.avif)
Mark Carney went to the White House this week and most of the commentary is that he did well. In my column for the Toronto Sun, I noted that Carney changed his tune from “Elbows Up” to quite literally “Thumbs Up” when he met Trump.
Gone was the tough talking rhetoric of the campaign, which I thought was foolish and counterproductive, and in was the mutual admiration society between Carney and Trump.
Carney did what he needed to do, but he also acted in the way that he warned us Pierre Poilievre would act if the Conservatives had won the election. While I can understand why he did it, still think it was the right thing to do, it’s still irksome.
The hypocrisy was rank as I discussed with the Sun’s Lorrie Goldstein and Adrienne Batra.
A few of us have pointed this hypocrisy out, including Tristin Hopper at National Post.
But most are just ignoring, or outright excusing Carney’s quick change of tune. This is what I mean by lowering the bar for Mark Carney.
Is he just being given a pass because he’s still fairly new? Is he being given a pass because he’s a Liberal and so are most of the journalists covering him? Or is this a hangover from Justin Trudeau being such an outright disaster that Carney gets a pass in comparison to Trudeau?
I have to wonder if Canada’s premiers are also giving Carney a bit of a pass because he’s simply not Trudeau.
I've spoken directly with several premiers and staffers in different provincial governments, and they all say the same thing, Carney is striking a different tone. They explain how Trudeau was lecturing, hectoring and condescending when he would meet with premiers.
Trudeau would speak at, not with the premiers and he definitely wasn’t listening. His meetings began with him explaining everything to the premiers and then sitting back smugly.
“This guy listens,” one premier said to me last week in an off the record chat.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the same thing in public comments at Queen’s Park this last week and Alberta’s Danielle Smith told me as much in an interview on Wednesday. That interview has been watched by more than 320,000 people so far with most watching the majority of the chat, which is my way of saying you should watch it as well.
But again, is Carney getting a free pass from the premiers because he’s not the obnoxious figure that is Justin Trudeau?
Carney didn’t come back from Washington with any concrete results, or even the promise of anything. All he got was a hype video produced by the White House praising Carney and Canada while Carney and the Liberals released their own sizzle reel praising Trump.
Given the most recent jobs report that I wrote about Friday, we are going to need to see action and concrete results soon. The economy is tanking, and it isn’t just Donald Trump, in fact it started before Trump.
Premiers will need to see action by the time they meet with Carney in Saskatoon in June, we the public will need to see where he plans to take the country when he rolls out his cabinet and budget later this month.
I’d say it’s plain to see that the public and the media have lowered the bar for Carney for a variety of reasons, including he is not Trudeau.
That can’t and won’t last forever.
Carney won the election, now it’s time to deliver results for Canada, not a new tone or style.
.png)
