Ottawa – Canadians were told to keep their elbows up against U.S. pressure. Inside the Prime Minister’s Office the doors swung the other way.
Maia Johnson, an American Democrat who scheduled Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and later worked on Biden and Harris efforts, now serves as the first-ever chief operating officer of the PMO while continuing as senior adviser on Canada-U.S. relations. She flew in from New York, first as a volunteer on Carney’s leadership campaign, then as a government employee in early 2026.
The same circle appears in the closed-door sessions. At a recent summit in Toronto, Carney met privately with Barack Obama and Alex Soros. A follow-up private gathering in Nova Scotia included Industry Minister Mélanie Joly, Soros, Huma Abedin and Brookfield’s Frank McKenna. Longtime Clinton-Obama-Biden operative John Podesta has been the recurring connector. No media allowed.
The pattern repeats in Alberta. Naheed Nenshi’s NDP hired Fight Agency, a New York firm staffed by Democratic strategists who produced ads for Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani, to craft campaign messaging aimed at Albertans – while the party publicly decried American political interference.
Had a Conservative prime minister installed a Republican operative at the centre of the PMO and invited U.S. Republican networks into private policy talks, the media reaction would have been ferocious. Instead the coverage stayed muted. The slogan says sovereignty. The guest list says something else.
