Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership with an unexpectedly massive 86 per cent of the somewhat more than 150,000 Liberal party members who voted.
But when the soon-to-be Prime Minister got up to speak to an adoring crowd, he had nothing surprising or unexpected to say.
His acceptance speech was his chance to introduce himself to millions of Canadians who might not have been paying close attention to the Liberal leadership.
In content and presentation, the speech was typical of what those who have been paying attention have come to expect from Carney.
It was solid, serious, and reasonable, but hardly memorable or inspiring.
Mark Carney is not a flashy rhetorician. He has now become the closest we in Canada have had to a wartime leader in many decades – but nobody would mistake him for Winston Churchill.
Former prime minister Jean Chrétien spoke earlier in the event that crowned the new leader and, despite his 91 years, seemed far more passionate and engaged than the much younger Carney.
Chrétien addressed Donald Trump directly, as “one old guy to another” and admonished the U.S. leader to “stop this nonsense!”
It is hard to imagine that kind of folksiness and straight-from-the-heart talk from the man who is about to become Prime Minister.
What you can say about Carney is that he is genuine. He never tries to put on an act and always seems true to himself. If you think about it, that is, in fact, saying a lot.
If Justin Trudeau has often seemed overly theatrical, Carney is the polar opposite.
Canada’s new PM-to-be is all business. His style is that of the television cop of long ago who immortalized the line: “Just the facts, ma’am”.
Maybe that’s exactly the quality we need right now to take on Trump.
Trudeau had, of late, given the impression he wanted to beat the one-time TV-reality-star who is now the US’s Big Boss at his own game.
It seemed the outgoing Canadian Prime Minister was trying to play to the cameras by being as cheerfully assertive as Trump was angrily aggressive.
We can be sure Mark Carney will not be tempted to play that game.
To use the kind of hockey analogy of which Carney is fond, the new Liberal leader is something like a hard-working-but-not-flamboyant checking forward – the kind of player coaches assign to shadow opposing teams’ high-scoring stars.
The star players (and the fans) hardly notice the checkers are there – until they try to shoot or pass, only to discover a persistent and dogged opponent’s stick blade in their way.
When he confronts Trump and his band of loyal acolytes, Carney will not try to score easy debating points. Rather, he will rely on his penchant for detail and unmatched mastery of economic facts and figures to hold the hyperactive Trump team at bay.
Will that approach succeed in disarming a gang whose stocks-in-trade are far-fetched outlandish statements and, in the great tradition of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s chief propagandist, the Big Lie?
We’ll soon get a chance to find out, perhaps sooner than we’d like.
A small-c conservative approach
As for the substance of Carney’s speech, it definitely signaled a rightward shift for the Liberals.
The only tangible policies Carney promised were to get rid of the consumer carbon tax and not proceed with the Trudeau government’s plan to, in effect, increase the capital gains tax.
The carbon tax pledge comes as no surprise.
Carney had repeatedly promised during the leadership campaign that he would scrap the carbon levy on individuals, but keep it on big, industrial polluters.
He has rarely mentioned that getting rid of the carbon tax would also mean the end of the quarterly carbon rebates most taxpayers receive. And Canadians who care about the environment might note that Carney did not accompany his scrap-the-tax promise with any alternative climate change proposal.
As for the capital gains promise, it is more of a head scratcher.
In last year’s budget, the Liberals decided to expand what is called the exclusion rate for taxing capital gains, the profits people and corporations earn from selling shares in corporations or investment property.
Currently the government only taxes part of those capital gains, 50 per cent of them. The rest are tax free.
Canadians who work for a living pay tax on all of their earnings, while those who sit at home and watch their stock portfolios grow pay tax on only half of their profits.
The Trudeau government noted the unfairness of this practice – as have progressive economists going back eight decades. Thus, the Liberal government raised the inclusion rate to two thirds for corporations. For individuals, they raised it only for capital gains over $250,000.
Then-Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pointed out at the time that fewer than one per cent of Canadians would pay more tax, while the government would gain $7 billion of much needed new revenue.
That one per cent has been pretty vocal, though. They have influence far in excess of their numbers.
One of the folks they obviously influenced is Mark Carney, who started his career working for the U.S. investment banker Goldman Sachs.
In his speech Carney made the usual boilerplate statement about “rewarding risk” as he summarily dismissed Trudeau’s modest effort to create a slightly more equitable tax system.
That bit of über-capitalist orthodoxy brought to mind economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s pithy dictum:
“To make the rich work harder, we pay them more. To make the poor work harder, we pay them less.”
By contrast, elsewhere in his remarks Carney upbraided Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre for his almost theological belief in untrammeled free markets.
Carney said free markets can deliver much in the way of innovation and wealth. But, to him, people matter more than markets.
In waging the economic war Trump has unleashed on us, Carney pledged to use the resources of government to cushion the blow for the most vulnerable in society.
Poilievre has advocated putting all money collected from retaliatory tariffs into tax cuts. When asked about that idea, New Democratic leader Jagmeet Singh scoffed.
“How will that help laid-off workers?”
It is also reassuring that Carney said he would maintain such Liberal-NDP achievements as childcare, pharmacare, and universal dental care
Plus, Carney pointedly criticized Pierre Poilievre’s plan to scrap the CBC. More and more Canadians, at this particular moment, are rallying to the defence of our much-maligned and underfunded public broadcaster.
Sadly, given his commitment to limiting government spending (and reducing the taxes on some very rich people) it is highly doubtful Carney will have much interest in current Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s proposal to guarantee funding for the CBC, based on a per-capita formula.
READ MORE: Liberals have an excellent plan to reform CBC/Radio-Canada, but it’s way too late
In the short-term St-Onge’s plan would result in a doubling of government funding for the CBC, together with the elimination of most advertising. It is hard to see a new Prime Minister focused intensely on the government’s financial bottom line going for that radical but long overdue proposal.
Opposition parties have varied reactions
The federal Conservatives were quick out of the gate to paint Carney in dark and negative colours. In Poilievre’s words:
“Carney’s advice drove up taxes, housing costs, and food prices, while he personally profited from moving billions of dollars and thousands of jobs out of Canada to the United States. Working for Trudeau, Carney made Canada weaker and poorer. Working for himself, Carney made the United States richer and stronger. And for the first time in our history, Canada will have a sneaky Prime Minister with millions of dollars of financial interests that go directly against our national interest.”
The “financial interests” to which Poilievre refers are Carney’s involvement with the multi-national financial firm Brookfield. Not too long ago, Brookfield moved its corporate headquarters from Toronto to New York.
When asked, Carney fudged on his involvement in that decision. He tried to claim he was no longer involved when Brookfield decided to call the moving trucks.
That claim might not be entirely true.
One NDP MP, Niki Ashton, at least partially echoed the Conservatives in their populist critique of Carney. The MP from northern Manitoba wrote:
“Throughout the leadership race, Carney made it clear that loopholes billionaires rely on would stay open, that taxes for the richest in our country would remain too low … His record as chair of Brookfield Asset Management is one that led to Brookfield Asset Management being labeled as Canada’s top tax dodger.”
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh adopted a more conciliatory, almost statesman-like tone. He congratulated Carney, then said:
“Canadians are counting on their political leaders to fight for them in these challenging times. To stand up for a Canada where we take care of each other. We will disagree on many ideas, priorities and policies — but we should always stand united in protecting our country from the threat posed by Donald Trump.”
The New Democrats have dropped their demand that there be an immediate election. They now urge the Liberals to go back to Parliament in order to enact measures to support Canadians who will be hard hit by Trump’s tariffs.
An election can wait, Singh now says. (The law requires that a federal vote take place no later than October of this year.)
But even if Singh and the NDP have opened the door to partnering with the Liberals yet again, the Liberals do not seem to be in a mood for delay.
Later this week we will likely have an official transfer of power from Trudeau to Carney.
After that, Carney will name his new and slimmed down cabinet, which will, no doubt, include many holdovers from the current crew.
Then, the new Prime Minister will almost certainly go back to the Governor General and request dissolution of the House of Commons, setting the stage for a spring vote.
Fasten your seat belts.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
