COLUMN: On Parliament Hill – Carney’s coronation / four words

On March 9 the Liberal Party overwhelmingly elected central banker Mark Carney to be their new leader.

Four words come to mind as I consider Mr. Carney’s victory and his premiership to be (however brief): coronation, continuity, opportunism, and history.

Coronation.

Was there ever any doubt?

Make no mistake, Mr. Carney’s election was not the result of merit or overwhelming political skill. It was a coronation—one many years in the making. At nearly 86 percent of the vote, Carney’s election win resembles that of some foreign dictators more than a truly democratic undertaking. The Liberal party elite—the same people who brought you Justin Trudeau—decided long ago Mark Carney was their man. His campaign was run by Gerald Butts, the same man who brought Canadians Justin Trudeau. He was endorsed by the majority of Trudeau’s cabinet members. Those facts alone should give Canadians pause.

Which leads to the second word.

Continuity.

Let’s be clear, Mark Carney is just like Justin. His coronation is the Liberals’ weak attempt to trick Canadians into giving them a fourth term. Carney was Trudeau’s economic advisor. He is endorsed by the majority of Trudeau’s cabinet. This is the same Liberal team that drove up taxes, housing costs, and food prices, and shut down our energy sector (making us vulnerable to the Trump tariffs), all while Carney personally profited from moving billions of dollars and thousands of jobs out of Canada to the United States. All while Carney invested billions in pipelines in South America and the Middle East while advocating shutting down Canada’s energy sector.

Mark Carney enthusiastically praised Trudeau in his acceptance speech for “transforming” Canada.

Mark Carney has spent the last month trying to trick Canadians into forgetting that he personally advised Justin Trudeau to hike the carbon tax (what he has called the “gold standard for the world”) on the backs of working Canadians.

Mark Carney has sneakily exploited a loophole in the Conflict-of-Interest Act and refuses to disclose his finances to Canadians, something he even bragged about in his victory speech.

Like Trudeau, Mark Carney also appears to have a loose relationship with the truth. He has lied about the fact that he is the person who advised Trudeau to double the national debt and create sky-high inflation. He told Canadians that he had nothing to do with moving (his company) Brookfield’s headquarters to Donald Trump’s hometown, when in reality he wrote a letter to his shareholders encouraging them to vote for this move. He told Canadians he helped Paul Martin balance the budget in 1998, when he wasn’t working for the government or even in the country. He took credit for Stephen Harper’s handling of the 2008/09 financial crisis. Then, after promising Canadians he had resigned, the National Post discovered Carney continued to work at various global organizations to further his and Trudeau’s anti-Canadian globalist agenda.

That leads to the third word:

Opportunism.

Mark Carney is an opportunist. As early as 2012, Liberal insiders were trying to recruit the cagey Carney to run for their leadership. (When he refused, they put forward Justin Trudeau.)

Since then, Carney has toyed around the edges of Canadian politics. He has made a career of benefiting from being a political insider while never having to get his feet wet. From time to time, he’d toy with running for office but whenever things got too hot, Carney ran for the hills. When he came before the finance committee in 2021 it took less than five minutes facing Pierre Poilievre for Carney to get bloodied and humiliated for his climate hypocrisy and profiteering. There was talk of him running in both the 2021 election and of joining cabinet in 2023, but both times Trudeau scandals caused him to pull out. When Trudeau fired Chrystia Freeland so his economic advisor Carney could become finance minister the resulting negative blowback on Trudeau again caused Carney to deke out of the conversation.

This shows Canadians two things. First, like Trudeau, Mark Carney is in it for himself, not for Canada. Second, he’s no saviour. More of a political scavenger. Carney has never been tested in political battle. He’s always run away. There’s a word for that. This has helped him avoid scrutiny but now he’s going to be the Prime Minister. Already at a huge disadvantage (both expedience-wise and economically), he’s going to have to go toe to toe with Donald Trump.

Carney is not the man for the job.

But I still have hope. The reason for that hope is the fourth word:

History.

Precedent is a safer predicter than polls.

When Pierre Trudeau stepped down in 1983, John Turner (who coincidentally was not a sitting MP—he’d been out of politics for nine years at the time) took over and immediately saw a huge rise in the polls. Banking on this sudden popularity, Turner called a snap election and lost in a massive landslide to Brian Mulroney.

Likewise, in 1993, when Mulroney resigned, successor Kim Campbell saw the PC party’s abysmal pre-election poll numbers even out. Campbell would suffer the largest election loss in the party’s history.

Polls come and go, but the political pendulum always swings. Typically, every nine years or so.

Canadians will decide.

Canadians know the Canada they want. They also know the Canada they once enjoyed vs the dark new Canadian reality created by Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney.

Carney’s opportunistic coronation only brings continuity—more of the same failed liberal policies.

History provides hope of a better future.