Open this photo in gallery: Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a news conference at the National Press Theater in Ottawa, on May 2.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail There was no paring back plans to fit the bandwidth of minority government. Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled his “immediate priorities” and the list was long, including fiscal discipline, a tax cut and removal of internal trade barriers by Canada Day, renegotiating the relationship with the country’s main partner, and “the biggest transformation of our economy since the end of the Second World War.” Next up, Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday. The trip isn’t a big surprise, in the sense that Mr. Carney kept saying through the recent campaign that he’d meet Mr. Trump right after the election. But remarkably, Mr. Carney offered no whiff of a postelection pause after the mad rush that made him PM, no scaling back his agenda to squeeze it through a minority Parliament, and no tamping down the crisis rhetoric about transforming Canada’s economy while negotiating with the U.S. Full speed ahead. He said he’ll move fast on transforming the economy so Canada doesn’t have to rely on a quick deal. His short-term list of to-dos included “nation-building projects,” increasing productivity, reducing government waste and driving investment. “We’re going to focus on that while we have these negotiations with the Americans,” Mr. Carney said. “And if the negotiations with the Americans take longer, so be it. We’ve got more than enough to do.” Naysayers might point out that a) his list of economy-shaping goals won’t be quick and easy and b) the business community is antsy about the prospect that negotiations with the U.S. might take “longer,” and not really in a “so-be-it” mood. Still, Mr. Carney is doing Negotiation 101 by trying to establish an alternative to a negotiated agreement. Politically, he is also making room to govern by keeping the crisis rhetoric high. It’s a big agenda in a hurry. The classic question for Canadian prime ministers who win minority governments is whether they will try to govern as though they have a majority – that is, as though they don’t have to make deals for the approval of smaller parties in the Commons. On Friday, Mr. Carney made it clear that he’s going to govern like he has got a crisis – and it is one that he doesn’t want to waste. He said he has a strong mandate, despite a minority government, because everyone knows the mission. People know what he ran on, he said, suggesting everyone should be able to get behind it now, in a crisis. King Charles III will come to open Parliament because, well, there’s a crisis. Wisely, he wasn’t talking about governing like he has a majority. He promised to work across party lines, with provinces and Indigenous people, business and labour. He said he spoke to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and promised to trigger a quick by-election so he could get a seat in the Commons. “No games,” he said. That’s the right tone for a crisis. It’s hard to tell how long it will last. So far, Mr. Carney’s style seems different. At his first sit-down news conference at the National Press Theatre, Mr. Carney was practised and prepared but, by the standards of modern scripted PMs, relatively unguarded. There were moments when he was asked a question – for example, when asked what Mr. Trump wants from negotiations with Canada – when he appeared to be thinking over the answer rather than rifling through a mental file for a prepared line. When a reporter asked if his affable and unabashedly ambitious Finance Minister, François-Philippe Champagne, would remain in the same post, Mr Carney replied: “Did he ask you to ask that question?” He didn’t answer all the questions, however. He dodged a query about whether his team is trying to lure NDP and Conservative MPs across the floor so his Liberals, having won 168 seats, could government with a majority. Politics goes on, even in crisis. Make no mistake, Mr. Carney plans to use this crisis. He opened his news conference saying he’s “in politics to do big things, not to be something.” For someone who’s still a rookie prime minister, that’s a bit of risky bravado. But Mr. Carney is telling us he thinks he has an opportunity to govern bold and fast and he doesn’t want to miss it.