Commentary
With Mark Carney overwhelmingly elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, he will shortly confirm that it is a convention, not a law, that a minister of the Crown must be a member of the legislature. And, I trust, confirm that it is a binding convention, even if the Toronto Star says “Questions loom on whether Carney will trigger an early election,” by asking the Governor General to dissolve Parliament for a campaign that could go one of two ways. No, I don’t mean Tory or Liberal, though polls strongly suggest one or the other is certain unless something else happens. I’m thinking instead of whether it will be positive or negative.
Which again could be taken in one of two ways. But as I am not currently confined to a public institution for my own protection, I’m not asking whether the candidates will take the high road, ditching personal attacks for substantive contributions to problem-solving. Instead, I’m wondering whether the main contenders will focus between blows on what government should stop doing rather than what else it should undertake.
Here let me quote a line from the National Post’s Chris Selley last summer that remains pertinent mutato mutando, about how the contenders make it sound calamitous if the other side wins: “Trouble is, we’re on a dead reckoning toward an election that will be about whether it’s Justin Trudeau or Pierre Poilievre who will destroy Canada and leave it a charred ruin full of irradiated zombie mutants. And that really, really isn’t the election we need.”
Indeed, it is not. So I note, only to brush it aside, that in his Liberal leadership victory speech on March 9, Carney said Poilievre “worships at the altar of Donald Trump,” and the latter fired back, “Mark Carney Is Just Like Justin.” It could be a long short campaign. But let us not despair prematurely.
As always, we the voters determine what tone is adopted by what we tolerate, or worse celebrate, in our guy or gal. So suppose instead, with our encouragement, the candidates let themselves be distracted into a discussion of what the proper role of government is and, given that role, what adjustments in its current program, specific policies, and ambitions might be in order. Including reductions, given how big, expensive, indebted, and dysfunctional it is.
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I do not of course expect them, in response, to produce the minimalist platform on which I myself would campaign catastrophically. Although as the Conservatives are, one would suppose, Conservative, and Poilievre himself has long espoused libertarian ideas, having been propelled into public affairs by the writings of Milton Friedman, it would not be effrontery for them to propose a few concrete measures that are libertarian, conservative, or both.
As for Carney, whose expertise lies in international finance, which implies some grasp of economics, in his victory speech he also said, “I’m a pragmatist above all.” Yes, it’s what they all say, from Tony Blair to Richard Nixon, and an unkind commentator might call it a synonym for “unprincipled.” But instead, let us take him at his word and hope we do not feel foolish in the morning.
After all, the Liberal Party has long regarded itself as the “radical centre” in Canadian politics, combining NDP compassion with Tory common sense. And it didn’t matter that those other parties didn’t agree with the formulation, because it worked anyway. So now it only matters whether Carney does.
If so, and remember that in his speech he also pledged to “‘immediately eliminate the divisive consumer carbon tax” and “stop the hike in the capital gains tax,” there’s no particular reason he wouldn’t suggest that in some areas the government was trying to do too much, or the wrong way, and promise to stop. Or even insist that, given the need to free up money for defence and reinvigorate the economy in the face of Trump’s tariffs, reining in rather than unleashing Leviathan was currently the main task.
Here I could repeat that responding to Trump’s economic blundering with “retaliatory” tariffs is the sort of thing anyone who actually understood economics would immediately reject. But alas, Carney says, “My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect,” which may take time, while Poilievre is all RAHR! on that one.
Undaunted, I note that I’ve received a hundred press releases in the last week, literally, announcing or re-announcing federal spending initiatives big or small. So the lure of shiny vote-buying baubles is still clearly powerful. But surely in there a “pragmatist” can find something to reverse, as they would presumably detect at least one model of firearm banned in error and undo it. As one assumes, a libertarian can.
So instead of juvenile cheap shots, a bit of “government shouldn’t be doing this” or “not that way” or “not right now” would make for a lovely negative campaign.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
