Conservative MP-elect Jamil Jivani leaves after a meeting of the Conservative caucus on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, on May 6, 2025.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Jamil Jivani, the Conservative MP, and American Vice-President JD Vance are close friends. A Black guy from Toronto and a white guy from Appalachia, they bonded at Yale Law School where, as Mr. Jivani recalls, they felt like “fish out of water” at elitist wine-and-cheese liberal gatherings.
At Mr. Vance’s 2014 wedding, Mr. Jivani read a Bible passage. He helped run a non-profit social welfare organization for Mr. Vance in Ohio.
Last month, Mr. Jivani wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney, saying he was prepared to use his personal contact with the Vice-President to help build better relations and ease tensions between Ottawa and the Donald Trump White House.
Those tensions hardly abated in Davos on Wednesday, with the bully President saying in a warning to Mr. Carney that “Canada lives because of the United States.”
Mr. Jivani stressed that any effort to speak with the White House would be undertaken in a bipartisan spirit. “I ask with humility, would you please consider how I might be able to help in a way that is constructive and strategically aligned with the federal government’s efforts?” he wrote.
He received no reply. He wrote again at the start of this month, but heard nothing except for an acknowledgment from an aide to Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
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Spurned, Mr. Jivani is now planning to engage with Washington and Mr. Vance on his own terms. “I am going to get more vocal and more involved,” he said in an interview.
Before he does, the Prime Minister’s Office should correct its mistake in ignoring him and enlist his help. The Carney team likely declined the offer because it would muddy the waters. They want to speak with one voice in Washington, something they haven’t been able to do given Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s contentious interventions.
But Mr. Vance is obviously more prepared to listen to a close friend and fellow conservative than to the Liberals. A show of bipartisanship on the part of Mr. Jivani, a show of Canada speaking with one voice, would be important. It would counter the image of Canadian conservatives that the White House is getting from separatist forces in Alberta.
Mr. Jivani’s outreach could also lead to his Conservative Party playing a more significant role in the Canada-U.S. crisis. Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, wary of any affiliation with Mr. Trump and his MAGA crowd, has given the Liberals pretty much a free run on the critical issue.
Though he takes exception to cozying up to China, Mr. Jivani has been generally on board with Mr. Carney’s handling of Mr. Trump. He should be enthused by Mr. Carney’s speech in Davos on how middle powers like Canada can navigate in the new ruptured world order.
It is being rightly applauded as an exceptional, visionary analysis. Michael Kovrig, who was detained by the Chinese for three years, posted: “This is the best speech by a world leader that I have read in a very long time.”
Mr. Vance, a leading contender to succeed Mr. Trump, has attacked Canada for not being a good ally and characterized Liberal immigration policies as “insanity.” In a social-media post last February, he wrote: “Spare me the sob story about how Canada is our ‘best friend.’ I love Canada and have many Canadian friends. But is the government meeting their NATO target for military spending? Are they stopping the flow of drugs into our country? I’m sick of being taken advantage of.”
Oh, the poor fellow. Hard to imagine how difficult it’s been for him and his suffering fellow Americans, being taken advantage of by us Northern assailants.
Mr. Jivani has maintained his friendship with Mr. Vance, but is prepared to challenge him on Canada not being a good ally, saying, “I believe we have been a fantastic ally.”
He gets that the Trump administration wants to use tariffs to bring in more investment, but “I don’t think any of that has to be done at the expense of our country. We both need each other and we can’t be too proud to admit that,” he said.
Mr. Jivani, who met last week with U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, said that at Yale, Mr. Vance was a mainstream conservative who spoke highly of Stephen Harper’s governing Conservative Party.
But Mr. Trump bursting onto the American political scene was “an unpredictable development, and JD’s politics have evolved on what he believes is an effective approach to solving problems that he cares about,” Mr. Jivani said.
In conjunction with the Carney team, Mr. Jivani needs to convince the new version of JD Vance that his approach to Canada is anything but effective, and a road to ruin.