

It’s not surprising he didn’t want to attend Monday night’s debate.

Carney’s position on Middle East, absence from take-note debate criticized by Opposition MPs

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand was there, however, to offer several different government positions in one: supporting the strikes while also tut-tutting that they might be against international law so perhaps we will later be against them.

“The U.S. strikes come as a result of a failure of the international order. This is not a blank cheque,” she said, apparently working to patch together random talking points without making a meaningful statement about Canada’s position. “Canada reaffirms that international law binds all parties including the United States and Israel.”

On Tuesday, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet decided someone should try to ask the Prime Minister to clarify his position on the war.

And Mr. Carney did provide a position: Canada supports the need to prevent Iran’s nuclear program and its terrorism sponsorship – and that Canada won’t participate in offensive operations. This time, he didn’t refer to international law but said the best thing would be de-escalation and peace.

But it turned out the opposition’s zeal to nail down the Prime Minister’s stand on the war was petering out.

Mr. Carney’s ambiguous approach certainly isn’t unique in Canadian history.

Some Liberals still like to note that in 2003, then-prime-minister Jean Chrétien chose to keep Canada out of the Iraq War because it had not been authorized by the United Nations. But that came after weeks of confusion about Canada’s position when even Mr. Chrétien’s foreign affairs minister, Bill Graham, didn’t know for sure whether Canada would go to war.

Mr. Carney probably wishes now that he had started out with that kind of ambiguity, rather than making a quick decision to support the U.S. and Israeli strikes. It probably won’t matter. The opposition don’t want to make an issue of it, anyway.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this column incorrectly stated that Bill Graham was defence minister under former prime minister Jean Chrétien when Canada debated entering the Iraq War in 2003. Mr. Graham was foreign affairs minister.