Carney pitches alternative vision for Canada
Mark Carney has joined the chorus of voices asking Justin Trudeau to call a first ministers’ meeting on climate change and the carbon levy.
Carney, often touted as a possible successor to Trudeau, threw down the request during an evening speech in Ottawa on Monday, framed as a manifesto of sorts on where the former bank governor stands on the big issues of the day.
His call for a first ministers’ conference was not issued as a challenge to Trudeau, but to the premiers, notably Alberta’s Danielle Smith.
“I very much welcome Premier Smith’s suggestion of the first ministers’ meeting on climate,” Carney said, pointedly not mentioning that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, along with a raft of other premiers, is also asking Trudeau to convene such a gathering.
Carney suggested that premiers arrive at this meeting with “valuefor-money assessments” of their climate policies and what alternatives they are putting forward to the carbon levy, which he acknowledged no longer enjoys broad support in the country.
“But if they’re going to take a policy out, they need to put something else in that’s at least as effective and that needs to be transparent from the start.”
This isn’t all that different from what Trudeau has been saying in recent days, inviting provinces and territories to come up with their own alternatives to the carbon levy. Carney, who declared himself a Liberal supporter at the 2021 party convention, was careful not to sow any overt discord with the sitting prime minister during this speech.
With Poilievre and the Conservatives, Carney was a little more biting, although more with subtle digs punctuating his remarks. He talked about valuing the independence of central banks, for instance, and how he believes it’s a good idea to talk to chief executive officers in business. (Poilievre in the past has mused about firing the Bank of Canada governor and just recently boasted to a Vancouver audience that he had no time for business leaders focused on “sucking up” to politicians.)
“Let’s give it up for central bank independence. I think we still support the central bank. It’s getting a little unclear sometimes with some commentary, but I support it,” said Carney, who has served as bank governor in Canada and in the United Kingdom. “I’ll admit it, I talk to CEOs. That’s not a bad thing,” he joked at another point.
It took a bit more reading between the lines to see how Carney was differentiating himself from the current Liberal approach to governing and the economy. This came when he set out three ways to respond to what he sees as a “hinge moment in history” for the economies of Canada and the world.
One way, Carney said, is to “spend, support, subsidize.” He called this a “heartfelt” response to economic troubles, but warned that “prioritizing the new and the immediate can defund the old such as health care, and it can crowd out private initiative and it can lead to an eventual and brutal reckoning.”
The second way, he said, is to “demolish, destroy, deny.” Carney said this is the approach of right-wing populists, who prey on the perception that government is broken. Poilievre has also been saying this, and Carney reminded the audience that the forces against Brexit in the U.K. also had a “broken Britain” slogan.
“Their solution was to take back control,” he said, “but that was actually code for tear down the future.”
Carney offered up a third option, clearly intended to be seen as a middle ground between Trudeau Liberalism and Poilievre Conservatism. Essentially, he said, it revolves around an economic agenda built on shared goals and values, driven neither from the top down or by a “slash-the-beast” crusade.
“We start with shared missions: affordable housing, universal and accessible health care, education for all and for all time, and a clean economy, both for the jobs that will provide today and for the better future. It will secure tomorrow. These are missions that reflect Canada’s values, but they need also to be pursued in ways that deliver near term results that matter most to people,” he said.
If this speech was intended to lay the foundation for some leadership foray or entry into elected politics, Carney’s chosen timing and audience were interesting. His Ottawa speech was delivered a week before the federal budget, and he’s due to give another big one in Toronto later this month, after the budget. The crowd in Ottawa was intriguing — a smattering of MPs, and no current members of the cabinet, but three former ministers — Marco Mendicino, Mona Fortier and David Lametti — all of whom lost their jobs in last year’s shuffle. For the most part, the roughly 200-member audience was made up of businessfriendly interests.
The unspoken question hanging over the event was whether the crowd was seeing an alternative to Trudeau. Carney neither answered — nor dispelled — that question.