In these past few days Canadians witnessed the Liberal Party of Canada passing the baton from the beleaguered Justin Trudeau to the unknown-yet-charmed Mark Carney. In being sworn in as Canada’s prime minister today, the newly crowned Liberal leader is expected to not take much time before calling a federal election. If Ottawa rumours prove accurate, Carney will not even have to break stride in his race from the party coronation last weekend to the cross-country campaign hustings next week.
The Liberal strategists’ race plan is for their new standard bearer to sprint to the ballot box and steal another electoral victory. And party faithful have renewed hope and energy with Carney, someone who many see not only as the heir apparent, but also the future champion of Liberals’ progressive, post-national agenda.
Carney represents a reassuring continuity for those Liberals who have been in the corridors of power for the past decade. His ascent to the position was managed by Trudeau’s BFF and power broker Gerald Butts and his gaggle of loyal disciplines in the prime minister’s office and throughout the Party’s backrooms. So, Carney’s political operatives are all “old hats” and familiar with the Ottawa scene.
State-sponsored broadcaster CBC News leaked that Carney’s cabinet to be unveiled this morning at Rideau Hall would be a lean group that would include many at the core of the Trudeau team: Dominic LeBlanc, Mélanie Joly, Steven Guilbeault, Anita Anand, François-Philippe Champagne, as well as his longtime personal friend Chrystia Freeland. Again, his selection of familiar faces suggests Carney is confident in moving forward with the same ministerial executive that he has been counselling since late 2019, when was called to serve as the Liberals’ financial and economic advisor.
One new (old) face on the PMO staff was introduced this week when Carney introduced Toronto MP Marco Mendicino as his chief of staff. Mendicino served as a Trudeau minister from 2019 to 2023 and was shuffled out of cabinet embroiled in numerous scandals. He is responsible for allowing Paul Bernardo, one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers, to transfer to a medium-security prison – and then lied about it. He lied about shutting down Chinese police stations operating in Canada. He repeatedly lied about facts pertaining to protestors on Ottawa’s streets to justify the use of the Emergencies Act. Prior to his embarrassing stint as public safety minister, Mendicino served as Trudeau’s immigration minister to oversee the Liberals’ open borders policies.
Even the Liberal-friendly Toronto Star was surprised with the selection of Mendicino as the newly minted prime minister’s right-hand man. The Star’s Ottawa reporter Althia Raj wrote: “Mark Carney fumbled his first decision as leader — and some Liberals are not happy.” Raj commented, “If Mark Carney’s political instincts are to be judged by his first day on the job as Liberal leader, the Grits may be in for a rough ride.”
Another old face who Carney brought into his fold surfaced this week: David Lametti, who served as Trudeau’s justice minister, is responsible for introducing the Liberals’ soft-on-crime policies and the subsequent record of increased repeat offenders and a 50 per cent rise in violent crimes. He is the minister responsible for evoking the Emergencies Act – now ruled “unconstitutional.” Lametti is also infamous for having replaced the abused minister Jody Wilson Raybould and providing the “get-out-of-jail-free” card to SNC Lavalin. He has a most dubious record as Canada’s justice minister and leaves many political observers questioning Carney’s judgement of character.
Political pundit Dan Knight summed up Carney showcasing both Mendicino and Lametti this week by stating: “This isn’t just a bad look—it’s a flashing neon sign that says ‘Nothing will change!’ It’s bad judgment, it’s embarrassing, and it proves that Carney is just Trudeau in a different wrapper—maybe a little more polished, a little more corporate, but still serving up the same reheated swamp stew.”
Carney’s political team made news south of the border as well when the New York Post ran a feature story: “Justin Trudeau replacement, Canadian Liberal leader Mark Carney’s, deep ties to US Democrat bigwigs exposed.” The Post states the new prime minister has gone to great lengths to hide his association with John Podesta, former advisor to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the head of Joe Biden’s $375-billion slush fund for green groups and programs. The link between Podesta and Carney is uncovered as Gerald Butts and the New York based consultancy Eurasia Group, where Butts and Carney’s wife Diana Fox manage global environmental initiatives.
At the same time that the NY Post article was tying in Carney’s association with the Democrats’ green grifting, Fox Business News introduced Carney with a critical comment by finance analyst Marc Morano, who observed, “This is meet the new boss, same as the old boss. He is going to continue not just Justin Trudeau’s policies – this is Justin Trudeau 2.0. This is a man much more competent and much more dangerous…. He is the foundational premise for Net Zero, the foundational premise for ESG. He is the man pushing corporate government collusion… he is competent and dangerous as hell and he does not like Donald Trump and I don’t know how well they are going to get along. I pity Canadians at this moment.”
With news commentary like that this week in the U.S., no doubt, Carney’s reputation – and his associations – will precede him to Pennsylvania Avenue.
On two cornerstone pieces of the Trudeau government’s green agenda, Carney is indicating that his approach will be different. First, the Carney Liberals will remove the consumer carbon tax at the gas pump and for home fuel and, at the same time, hike up taxes on Canadian businesses through an industrial carbon pricing system and a new carbon border “adjustment mechanism.” Carney wants to more heavily tax businesses like oil producers and manufacturers who are “big polluters” and also industries that export goods – such as steel and aluminum. He also says his new approach will provide generous incentives to “pay Canadians to make their green choices” and these would be financed by taxing Canadian industry more. Carney claims hiking the carbon taxes on businesses will not be felt by individual Canadians.
In the weeks since Carney unveiled his new carbon tax approach, it has been met with some skepticism. In the Toronto Sun, paper editorialists frame the core issue this way: “Carney insists this new system — details to come — will make ‘big polluters’ pay while rewarding Canadians for buying low-carbon goods, but he has yet to explain why the ‘big polluters’ won’t pass on their increased costs to Canadians under his system, which does not include rebates.” In a column “Stop believing anything Liberals say about carbon taxes,” Sun editor Lorrie Goldstein wrote, “Trusting the Liberals on carbon taxes is like Charlie Brown trusting Lucy is going to hold the football for him.”
There has been similar disbelief with the Liberals startling announcements in favour of building pipelines and energy infrastructure. Up until last month, Carney was a globe trotter, serving as the United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and co-chairing the World Economic Forum’s international banking program respecting net-zero carbon emissions. He is the global face of net-zero and in his recent book, Value(s), he argues as a strong advocate of climate change policies that will transition away from all fossil fuels. As Carney envisions it, net-zero financiers will manage companies against their net-zero standards “and determine who is on the right and wrong side of history. There are [oil and gas] assets that will be stranded and embedded capital that must be scrapped.”
These are established beliefs that have been articulately espoused by Carney on numerous occasions on stages from London to New York to Davos, Switzerland. So, it is not surprising that National Post columnist Ross McKitrick would call Carney out on his claim to have made some type of philosophical conversion in recent weeks. McKitrick states, “Carney is now supposed to act for the good of the country after lobbying to defund and drive out of existence Canada’s oil and gas companies, steel companies, car companies and any other sector dependent on fossil fuels…Carney is a climate zealot. He may try to fool Canadians into thinking he wants new pipelines, liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals and other hydrocarbon infrastructure, but he doesn’t. Far from it. He wants half the existing ones gone by 2030 and the rest soon after.”
On this last point, this week in Ottawa the parliamentary budget office released a report that showed the Liberal government’s gas emissions cap-and-trade system for the oil and gas sector will be devasting for the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan – losing as many as 54,400 full-time jobs – and for Canada, which will lose $21 billion annually from its economy. Carney has not commented on this report.
With the baton gripped firmly into his palm, Carney is off and running as of today… and the finish line may be as close as April 28th or May 5th.
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
