Carney’s Liberal coronation is just what Trudeau ordered

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The powers that be in the Liberal Party of Canada called for a coronation of the next leader and they got one.

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Mark Carney took 85.9% of the vote, winning on the first ballot, more than 10 times the votes of his closest competitor, Chrystia Freeland.

With the support of most of Justin Trudeau’s team, Carney has been ushered in to continue on with more of Trudeau’s signature economic policies, the ones Carney has been advising Trudeau on since 2020.

Yes, Carney said that he will scrap the capital gains tax changes that have hurt so many small business owners, but that had to go. He also promised to drop the consumer carbon tax but would also increase the industrial carbon tax, a move that will have the same impact on manufacturing industries like steel as Donald Trump’s tariffs.

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Few Canadians will know about the discrepancy in Carney’s plan or any others because there has never been a leader in this country elected to such high office with so little vetting. Carney preferred speeches and rallies over news conferences and interviews with U.S. media outlets over Canadian ones because the interviewer would know little about Canadian politics.

When he wasn’t appearing on The Daily Show or the podcast of Trump’s short-lived spokesman Anthony Scaramucci, Carney preferred to speak to friendly liberal media outlets like CBC. While the media narrative is that Carney has reinvigorated the Liberal party and closed the polling gap with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, neither claim is demonstrably true.

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While more than 400,000 people signed up as “registered Liberals” to vote in this nomination process, just over 151,000 actually took the time to vote. This is a chance to pick the next prime minister of our country at a time when we are facing a threat to our sovereignty and a threat to our economic future, yet our next PM was chosen by so few people.

By comparison, the last Conservative leadership race saw more than 400,000 people vote with 295,285 ballots cast for Poilievre alone. Sure, it might have been a longer timeline, but the stakes – becoming leader of the official Opposition with no election in sight – were much smaller.

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Secondly on the polling, the media narrative has become that a Carney-led Liberal party is already set to beat Poilievre and the Conservatives. That’s not what the numbers show, not in any sense.

The latest Leger poll, the polling firm Postmedia works with and the most accurate in the last several federal elections, shows the Poilievre-led Conservatives with 41% of the vote to 33% for the Carney-led Liberals. Leger also found that Poilievre beat Carney on who was best suited to deal with Trump, to handle inflation and the cost-of-living crisis and to understand the “concerns of voters like me.”

That’s not the narrative the rest of our national media are trying to spoon-feed us, the same national media that didn’t bother vetting the man who was selected — not elected — to become our next prime minister. Their cheerleading for Carney will likely continue into the general election campaign, which could kick off as soon as a week from now, according to the tongues wagging in Ottawa.

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There is no doubt that polls have tightened and the Liberals are getting a bounce as Trudeau departs and Carney takes over, but the Conservatives are still the favourites to win the next election despite what the press gallery narrative will try to make you believe.

I will offer a caution to the nervous Conservatives and the overly buoyant Liberals: It’s best to remember the three key rules of elections.

Voters are fickle, polling can change, campaigns matter.

Between now and Easter, Canadians will get to make a choice. Please make it a wise and informed one.

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