Terry Newman: Carney tries, and fails, to turn himself into Poilievre

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On Sunday, freshly minted Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Governor General Mary Simon at Rideau Hall triggering a federal election which will send Canadians to the ballot boxes on April 28. Parliament is now dissolved. Monday’s previously scheduled return to the House of Commons for MPs is now cancelled.

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Carney, who appeared shaky at his pulpit on the steps of Rideau Hall, has a temporary respite from a skills test in the House against Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Instead, Carney’s been catapulted into the ultimate test, a federal election shadowed by unresolved questions about his financial assets, possible conflicts of interest, copy-pasting of Conservative policy promises, and the fact he’s yet to attempt negotiations with Trump.

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If the polls are to be believed, the Liberals have performed a magic trick. They’ve managed to maintain virtually the same party, taking it from the very dismal 16 per cent popularity to overtaking the Conservatives in the latest Ipsos poll by 42-36, all by replacing their leader. Nanos Research pollster Nik Nanos has suggested this fight between the Liberals and Conservatives will be akin to “a knife fight in a telephone booth.”

There was some speculation that this telephone booth might be located in Edmonton Centre, a riding that if Carney chose to run in, could have signalled affinity for Alberta. Much ado was made of Carney, who is from Edmonton, making a hometown comeback. He participated in an on-ice activity with the Oilers before a game on Thursday. On the social media platform X, Carney shared a polished campaign video of himself in an Oilers jersey with the number 24, nodding to the fact that he’s the 24th prime minister, skating on the ice and hanging out in the team’s dressing room.

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Comedian Mike Myers, who left Canada for the U.S. 36 years ago, also showed up at the rink to support Carney, and to apparently dispel any concerns that living in the U.S. (or elsewhere) makes one less Canadian. Carney’s recent lack of habitation in Canada is really no big deal, you see. What’s really important is not that Carney has spent so much time living outside of Canada, but that he knows the names of Mr. Dressup’s two puppets, Casey and Finnegan. That’s quite a low bar for prime ministerial suitability.

Internal polling must have suggested this wasn’t Carney’s best shot, because we now know he’ll be running in Nepean, ON., where there he will face off with Conservative MP candidate Barbara Bal, a staff sergeant who’s been in law enforcement for over 27 years and has received a police exemplary service medal.

Of course, the bigger fight is with Poilievre, whose policies Carney has, for the most part, copied and pasted. And Sunday’s announcement of the election was no exception. Poilievre has promised to cut income taxes, and on Sunday, Carney pledged to reduce income tax in the lowest bracket by one per cent up to $57,375, leading to a savings of about $825 per year for a two-income family.

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Poilievre promised to axe the consumer carbon tax. Up until recently, the Liberals attacked him endlessly for this. Carney has since reduced it to zero. It is not actually cancelled, despite claims by the Liberal party. That would require legislation, so the tax is still officially on the books. Poilievre promised to scrap both the consumer and the industrial carbon tax, preferring to use tax credits to reward companies that lower emissions. In other words, unlike Carney, he’s chosen to use positive rather than negative incentives.

Poilievre promised to speed up approvals for energy projects. Mark Carney recently promised the same, saying he’d create a “one-window” approval process, but failed to explain what he’d do about the Liberals’ existing regulatory regime that has spooked investors up until now, leading to projects being cancelled. Carney’s been caught speaking out of both sides of his mouth, depending on the language being used and where he’s located.

Carney wrote in his 2021 book Value(s) that 80 per cent of fossil fuels need to remain in the ground to meet 2050 net-zero targets, saying even Greta Thunberg could do the math. Does this seem like someone who will be interested in pipelines?

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Poilievre said he’d reverse the Liberal’s proposed capital gains tax hike from 50 to 66.7 per cent. Mark Carney has cancelled the capital gains tax increase. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.

Poilievre promised to cap immigration and tie it to housing construction rates. Carney promised a temporary cap on immigration until numbers return to pre-pandemic levels. The only problem with that is there was already a housing crisis at that time. Carney commented Sunday that the crisis was a post-pandemic issue. This kind of knowledge requires being steeped in Canada, not simply recalling the names of Mr. Dressup’s puppets.

Carney began his election announcement by telling the assembled crowd he knew our country needed to act to fix our economy, to fight the Americans and to deal with Donald Trump’s tariffs.

He told Canadians he will end all provincial trade barriers by July 1st to create one Canadian economy, a welcome change that shouldn’t have required the threats of Donald Trump to happen.

He said, “This past week, we acted to protect workers, using the proceeds of our retaliatory tariffs against America’s unjustified trade actions. We acted to unlock major infrastructure projects and get them moving rapidly including clean and conventional energy, critical minerals, and new trade corridors with reliable trading partners. We acted to create new supports for farmers and businesses during this trade war. We expanded dental care for millions of more Canadians.”

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“We acted,” is being used very liberally here, as Carney has been prime minister for all of nine days. Where and what are these major projects that are now “unlocked”?

He continued. “We can’t control the U.S. president, but we can control our destiny,” he said. “And the best way we can deal with this crisis is to build our strength here at home and to help people who will be hit hardest by these tariffs. That’s the right thing to do. That’s the fair thing to do. That’s the Canadian thing to do,” he said.

The question remains as to whether retaliatory tariffs and this workers’ program are the necessary thing to do. As one reporter pointed out, Carney hasn’t even bothered to engage in negotiations with Trump yet.

Carney’s financials, potential conflicts of interest and his climate obsessions hung like a shadow over his head as he announced the, shortest possible, 36-day election. Reporters below the steps who had waited over an hour and a half for him to give his speech appeared to have sensed these insecurities and went for his jugular, one asking why he’d throw Canada into an election during a trade war before giving Canadians a chance to test drive him, his answer wasn’t convincing, and can be summed up as, “We’ve been busy, and we’ve changed.”

Have they really?

tnewman@postmedia.com

X: @TLNewmanMTL

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