Mark Carney’s first act as a prime minister of Canada was to lie to the Canadian people. That may seem like a bold allegation, but there are no two ways about it.
Carney held a cabinet meeting, invited the TV cameras in and held a Trump-style executive order signing that was nothing but a charade.
TV cameras aren’t normally allowed into Canadian cabinet meetings, but Carney — just hours after being sworn in as PM — invited the media to watch him sign away the consumer carbon tax.
“Based on the discussion we’ve had, and consistent with the promise that I made and others supported, we will be eliminating the Canada Fuel Charge, the consumer fuel charge, immediately,” Carney said.
Immediately after that, Carney signed a document as if his signature wiped away the hated tax.
To actually do away with the consumer portion of the carbon tax, but not the carbon tax completely, would require an act of Parliament. The Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act was passed in 2018 and allows the Governor in Council, meaning cabinet advising the Governor General, to adjust the tax rate, but not do away with it.
That’s the first lie Carney and the Liberals told on the carbon tax.
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After telling us for years that anyone who opposed the tax wanted the planet to burn, the Liberals quickly threw their party’s signature policy overboard to try and regain some popularity. The second lie they told is just as bad: The document that Carney signed on Friday in front of the cameras was useless.
“I hereby instruct that the fuel charge be removed as of April 1, 2025 and that the April 2025 Canada Carbon Rebate be issued,” the document signed by Carney said.
Prime ministers are not presidents: They don’t issue orders like this; they don’t have the power to do so. It’s not just a matter of optics, no PM has the legal authority to do what Carney tried to make you think he did.
Yet there he was, just hours after invoking the history of Canada, the importance of the Crown, the Governor General, the importance of the differences in Canadian versus American democratic institutions and he was mimicking Donald Trump. There is no other way to interpret what Carney was trying to do other than an a brazen attempt to use the Trump optics of signing an executive order to show that he is just as powerful.
Here’s what the actual order in council that allowed the consumer carbon tax to be reduced to zero — not eliminated — actually said.
“Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance, makes the annexed Regulations Amending Schedule 2 to the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and the Fuel Charge Regulations under Secs. 166 and 168 of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act,” the order stated.
No need for Mark Carney’s sneaky signature to make you think he did something he didn’t have the power to do.
This isn’t the first time that Carney has been fast and loose with the truth.
During the Liberal leadership race he claimed to have worked with Paul Martin to balance the budget and yet, he didn’t work at the Department of Finance until 2004, years after the budget was balanced. He claimed he had nothing to do with moving the offices of Brookfield Asset Management from Toronto to New York City when in fact he chaired the board meeting where the decision was made, voted in favour of it and then sent a letter to shareholders encouraging them to vote for the move.
Now, we have the fake Trumpian document signing.
None of this is a good look for a man who is about to ask Canadians to entrust him with their vote while showing us that we can’t trust him to tell us the truth.