On Sunday evening in Ottawa, the results of the Liberal leadership race were announced. To no one’s surprise, Mark Carney won, receiving 85.9 per cent of the vote. But Carney didn’t just win the party’s leadership race, he won the highest seat in our government, without ever being elected by Canadians, not even as a member of Parliament.
His acceptance speech was littered with flattery for a party he’s long been friendly with, despite his claims of being an “outsider.” But what may have accidentally best revealed what Canada might be like under a Carney leadership came less from his flat speech than his daughter’s description of the man: he is “unwaveringly supportive of the things he cares about.”
And what does Mark Carney care about?
Well, he told us that his leadership will be one of “fiscal responsibility, social justice, and international leadership.” Except, have you ever seen a government be focused on social justice while at the same time being fiscally responsible? There’s only one way that can happen — on the backs of taxpayers.
International leadership? Someone needs to remind Carney that he just stepped down from his international positions as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and from the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), an organization he created and chaired since 2021, where he was markedly concerned with ensuring that worldwide financial funding went to projects that met Paris Agreement targets.
Carney, who often speaks in religious and moralistic tones, went into full saviour-mode during his acceptance speech, repeating the last line that his campaigners at his recent event in Mississauga, an event where he refused to take questions from media, told me was a sign his speech was almost over: “I feel like everything in my life has helped prepare me for this moment,” including, of course, the 2011 Liberal party. But he didn’t say that last part.
Carney claims he’s going to give Canadians “big changes.” He told the audience that “people want change.” Yet, there he was, on stage, accepting the leadership of a party that Canadians wanted change from, a party that he was courted by in 2011 and has been fiscally advising since at least 2020, whose members he didn’t even bother to attack during the leadership debate. Change? Who is he kidding?
Carney thanked “those ministers who remained in their posts to serve Canada directly during this time of great peril,” and called Liberal MPs, the voices for their communities and the conscience of their party.
Of course, there’s a problem with these thank-yous.
The choice to “serve” was taken away from every other elected MP who wasn’t a Liberal in the House of Commons through no fault of their own. They were blocked from serving by Justin Trudeau, who prorogued government in the face of a potential non-confidence vote. So much for representative democracy! Neither the “consciences” of Mark Carney nor Liberal MPs appear to appreciate that.
Carney’s speech, like many of his others, was full of outdated hockey references like “elbows up” that would have worked better before CBC sold the theme song to Hockey Night in Canada.
And Carney treated the tariff war with the U.S. with the seriousness of a hockey game: “We didn’t ask for his fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So, the Americans, they should make no mistake, in trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”
Except the last thing a trade war should be treated like is a hockey game. Fight metaphors work well for rallying supporters, and sound good for slogans and national pride, but this approach is likely to hurt rather than help Canadians.
Canada could start by acknowledging the fentanyl crisis exists and that we’ve been apathetic about our border and national security for a long time. You know, humility, the word that Carney uses often, but doesn’t appear to understand the meaning of. These are real issues. Many Canadians just don’t like it being pointed out to us by our neighbours to the south.
And while Canadians can handily beat Americans in hockey, many of their players come from here after all, arrogantly attempting to pull America’s giant economic jersey over its head and bloody its nose is likely to result in our own embarrassment.
Carney took to the stage, first flattering former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien for inspiring not only him, but also his father who ran as a Liberal in Alberta in the 1980’s.
Did Harper consider what Carney’s politics might have been before bringing him on as Bank of Canada Governor? Would have reflected on that after Carney left early to lead the Bank of England, just as media had gotten wind of the fact that the Liberals had been trying to recruit him?
A press conference was held with the late Jim Flaherty at the time to announce his resignation. The word “awkward” doesn’t even begin to capture that conference’s mood.
Perhaps Carney will exit awkwardly again if he fails to hold the role of prime minister after being tested in an election. If not, judging by his book Value(s) and actions to date, Canadians can expect a one-note prime minister, focused even more narrowly on the climate and social justice than Trudeau, this time, with an eye to global rather than national goals.
National Post
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