Mark Carney may have a winking problem: Why PM's not-so subtle habit is risky on the world stage

The prime minister is a habitual winker. Once is once, two is a coincidence, three is a trend, and National Post counts at least four prominent public winks by Mark Carney since winning the top office — in Rideau Hall at his swearing in, in the Oval Office, and twice at the G7 in Kananaskis, Alta. — plus many more going back to his governorship of the Bank of England. Are these winks deliberate or have they become second nature? Do they mean something? Must they always? If they do, why not just say it? If they don’t, why risk causing misunderstanding or diplomatic insult? Winking around U.S. President Donald Trump , which accounts for three of the above examples, especially has an air of recklessness that clashes with Carney’s steady hands image. A wink seems private even when it is public. It exudes self confidence, but it can seem sly. It can undermine carefully chosen words. It can literally mean “I am lying.” But it can also mean “I’ve got this.” A wink as Carney does it “communicates a level of comfort with the idea of being noticed,” said Stewart Prest, lecturer in political science at the University of British Columbia. “But it could spiral badly if it is misconstrued.”

This wink from Mark Carney sent me pic.twitter.com/4rGjq0UTZj— thomas (@t_mihaljevic) March 14, 2025

At the recent G7 leader’s summit, for example, after lamenting Russia’s absence, Trump was answering a question about what was holding up a trade deal with Canada. “I have a tariff concept,” he said. “Mark has a different concept, which is something that some people like.” Just then, at this awkward backhand compliment, Carney, who had been watching Trump speak, turned his head slightly toward someone behind the camera and winked with his left eye , which pulled the corner of his lip up into the briefest hint of a smile that threatened to become a smirk. Soon after, Trump was leaving the summit and talking to the media alongside Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron. Just as Trump said they got a lot done, including a U.S. trade deal with the U.K., Carney looked away from Trump toward Macron and winked, this time with his right eye , but with the same risky ripple of humour crossing his face.

Mark Carney’s “wink” to Macron while Trump is speaking….#Trump #Carney #Macron #G7Summit pic.twitter.com/1lc07BdMTz— Belz (@Belz_iam) June 19, 2025

Some people wink at what they say themselves. Carney just as often winks at what other people say, and not to the speaker, but to their audience. Prest’s view is that Carney’s winks in Trump’s presence are typical of his style, in that they operate on three levels. This offers a theoretical framework for how to understand Carney winks in general, what they mean, and who they are for, he said. At one level, Carney is communicating with Trump, in public, quietly listening to him. At a higher level he is communicating with Macron about Trump, in a sort of privacy, signalling an internal reaction to Trump’s words that Carney has decided not to vocalize. At the highest level he is communicating with the all-seeing public on the other side of the camera lens, indicating his comfort in playing all these etiquette games at the same time. “It’s a high-wire act,” said Prest. “If it goes badly, it could go very badly.” He needs to be careful that the wink includes the public, not excludes it. “The subtext always has to bring the public along,” Prest said. They need to know what Carney is trying to communicate, that he is confidently in control, and they also have to believe him. Otherwise it’s just a cocky facial tic. Some winks are simple, obvious. Some winks need to be accounted for more deeply. Winks are almost always ambiguous, but sometimes they mean something important. Criminal court judges have faced this problem more than most. For example, in a 2017 murder case against a Richmond Hill, Ont., man accused of beating his roommate to death, a judge had to decide whether to let a witness testify about the meaning of a wink, and was troubled by its uncertain air of “innuendo.” A friend of the victim had told police he had seen bruising on the victim’s ribs a couple of weeks before the killing, so he asked what happened. The victim explained he fell down the stairs, or off his bike, but then he winked, and when the friend asked what that meant, the victim said “Kenny’s got a hard punch,” referring to the accused. The key problem, the judge said, was that it was not clear the victim winked and spoke at the exact same time, such that the wink directly contradicted the claim of falling down the stairs, and implied that the truth was Kenny punched him. It wasn’t clear “whether the wink and the comment were part of a single, ongoing transaction.” That jury never heard the wink story, and eventually found the accused guilty of manslaughter, not murder. Winks have been admitted as criminal evidence, however, such as in the 2017 Montreal case of the undercover police agent who testified about getting a “101 course” in robbery of shopping mall jewellery stores from the suspected culprit that was so convincing, so finely detailed, that the undercover officer asked whether the suspect had actually ever robbed the target store he was describing, in the Carrefour Laval. The accused laughed, winked, and said “no,” which the undercover took as “an implicit admission that the accused had indeed robbed the store in the past.” So sometimes a wink can mean the opposite of what was just said, that I did not fall off my bike, that I did rob this jewellery store. What I have just said is not true, wink wink. You’ll just have to trust me, and I know you will.   For a national leader’s voting public, that strategy works until it doesn’t, Prest said. Carney is in something of a honeymoon phase, and his current winking spree coincides with surging approval numbers in his first months as prime minister. He can wink and trust that he will be understood in good faith. But that can change. When she profiled Carney for the Sunday Times in 2020, as he took the United Nations job as Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, Charlotte Edwardes told the amusing story of being on a group tour with him through a Picasso exhibit at the Tate Modern in London, led by a curator who kept pointing out hidden penises in the Cubist paintings, and on the fifth or sixth one (a reclining woman whom the curator explained had a penis extending from her head) she caught Carney’s eye and “corpsed,” which is to say she laughed at this inappropriate moment. He joked about it afterwards in a deadpan: “Are you absolutely sure that you could see the penises?” She did not mention whether he said so with a wink, but it seems possible, and later in the piece, she said Carney told her he took the job of governor of the Bank of England because he likes a challenge, and he said so “with a wink.” Could the winking thus be a bit de trop? Could it get creepy? Or cheesy? With the accumulation of political baggage, could Carney’s winks ever grow as stale as Justin Trudeau’s novelty socks? “The wink will be perceived as Mr. Carney is perceived,” Prest said. So, maybe. One day, the winks might turn sour. It would only be then that the leader with a “winking problem,” as the National Post’s John Ivison once called it , becomes a winker with a leading problem. Until then, Prest said, Carney seems to be pulling it off.

• Why a 'love story' with Mark Carney is François Legault's only hope
• Why the digital services tax had to die for the Canada-U.S. trade deal to live

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.