I was not alone, for those of us who are concerned about the climate emergency, in experiencing a moment of optimism on first becoming aware of Mark Carney. After all, here was one of the world’s top-ranking bankers who was committing himself to applying his financial skills to addressing the problem of climate change. And he had a track record that appeared to demonstrate a sustained commitment to these concerns.
Carney had a modest upbringing in Edmonton, AB but even as a young man his already pronounced ambitions brought him to the prestigious institutes of Harvard and Oxford for his postgraduate education.
Following this he entered his chosen field of high finance at the similarly prestigious firm of Goldman Sachs. Over the 13 years that Carney spent at Goldman Sachs he rose quickly up the ranks, so much so, that by 2003 he was approached to be the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada.
Just a year later, the Department of Finance Canada sought his expertise, appointing him as the senior associate deputy minister as well as the G7 deputy.
Carney was named Governor of the Bank of Canada in February 2008, coinciding with the onset of the global financial crisis. Carney’s actions as Governor of the Bank of Canada have been credited with helping Canada to avoid the worst of that financial crisis.
In November 2012, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the appointment of Carney as Governor of the Bank of England – the first person who was not a British citizen to be appointed since the bank was first created in 1694.
Carney was at the helm of the bank during the pivotal Brexit crisis. Carney warned the public that a no-deal Brexit had the potential to trigger a recession. These views earned him vehement criticism from Brexit supporters who accused him of fearmongering and abandoning his appointed neutrality.
After stepping down from the role of Governor of the Bank of England, because of his growing public involvement in climate change issues, Carney was appointed as the United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. He was also appointed to the position of advisor for the UK presidency of the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. At the conference he helped to launch the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.
Following this, in 2020, Carney became the Vice Chairman at Brookfield Asset Management, where he oversaw the firm’s environmental, social, governance (ESG) and impact investment strategy fund until his recent resignation from that position to seek the leadership of the Canadian Liberal Party and ultimately the job of Prime Minister of Canada.
Carney has been running his campaign for the Liberal leadership by touting his spend-less and invest-more fiscal strategy plan. He has been openly critical of Justin Trudeau and his government for overspending.
“It is clear that the federal government is spending too much,” Carney emphasizes to his campaign audiences.
Carney has been able to garner many more endorsements from the members of the Liberal cabinet members than his next closest rival Chrystia Freeland, a past Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. This has vaulted him into frontrunner status and now the odds-on favorite to be the standard bearer for the Liberal party going into the predicted soon to be announced federal election.
But then on February 5, I came across a CBC article which quite disturbed me, ‘Mark Carney Commits to 2% NATO Defense Spending Benchmark by 2030’.
On discovering this I felt a palpable sense of betrayal. Not that I personally had been betrayed. But the Canadian people had been betrayed. Here was a highly placed individual who presents himself to the Canadian electorate as an informed and effective environmentalist when he is in fact nothing of the sort. Rather he is a militarist with no sense or understanding that it is impossible to be both.
NATO is the imperial arm of the United States. It has only two functions – to expand itself and to drive the profits of the American weapons manufacturers. It is the pursuit of these profits that is behind NATO’s 2014 decision to demand its members pay two per cent of their countries’ GDP for weapons. There is no other reason than profit behind this decision. And Trump is now demanding five per cent, which the obedient NATO countries might well pay.
The 41 companies in the Top 100 based in the United States recorded arms revenues of $317 billion in 2023. In contrast, the combined arms revenues of the 27 Top 100 companies based in Europe totaled $133 billion in 2023.
And what would Mr. Carney’s NATO government’s expenditures cost the Canadian taxpayer? According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, to meet the target, Canada would need to nearly double its defense spending from the projected $41 billion in the current fiscal year to $82 billion in 2032-33. These figures fly in the face of Mr. Carney’s sacrosanct promise of “spending-less” and they are in sharp contrast with the Canadian government’s expenditures of approximately $16 billion on climate action in the past year. This is about 0.5 per cent of GDP.
And what are Canadian citizens getting for their money’s worth under Mr. Carney’s NATO commitment? They are getting products that are toxic and highly polluting and specifically designed to kill human beings and destroy the earth.
Militarism and environmentalism are two very different and irreconcilable concepts of how to ensure human survival. Militarism conceives of human survival as based on the capacity to kill your enemy before he kills you. Environmentalism conceives of human survival as based on the capacity of societies to cooperate to protect the environment and humanity. Each of these concepts leads to two very different sets of values and lead to two very different sets of actions. One leads to the destruction of the earth and the human species, the other to their preservation.
Mr. Carney clearly doesn’t understand the difference between the two. One thing is very clear, we must have a Prime Minister and other world leaders who will stand up to the militarists because if we don’t, they will destroy the earth.
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