COLUMN: Think Again – Mark Carney represents more of the same

In the end, it wasn’t even close. Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership race with 86 per cent of the vote. His closest competitor, former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, barely cracked double digits.

This means that Carney will soon become prime minister of Canada, even though he doesn’t have a seat in Parliament. In fact, Carney has never been elected to anything in his life. We will soon find out how he does at his entry-level job in politics.

During his victory speech, Carney did his best to distance himself from some of Justin Trudeau’s most unpopular policies. For example, Carney pledged to abolish the consumer carbon tax and to reverse the planned increase to the capital gains tax. On the face of it, these sound like significant policy changes.

However, the devil is in the details. While Carney said he would scrap the consumer carbon tax for individuals and for small businesses, he made it clear that he will keep a carbon price in place for large corporations. What this means is that Canadians will still pay a carbon tax, it will just be hidden in the higher prices that these same corporations will have to charge their customers.

Keep in mind that Carney has long been a supporter of carbon taxes. In fact, his main criticism of the Liberal carbon tax until recently was that it wasn’t high enough. But being a good Liberal, Carney knows that if he wants a shot at winning the next election, he must sacrifice his principles for political expediency.

Now polls do show that the Liberals have regained some of their previous support. The departure of the highly unpopular Trudeau has obviously benefited the party. It would be surprising indeed if Carney’s election as leader didn’t result in a noticeable boost in Liberal support.

However, before getting on board the Carney bandwagon, ask yourself this question. Why did most of Trudeau’s cabinet ministers and his key staff members actively support Carney during the leadership race? The obvious answer is that out of the four candidates, Carney was the one who would govern most similarly to Justin Trudeau.

Yes, it’s true that Carney’s personality is quite different from Trudeau’s. He doesn’t wear colourful socks and it’s unlikely that he will be wearing a bunch of colourful outfits in India anytime soon. Carney also doesn’t seem predisposed to making foolish statements such as “The budget will balance itself” or “There’s a certain level of admiration that I have for China.” His style is certainly a sharp contrast to Trudeau’s.

But when it comes to substance, Carney and Trudeau are two peas in a pod. Both men are huge fans of big government, which will lead to higher taxes on Canadians and a larger national debt. They both think that imposing crippling regulations on Canada’s energy sector is the best way to save the planet—even though insufficient pipeline capacity has led to our economy being excessively dependent on access to the American market.

One thing we do know is that Canadians face a binary choice in the next federal election. Either we will elect a new Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre or we will re-elect a tired Liberal government led by a new leader backed by Trudeau’s old team. Given that NDP support has fallen off a cliff, Jagmeet Singh will be lucky to hold on to official party status after the votes are cast.

Thus, if you like how Justin Trudeau ran the country, then vote for Mark Carney’s Liberals. If you didn’t, vote for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. It really is that simple.

Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.