With a new Liberal Leader in place and Parliament on the verge of resuming, a Federal election will soon be upon us. In that contest Liberals will want Canadians to forget the past ( “Liberal sins” Conservative call it) and focus on the challenges of these ” dark times”. Conservatives will want to make Canadians wallow in the past so they never vote Liberal again. Either way, the ballot question in the upcoming Federal election is certainly likely to be: “Who can best defend the country against Trump?” “Liberals are disqualified’, the Conservatives will say – “look at how they wrecked the country over the last 10 years”. Liberals will also focus on qualifications, saying that their Leader, Mark Carney, has the qualifications to do the job and that Pierre Poilievre, a life long politician, has none. The polls show a close Election. Stay tuned.
Below are perspectives on this moment from our resident Liberal and Conservative pundits: Barry Campbell and Paul Brown.
Mark Carney is the New Liberal Leader. The World is Watching.
Barry Campbell
With a crushing first ballot victory, outsider Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England and before that Governor of the Bank of Canada, is now at the helm of the Liberal Party. He takes over from Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister later this week.
With Parliament about to resume sitting and with the Liberals having momentum, expect them to call an election to take place in late April or early May. To defer the Election to the Fall (when the official clock runs out on this minority Parliament), is a risky strategy and Carney’s leadership would be hampered by his lack of a seat in the House of Commons where the (public) business of governing plays out.
Mark Carney delivered a tough acceptance speech with two principal themes: standing up to Trump and taking down Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Leader. There was little policy (only no increase in the capital gains tax, ending the consumer carbon tax). This is just as well since all policy will be subsumed by the need to focus on deteriorating relationship with the United States and the economic fallout from US tariffs and Canadian retaliation.
In unusually blunt language, Carney spoke of President Trump’s goal to weaken Canada’s economy and take the country. This writer cannot believe there are words like the following to quote from a Canadian Leader: “The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country…they will destroy our way of life”. Carney spoke of “dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust” and promised that “Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form”. In language not seen since the darkest days of World War II, Carney warned of the sacrifices ahead as Canada builds the resilience it needs to defend its sovereignty.
“Resilience” will require infrastructure to be built “at speeds never thought possible” and “new trade corridors with reliable partners.
A word about both these related goals. Canada’s regulatory morass holds up big projects as do constitutional realities and arrangements (duty to consult, provincial control of natural resources). New trading partners? Successive governments have tried with little success to lessen Canada ‘s overwhelming trade dependency on the US. Geography rules(!) and the trade flows, for better and for worse, are north south. The essential reorientation Mark Carney is calling for will take time (even with the utmost Federal/Provincial cooperation) and be very costly. Removing internal barriers to trade is easier to achieve and has new momentum.
A unified front in responding to the Americans will bedevil whoever is the Prime Minister. Aluminum, steel and autos, the major focus of Trumps’ tariffs are major industries in Ontario. Retaliating by using potash (Saskatchewan) and oil (Alberta) is not that easy. Even Quebec is not yet following Ontario’s lead on curbing southbound electricity (now suspended). When Alberta or Quebec suggest that asking them to pitch in will endanger national unity, Carney may be tempted to say that saving the country is paramount and we won’t have the luxury to debate national unity if there is no country. All well and good, but neither Carney or Poilievre share with their predecessors the wounds from past fights over national unity. They will.
Mark Carney vowed to resist the United States until it shows Canada “respect” and enters into dependable trading arrangements. That could take a very long time. But under Carney there will be no charm offensive by Canada to flatter and mollify the US leader. Carney used a hockey analogy to describe the current situation: “The gloves are off”. In that fight Canada will stand up. It is useful to remember that Carney was a goalie and goalies have extraordinary steeliness. Perhaps Trump will come to respect Carney more than he did Trudeau. At this writing, however, that does not look to be the case.
Carney had blunt words in describing his Conservative opponent in the next Election. He described a life-long politician who worships “at the altar of free enterprise” (a reach by the Liberal Leader for centre-left and left-wing voters), warned that Poilievre’s divisiveness would be a barrier to building the country (a reach for nation builders) and someone who would bend a knee to Trump, not stand up to him (a reach for patriots).
Carney repeated themes he has written about: respect for markets but that markets are indifferent to people, that markets can deliver enormous wealth to a lucky few and hard times for the rest. There is a need to make markets work for Canadians he said (not sure what that means). He spoke about protecting Liberal values and the programs that reflect that; but warns that the country can’t redistribute what it doesn’t have. As an economist and a fiscal conservative, Carney faces the challenge Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien faced in the 1990’s, but in a much tougher world. Our debt and deficit to GDP ratios may be better than that time but the new spending we may have to do to defend the country and the economy was unimaginable then. Expect a discussion about the wisdom of splitting Canada’s operating budget from its capital budget.
The Reign of Error Finds a New King
Paul Brown
In an act that wraps cynicism with smugness, the Liberals anointed a new king this weekend. With breathtaking speed Liberals took out the political trash, leaving Trudeau and Freeland on the curb, recast the old gang as a new one, and jettisoned key policy from their scripture. It recalls a scene in the film Bananas when the new El Presidente says that ’those under 16 years of age are now over 16, and underpants are to be worn over the pants’. Liberals have a talent for makeovers, but my guess is that Canadians are tired of the Liberals, even with a new leader.
The last nine years of Liberal misrule has left the country weaker, more divided, and in a financial mess. But we were warned. Liberal claims that Canada was a post national state meant that Canadian values were to be jettisoned along with Sir John A. To boost their electoral fortunes the Liberals destroyed an immigration system that was the envy of the Western world. And, as Harper had warned, the national deficit exploded while spending wildly and launching and then cancelling ill considered tax changes. On foreign policy the Liberal’s shifted positions like a weathervane, and most cruelly abandoned Israel when Canada’s support was most needed.
While the media was infatuated with a leadership race that wasn’t, Pierre Poilievre and his team of candidates have been doing what opposition parties do, working to earn the vote of Canadians. In response to the economic mayhem caused by Trump, Poilievre responded with a series of policy announcements that have deep roots in Canadian conservative thought and history. Policy by principle not polls. Nicely mirroring the leadership of Premier Ford, the federal Conservatives fashioned a ‘Canada First’ response to Trump that includes fiscal discipline, support for natural resources, tax reductions, removal of interprovincial trade barriers, criminal law reform, a celebration of Canadian values, and a foreign policy that is principled.
Media pundits and pollsters like to talk about the ballot question, that is, what will be the driving question for voters when they vote. The Liberals and others want it to be about ‘who can best deal with Trump’. The implied argument being that a CV can somehow help us deal with an economic thug forgetting that all the CV’s in the Democratic Party failed when they took him on. That said, most Canadian elections are about change — are Canadians content with the incumbent party and their record or do they want change. Conservatives expect that Canadians will hold the Liberals accountable for their years in power and vote for real change.