Exactly two weeks from his coronation at the Liberal convention, newly-crowned Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to call the much-anticipated federal general election to send Canadians to the polls on April 28 or May 5. During the course of the leadership campaign, and in his flurry of activities since assuming office, Carney and his backroom handlers have signaled the core strategies of the Liberals’ election playbook.
“Fast and Furious” approach
First, the Liberals are in a rush to have Canadians mark their ballots – and there are good reasons for this “fast and furious” approach. As there is with any political contest, a new face often brings a positive bump up in public opinion. With Carney’s march through the leadership contest, the Liberals’ fortunes have climbed from 20 points behind the Conservatives to a marginal lead in the polls as some pollsters are now reporting.
The Liberals want to take advantage of the luster on their novel leader before Canadians begin to look closer at his record, his dealings in the corporate world, or his personal and business ties. Carney has a stellar resume on paper, but there are many critical assessments of his claims of success as bank governor in Canada and the U.K. and as the global financier for the United Nations and World Economic Forum. There are countless skeletons in the closet of his leadership at Brookfield Asset Management, including the company’s recent move from Toronto to New York to escape Canadian taxes. Perhaps most troublesome is Carney’s close ties within the network forged between the Liberals and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – those business and political interests now being exposed by Canadian journalists like Sam Cooper and Terry Glavin, to name two.
Another reason for a quick election call is a personal one involving Carney’s finances and business interests. Much has been made of Carney not disclosing the details of his personal assets or conflicts of interest. The Liberals point out that Carney is following the ethics commissioner’s rules and has placed his holdings in a blind trust. Even so, he will be able to campaign through to the election date without having any of his finance information made public. Canadians will not know of his financial interests or conflicts of interest before they vote. For the Liberals, to state that Carney is following the established rules is a perfect cover for keeping the potentially embarrassing details sealed.
Carney’s carbon tax and green schemes
The second core strategy is to steal the Conservatives’ thunder on their “axe the tax” campaign plank without undermining the Liberals’ climate change policy. For this, the Liberals have signaled they will remove the consumer carbon tax because of its “divisive” unpopularity. With the theatrics of a fake ceremony signing an “executive order” (just like Trump on his first day), Carney has said he has “removed the tax” for Canadians. However, Carney has explained his government will collect a greater amount from Canadian industries, making “big polluters pay.” It also intends on developing a new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism that will collect taxes on Canadian exported goods.
Further to the new carbon tax on exports, as Carney explained in his European photo shoots this week, taxing Canadian industry on carbon emissions will put Canada further ahead with future European trade deals. Carney views his Liberal carbon tax on exports as an “opportunity” that will “help Canadian companies prepare.” He also offered his hunch that after the U.S. 2028 presidential election, Americans will “start caring” about carbon pricing and will establish a carbon tax on their exports.
For the next five to six weeks, the Liberals will want to focus on the removed carbon tax at the pumps and trust Canadians will not reason through Carney’s future carbon tax regime. Likewise, the Liberals will not want to dive deep into their plans for developing new green programs and policies for Canada to reach the UN’s net-zero goals for 2030 and 2050. Expect Carney to continue to be vague in his comments about new green programs that will offer “rewards” for Canadians making lower-emission choices. He talks of the government’s net-zero investments as “opportunities” and contends that they will result in increased jobs and will grow the economy. He ignores any concerns about the shifting of all the new carbon tax costs on the country’s industrial sectors and what that might mean for Canada’s competitiveness in global trade or the evitable added costs to consumers when businesses must pass the new tax costs onto the price of their products.
The Liberals’ green agenda through the last 10 years has been detrimental to business confidence to reinvest and expand, foreign investment, and natural resource development. Carney has already telegraphed that he intends on accelerating the country’s green schemes – and this election will be a test to whether Canadians are paying attention to the costs of the Liberals’ environmental policy. In an erudite column in the Financial Post entitled “Carney is as climate crazy as Guilbeault” Matthew Lau observes, “Last month, Carney laid out Canada’s required contribution to his climate ambitions: ‘Canada must invest $2 trillion by 2050 — about $80 billion per year — to become carbon competitive and achieve Net Zero. However, investments in decarbonisation currently run between $10–20 billion annually.’” So, Lau reasons, “The implication is that another $60-70 billion a year will need to be wrung out of Canadian businesses and consumers, either through direct taxation and government spending or with regulatory browbeating to push Canadians’ savings and investments into global warming initiatives.”
However, none of these messy facts factor into the Liberals’ playbook. By speaking to the moral necessity of saving the world the Liberals expect to eclipse a debate on the finer details of cost and accountability. The Liberals expect they can skirt explanations of the tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars already lost to subsidizing halted and bankrupt EV manufacturer projects. They expect Canadians will not pursue the details of the “climate boondoggle” that had Liberals fail to account for $200 billion in 150 programs over 13 government departments for “climate change” initiatives. The Liberals intend on having it “both ways” in this short campaign period — touting Carney’s green credentials with his former U.N. and WEF roles on the global stage, while not providing the details and costs for their green initiatives.
Trump, Trump, Trump
The Liberals’ ace in the hole is a card they have already played. They are counting on the ace to be the trump card that will steal the election. U.S. President Donald Trump has caused great nervousness throughout Canada with his bombastic comments and repeated threats of applying stiff tariffs. This nervousness has been heightened by a Liberal government and the government-sponsored legacy media that is continuously fueling public debates on the legitimacy of Trump’s claims, the “devastating” impact of the tariffs and trade war, and the existential threat to Canadian sovereignty posed by the Americans.
The Liberals are strategically manufacturing tension and fostering angst, and one of the most ridiculous examples of this is found in a recent article penned by Evan Solomon, “Does Canada need to prepare for a US attack?” Solomon calls Americans our “borderline frenemies” and states that Canadians must begin to consider “the unthinkable: how to defend against a US attack.” This headline feature was published last week in GZERO media, a subsidiary publishing firm of the Eurasia Group – the same firm where Mark Carney’s wife is employed and where his campaign mastermind Gerald Butts is plying his trade.
Solomon’s speculation here is hyperbolic, but there have been many “51st State” debates carried out in the media through the past few months – and it is most interesting to note the account that this notion of the U.S. annexing Canada was first raised by former prime minister Justin Trudeau when meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. So, the Liberals’ ruse on Canadians is obvious. The election discussion is to be focused on Trump, Trump, Trump. The ballot question is to be regarding Trump. And in a piece written for independent news source The Hub, John Ibbitson neatly summarizes the rationale:
“What will be the defining issue in the upcoming federal election: judging the Liberal decade, or protecting Canada from Donald Trump?
If it’s the former, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre should win that election, despite the recent Liberal surge in the polls. But if Trump is the defining issue, Mark Carney could entrench his whirlwind transformation from private citizen to Liberal prime minister.”
Last word goes to Ibbitson who asks the critical question for Canadians to consider this election: “Are the Liberals to be exonerated from their dismal record of the ‘Lost Decade’ simply because they changed leaders and are now pilfering from the Conservative platform of eliminating the consumer carbon tax, halting the capital gains tax, and other conservative initiatives?”
The answer to Ibbitson’s query is “but of course yes.” What of CCP influence? Trump. Immigration? Trump. Oil and gas and LNG exports? Trump. Housing and affordability crises? Trump! It will all be about Trump according to the Liberals’ election playbook.
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.
