Mark Carney is the candidate who played hard to get until well-positioned power brokers made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, start at the top as Prime Minister of Canada.
Carney had a distinguished career in finance. Notably, as former Prime Minister Stephen Harper has conveyed, while Governor of the Bank of Canada Carney played a supportive non-political role to the leadership of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty through the 2008-2009 recession.
Carney’s suitors distinguished themselves in political management.
Katie Telford and Gerald Butts honed their political teeth with the Ontario government of Dalton McGuinty, a Liberal government that increased Ontario’s debt from $139 billion to $338 billion in under a decade. As the backroom leaders behind Justin Trudeau, they oversaw federal government debt inflate to double that of all 22 of Trudeau’s predecessors combined, from $612 billion to $1.232 trillion ($1,232 billion). Both governments made significant expenditures in an effort to compel a more environmentally sensitive oriented economy and ecology.
Butts and Telford are the key players behind new Liberal leader Mark Carney’s successful leadership campaign and current election effort. He was their choice.
After Butts’ resignation as Trudeau’s Principal Secretary―taking the fall for the scandal of attempting to influence Attorney-General Jody Wilson Raybould in the SNC-Lavalin affair―Butts joined the Eurasia Group, working alongside Diana Carney on governments’ climate change policies and net-zero emissions projects.
In 2020 Mark Carney, following his term as Governor of the Bank of England, actively joined his wife’s net-zero pursuit. Carney was appointed United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance as well as becoming a consultant/advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In October 2020, Carney became vice-chair of the board of directors for Brookfield Asset Management, responsible for environmental and social issues investment strategies. Brookfield is most recently in the news for deciding, while Carney was chairman, to move its head office from Toronto to New York City following Donald Trump’s election, and for tax sheltering investment funds managed by Carney in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, avoiding over $5 billion in taxes otherwise payable to the Canadian government, Canadian taxpayers. As with questions about where Canada-Ireland-UK citizen Carney filed his personal taxes while resident in New York City from 2020 to 2024 and what assets he held before placing them in a blind trust, on questions about Brookfield he has said only there was compliance with all relevant laws.
I imagine the possibility of Butts and Telford drawing political inspiration from the Rocky Horror Picture Show song “Time Warp” in their pursuit of candidate Carney.
With candidate Trudeau, the Liberal Party took a jump to the left, adopting and adapting signature policies of the NDP to secure consecutive governments in 2015, 2019, and 2021: legalization of cannabis, electoral reform (unfulfilled), universal childcare, dental care, and pharmacare. The leftward shift secured nearly a decade in government, some say crippling the NDP in the process.
The choreography for candidate Carney gives the appearance of taking a step to the right, adopting and adapting Conservative Party (CPC) policies, most enunciated by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre well before Trudeau would admit contemplating resignation: zero rating consumer carbon pricing (CPC proposed eliminate all carbon taxes); scrapping the proposed increase in capital gains tax from 50% to 66.7% (as argued for by CPC in parliament); increase pipeline, energy, and trade corridors (CPC since 2019) except Carney will not withdraw Bill C-69, the anti-pipeline legislation that resulted in the Trudeau Government purchasing a pipeline under construction and prompted pipeline companies to look elsewhere; 1% reduction in lowest marginal tax rate from 15% to 14% (CPC policy since 2021); temporary immigration cap until infrastructure catches up (as argued for by CPC); no GST on new homes up to $1million (CPC announced October 2024); and, more.
For most Canadians, Mark Carney is a résumé without a record. He has been packaged to move quickly through the shortest possible election before we can find out who Mark Carney is and whether his thoughts about Canada’s government and future align with what Canadians want, i.e. is he more than just not Trudeau?
In 2013, I attended a lunch at which Carney shared something of his Catholic faith. Talking about the 2008-2009 recession, Carney noted that a failure of personal ethics led to the financial crisis, stating, “Integrity cannot be legislated, and it certainly cannot be bought. It must come from within.” I believe he was sincere.
In 2021, Penguin Random House released Carney’s book Value(s): Building a Better World For All, in which he addressed personal and societal ethics as well as presenting an economic philosophy for developing a functional green economy. I have not read the book. Reviews are consistent with these words from Marc Lee, stating Carney’s commitment to future “sustainability is about green investment opportunities shaped by a strategic direction set by governments through carbon pricing, regulation and financial disclosure… Carney’s support for carbon pricing is among his strongest policy recommendations.”
Again, I think Carney is sincere. Just as I think he was sincere (although questionably theatrical) in setting the current consumer carbon price to 0% on the Friday before the election was called. I also think he was sincere when he said he would escalate the industrial carbon tax, apply a carbon tariff on goods imported from countries without adequate carbon reduction initiatives, and maintain the commitment to the Trudeau policy eliminating sale of new gasoline/diesel vehicles in Canada by 2035.
Repositioning the Liberal Party through adopting/adapting Conservative policies may be sincere. It is also a means to the end of seeking a fourth Liberal government to implement the next step in the costly Canadian experiment about ideas of establishing a zero-emissions green economy.
As the Liberal Party campaigns on an image of moving politically to the right, it is insincere to disparage the public service of Mr. Poilievre—who has won his seat in seven successive elections and matured from neophyte member of parliament to cabinet minister to official leader of the opposition and candidate for Prime Minister. Poilievre’s policies were presented and promoted in parliament as alternative policies during team-Trudeau-now-team-Carney’s near decade in government, policies now borrowed to be the backbone of the Carney campaign targeting left-of-centre in a bid to retain political power.
Carney’s policies may mirror popular Conservative policies, but his commitment to them is tempered by his dedication to attaining net-zero goals.
Carney’s team photo includes the same backroom and prime minister’s office operatives there for the last decade and the same cornerstone members of cabinet―including obdurate environmentalist Steven Guilbeault whose arrests while working for Greenpeace are near legendary. Observing the support of Mr. Butts and Ms. Telford, Minister Guilbeault, and Mrs. Carney, it’s reasonable to conclude his closest supporters know Mr. Carney’s net-zero goals remain his primary political pursuit.
It took years for Liberals to make the jump to the left, utilizing the Butts/Telford backroom team, tight control in the PMO, an onside cabinet, and a submissive parliamentary caucus. How quickly might they all now line dance a step to the right?
Right-of-centre is occupied by the party whose policy ideas are being replicated by team Carney. Left-of-centre is vacant. Is Mark Carney the person who will lead the Liberal Party back to fill the void that is calling? Or might it be out of rhythm for him to manoeuvre his feet to the right while doing a two-step left to implement the still unproven (but so far massive deficit inducing) resolve to conjure Carney’s philosophical functional green economy?