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One day he’s standing up to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against Canadian sovereignty. Next day he’s sitting down with the premiers of Quebec and Alberta amid loose talk of provincial sovereignty close to home.

See him bashing Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for flirting with separatism. Hear him buttering her up by saying it’s time to “show some love” to Albertans.

Watch him wag his finger at Quebec’s François Legault for dragging his heels on demolishing barriers and building pipelines. Listen to Ford proclaim himself a “big believer of pipelines” because if you build them, they will bind us (even if the fluid separatist movements of Alberta and Quebec shall remain separate and apart).

One minute the premier lavishes praise on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s performance at this week’s Trump tete-a-tete in the Oval Office. The next minute he’s demanding that Carney display similar agility and diplomacy with the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan, lest they feel any more neglected than they already (and always) do.

His shifting stances on Alberta and nation-building are vintage Ford Nation. The premier is nothing if not unpredictable and mercurial, but there may be method to his maddening manners.

It’s all in his mandate. Apart from his day job as Ontario’s premier, Ford has a serious side hustle as rotating chair of the premiers’ council responsible for unity and comity amid disunity.

Hence his harsh words for Alberta’s Smith earlier this week, faulting her for fostering division at a time when Canadians need to come together against a common American enemy. Smith’s right-wing government is acting as an enabler for separatists by passing legislation that lowers the threshold for calling a referendum (from 20 per cent of the population to just half that) on provincial sovereignty.

Smith insists she’s merely a good democrat by letting the people decide. But that’s an echo of the spineless evasions of Britain’s governing Conservative party when it gambled on a high-stakes referendum on Brexit that ultimately and surprisingly severed its links with Europe.

“We have to stay united,” Ford urged. “This is about Canada. This isn’t about Ontario or Alberta.”

Smith shot back that Ford should stay in his own lane because she doesn’t take direction from her Ontario counterpart: “I don’t tell him how he should run his province and I would hope that he doesn’t tell me how I should run mine,” she countered.

But as the premiers gathered for a virtual meeting with Carney mid-week after the White House summit, Ford opted to de-escalate — and triangulate. Using Carney as a foil, he called on the prime minister to show more affection and offered “pretty blunt” advice.

“It’s time that your government starts showing some love to Saskatchewan and Alberta,” Ford said he told Carney. “I spoke pretty strongly in support of Alberta and Saskatchewan, because they’ve been ignored for the last 10 years. Have been treated terribly, to be very frank.”

Ford’s about-face isn’t so much a personal change of heart as it is an exercise in mind control. The premier’s last job before politics was in sales, so he revels in relationships — which may seem a surprise to people who see him at his most cantankerous and obstreperous in public debates.

But in private settings he likes to play nice to get his way. Ford’s nation-building agenda requires dismantling trade barriers between provinces as a counterweight to the new tariff wall being erected by Trump’s America.

Which explains his friendlier tone after his feisty attacks as he coaxes and cajoles his counterparts to sign up for free trade at home. The laggards happen to include Alberta’s Smith and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe.

“I just texted Scott right now and said, ‘Hey, let’s sign that deal.’ Even Danielle (Smith), we’re texting back and forth, and she wants to sign an MOU too,” Ford mused. “And I said, ‘Danielle, let’s get together and let’s sign the MOU.’ She says, ‘Yeah, right on.’”

After having himself photographed at an Etobicoke diner breakfasting with Carney in March, Ford says he’s ready to break bread with Smith:

“I could call her up right now and say, you know, come to Toronto, we’ll be going out for lunch. So there’s not this big rift that everyone’s playing out.”

He also exhorted Legault to “get that pipeline through Quebec,” which remains a longstanding demand of the prairie provinces. But for all his seeming grandiosity and generosity of spirit, Ford made no secret of his own not-so-hidden agenda.

It’s not just about building pipelines to build bridges. It’s also about buying Ontario steel.

“I want to build those pipelines,” he mused, “on one condition — they use Ontario steel.”

That’s triangulation.