10 December 2024
For what feels like forever now, voices from the moderate Left have sung in chorus the high praise of their future saviour Mark Carney. The former Governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England is seen as the level-headed moderate with serious economic credentials that will drag the Liberal party out of the, heavy on symbols low on substance, Trudeau funk. It’s Carney, they sing, that will take the Liberals back to the centre to once again claim it’s ‘rightful’ place as the fiscally responsible, progressive default governing party of Canada.
As if to demonstrate my point, David Herle on “The Curse of Politics” podcast just called out Carney pleading with him to get ready and run because Trudeau is on the way out and “These polling numbers are beyond bad. They’re beyond anything you can imagine.” Quite frankly I think Herle is off his rocker if he thinks Carney is the solution.
The problem is that all Carney’s (extremely impressive) experience, respectfully, means jack to politics. I don’t like saying that, its a condemnation of Canadian politics. I despise this situation and believe a lack of qualified honest-to-God leaders is the biggest problem facing the West. I wish this were not the case, but nonetheless… running a central bank, even two, and being immensely qualified on paper, as Carney no doubt is, really is irrelevant if you don’t have the political instincts needed to navigate the mire that is Ottawa.
I think Carney has already proven he lacks those requisite political instincts by lending Trudeau his name as an economic advisor. He tethered himself to a sinking ship. If Carney had the sense to read the landscape at all he would have steered well clear of Trudeau except to criticise him.
My view is that Carney would have to wait and put a leader and election cycle between himself and Trudeau. If Carney does step in immediately after Trudeau he will win the leadership bid easily, but that’s where the troubles start. He’s going to face a fresh Tory Government with politically and legislatively experienced members riding high in the polls while trying to find his sea legs politically. He is going to be doing this while also trying to make a name as an opposition leader. Doing that in the House is something very different than anything Carney has ever done before.
Creating this distance will presumably be done by trying to distancing the Liberals from Trudeau, which of course he would have to do anyway to have any hope of a future. The problem is his bench will be what’s left of Trudeau’s team. Tainted with the Trudeau stank and wildly unpopular. On top of that anyone from that era who gets on the Carney messaging train will look two-faced. As Carney tries to move away from Trudeau era ‘values’ and reform the party he will be doing so with a team that will most likely still feel rather committed to those ‘values’ and the ‘polices’ it barfed up all over itself.
If this was not enough to create internal problems for Carney, Trudeau has also created the expectation that, in addition to the ‘Liberal tradition’ of ‘taking turns’ between anglophone and francophone, the Liberals are going to alternate between male and female leaders. There are a lot of folks (particularly on the Liberal bench) who expect the next leader to be a woman. If Carney swoops in from the outside to snatch it from Freeland, Joly, Ananad et al there is going to be a lot of resentment. That’s not going to be a fun team to try and lean on as Carney seeks to find his footing. One or two might even try and sabotage Carney for their own gain.
If Carney steps in he is most likely going to end up fighting a war for survival against the NDP on ideological grounds, on a Tory battlefield, while putting down a rebellion at home, all while trying to find his sea legs. That’s a recipe for failure. He will also go into his first election with no election experience and a much smaller team, facing a one-term incumbent Tory government that will likely still be riding high in polls, and crush him. This will be especially true if the economy rebounds at all and there is even minimal improvement for Canadians on the cost-of-living front.
If Carney has any sense at all he will realise that he is better off letting a disaster like Joly or someone else have the job and just sit back for a term while what’s left of the Trudeau team purges itself through its own incompetence. The forest fire principle must be honoured, until the old is cleared away the growth of the new cant occur.
The problem is I suspect Carney’s own credentials and success will leave him open to being seduced by the Party into being Trudeau’s successor. The Liberals are truly desperate to find a saviour figure to replace Trudeau and Carney is a dream-come-true. I have no doubt that their charm offensive will be hard to resist.
Frankly, Carney would be utterly insane to step up, and he probably will, which will only prove his lack of political sense (that I already suspect is his problem) and that will be the end of him. I hope I am wrong, not for the Liberal Party’s sake, but for what Carney’s ascendancy might do for Canadian politics more generally.
Feature Photo: Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada. World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland. January 2010. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
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