Are the Carney Liberals different from the Trudeau Liberals, and can they keep Canada from falling apart? Although the possibility of Quebec separating is always there, the very real possibility that Western Canada will go its own way has never faced an incoming prime minister. But after a decade of the Justin Trudeau Liberals’ version of governing, it is suddenly the existential issue for Carney. Unless he can demonstrate that the Carney Liberals are not just a more sophisticated version of the Trudeau liberals who brought us to this low point, the reality of Western independence appears to be only a matter of time.There are many Westerners (and Quebecers) who have already decided that independence is the answer. Those views are entitled to respect. But — full disclosure — I am one of those Canadians, like Premier Danielle Smith, who is hopeful that Carney can find a way to keep Canada together..But, I am pessimistic that Carney is the right prime minister to keep it from fracturing.That's because so far, despite the pleasing statements Carney has been making, there doesn’t seem to be any fundamental difference between the core beliefs of the Carney Liberals and those of their predecessors — the Trudeau Liberals. Those core beliefs can best be described as progressive and globalist, and Carney has announced that he holds those beliefs. The fact that those core beliefs are not shared by most Western Canadians is what is at the heart of the Western independence movement.Examples of those fundamentally different core beliefs are the Carney Liberals’ views on net zero, immigration, indigenous reconciliation and gender. I will briefly highlight each example, relying on Eric Kaufman’s survey of Canadian attitudes..Net ZeroThe Carney Liberals, like the Trudeau Liberals before them, have a very strong bias against fossil fuels. No previous administrations in Canadian history — Liberal or Conservative — held such a belief. Every previous government has valued the oil and gas industry, and has helped the industry thrive. Not the Trudeau Liberals. They wanted the entire industry gone. No other major oil-producing nation on the planet bases its economic future on such an extreme anti-fossil fuel bias.Their reason for doing so is their conviction that the amount of CO2 emitted by the burning of fossil fuels must be drastically reduced, or eliminated entirely. Their goal is “net zero” CO2 emissions, and they are determined to structure the entire economy in the pursuit of that goal. .Carney is an avowed admirer of climate activists, like Greta Thunberg, who believe that fossil fuels should be left in the ground, no matter what the consequences are to the economy. Carney has elaborated on his commitment to achieving “net zero” in print, and in his speeches. His entire career has centred around achieving it.The Trudeau Liberals used drastic legislation, like emissions caps, carbon taxes and other anti-development laws in their pursuit of “net zero.” Carney appears set to continue those policies.A recent example of this ideological commitment in action is Carney’s agreement to build pipelines, as long as they only transport “decarbonized oil”. Besides the fact there is no such thing as “decarbonized oil,” this appeared to be a way of saying that there will be no change in the Liberals’ arbitrary limit on the amount of CO2 that is emitted into Canadian air. It seems unlikely that Carney will abandon this goal, even though the United States has rejected it, and even Western European nations that formerly enthusiastically accepted it, are realizing that it must be modified to avoid further damage to their economies..The problems with this for Canada’s fossil fuels industry are obvious. Short of someone inventing fossil fuels that emit no CO2, no amount of carbon capture or anything else will get Carney what he wants. Simply put, the emissions cap means that the amount of oil and natural gas that Western Canada produces will be strictly limited by whatever limit the government sets from time to time.And, like carbon taxes, which will now be paid indirectly and not directly by consumers, the cap can be changed by regulation. The fossil fuel industry can thus be slowly eliminated. In fact, the enthusiasm for building new pipelines that we heard from politicians during the last election campaign is already fading quickly.The Liberals’ commitment to net zero doesn’t just affect the fossil fuel industry, it affects all industries, including the vital Western agricultural industry.Western Canadians broadly support reasonable environmental legislation. They also support the introduction of new and better forms of energy. However, they don’t support the radical approach taken by climate ideologues, like the former environmental minister, Steven Guilbeault, who was eager to sacrifice economic development to achieve his net zero goal.Gwyn Morgan is of the view that if Carney would signal his willingness to work with Western Canada by agreeing to scrap, or significantly raise the Liberals’ arbitrary “emissions cap” he would be more optimistic that Canada could be kept intact.However, there is no indication that Carney is prepared to take that step. In fact, he has specifically rejected the idea.There really is no point in building more pipelines, and more oil and gas producing machinery if there is a strict, arbitrary limit on how much can be produced in any one year — carbon capture and 'decarbonized oil' — notwithstanding. Potential investors will go elsewhere.Unless Carney modifies his net zero fixation, Western alienation will only grow..ImmigrationCarney’s globalist perspective on immigration is another one of his foundational beliefs that make it unlikely that he is the person who can hold this country together. Like Trudeau, but unlike most Western Canadians, Carney behaves as though he believes that Canada is a post-national state that must welcome all comers — i.e. that it is somehow a moral failing to deny a non-Canadian permanent entry into our country.Patrick Keeney perfectly describes this globalist view: “The dominant worldview among Canada’s elites — government, universities, media, NGOs and most corporations — is liberal universalism (which can also be described as cosmopolitanism or globalism.) In this perspective, individuals are viewed as rights-bearing abstractions, essentially interchangeable with one another, unmoored from history, culture or place. Nations are mere legal constructs, and loyalty to one’s own is regarded not as a virtue but as a form of chauvinism to be overcome...”This outlook — predominant across most of the Western world — underpins the Liberals’ immigration policy, in which Canada is viewed, as Trudeau famously put it, as a “post-national state” with a duty to welcome vast numbers of newcomers.” .Keeney goes on to describe in detail how damaging the Liberals’ immigration policies — based on this globalist outcome — have been. House prices are beyond the reach of most young Canadians, while health, education and other services are collapsing under the huge load caused by excessive immigration.But the damage done to the country by poorly controlled mass immigration is more than just economic. The shocking anti-semitism we see on display on the streets of Toronto and Montreal is largely the result of allowing into the country people whose values are completely at odds with ours. They openly espouse anti-semitism, Sharia law, and other illiberal ideas. Simply put, those people — people who spurn Western values — should never have been allowed into Canada. They are not the immigrants we need.But globalists such as Carney believe stating those simple truths is racist and Islamaphobic. There is no sign that Carney is willing to change those globalist views.In sum, Carney’s views on immigration are not shared by the very people he aspires to govern. The vast majority of Eastern Canadians accept the pre-2015 immigration model — namely that controlled numbers of immigrants who are likely to be productive Canadian citizens, and accept basic Western values, should be welcomed. But the uncontrolled, mass immigration that we have now — especially the admittance of people openly hostile to Western values — must come to an end..Indigenous reconciliationAlthough Mr. Trudeau’s reconciliation policy has never been completely defined, it appears to mean never offending indigenous sensibilities, even when their chiefs are demanding unreasonable things that. A recent example is the new justice minister’s sudden reversal on his completely factual statement that indigenous people do not have a veto on natural resource development, such as pipelines.They don’t. That’s the law. The Supreme Court has said so. Neither treaties, nor UNDRIP, or the Indian Act gives indigenous people, either individually or in groups, a veto over development projects. Sean Fraser was just stating a fact when he said that they don’t have one.But the very next day, after a call from the senior chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN,) Fraser completely reversed himself and apologized profusely for telling Canadians the truth. In a word salad “explanation” he appeared to say that although they don’t have a veto, his government will act as if they have one.What the Indian bands (now commonly called First Nations) have is the right to be consulted. If that right is treated as the equivalent of a veto the harvesting of Canada’s vast treasure of natural resources will either become ruinously expensive, or not possible at all.For one thing there are 634 Indian bands in Canada. The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) position is that any Indian bands affected by a project, such as a pipeline, would have to give their consent to a project being built on either their reserve land, or their “traditional territory” — namely their former hunting grounds surrounding their reserves. In most cases different Indian bands have competing traditional territory claims, i.e. more than one Indian band claims the same territory as its traditional territory. The problems inherent in trying to sort out those competing claims, and then obtaining (buying) the consent of every one of those bands is obvious. The ten year delay in the case of Ontario’s “Ring of Fire” is only one example.And “Ring of Fire” was before UNDRIP and any new rights that Indian bands will claim under that Act. If the federal government policy is to actually give each band a veto, or something that walks and talks like a veto, it can easily be seen how this will go. Some will oppose outright, some will want to proceed, and there will be many different opinions in the middle. The entire notion of treating one ethnic or racial group in a different way than every other Canadian is treated is entirely irrational (it is called the Indian Act) but made even worse by effectively giving the approximately 2% of the Canadian population that live on reserves a veto over all Canadian development. No country can survive that..But it gets worse. We saw during the Wet’suwet’en protests that 'hereditary chiefs' tend to pop up as soon as economic opportunities arise. We also see assorted and sundry climate, environmental, national and international activists — including antifa — attaching themselves to any proposed project, supposedly on the side of indigenous people.Imagine 634 individual 'nations' then, each with its own internal factions, such as hereditary chiefs and others, all holding different views, and demanding different things. And every one of those tiny factions claiming a veto over proposed projects. It is completely unworkable.But with Sean Fraser’s apology — for just telling the truth — it appears that Carney’s indigenous policy will be no different from the Trudeau indigenous policies that brought us to this nadir. The Sean Fraser episode suggests Carney will emulate Trudeau’s policy of kowtowing to the chiefs.To be clear, treaty and other special indigenous rights must be honoured, and indigenous people are entitled to respect. It must be recognized as well that there are indigenous leaders who are pro-development, and who are prepared to work with business leaders and governments to develop projects. They want to produce wealth as well as extract it. But they are the minority. The AFN is after an effective veto to extract money from businesses and government, while producing nothing of value in return. And Trudeau didn’t dare to put them in their place. So far, there is no indication that this will change..All in all, a federal government that is committed to proceeding with projects only if there is consent from every one of these individuals and groups cannot possibly succeed in getting anything meaningful built.Unless Carney is prepared to state clearly that a duty to consult does not mean a veto there seems little chance that major projects, such as pipelines, are possible. Effectively giving that 2% a veto is not 'reconciliation;' it is economic suicide. Carney must stand up to the chiefs and say so. Another strange example of the Trudeau Liberals indigenous reconciliation policy is its refusal to deal honestly with the false Kamloops claim that priests and nuns killed and secretly buried 215 indigenous children, and forced 6 year olds to dig the graves. This bogus claim has been thoroughly debunked, but the Trudeau Liberals continued to pretend that the claim was real. So far, Carney has played along with this deception. He knows better. His father was a widely respected educator who wrote extensively about both the positives and negatives of residential school education. Mark Carney knows full well that people, like his father, did not torture and secretly bury the children they were teaching. So far, Mark Carney has followed the Trudeau policy of deliberate deception in the name of “reconciliation” by failing to repudiate this bogus claim.Most Western Canadians are not on board with many parts of the Liberals’ reconciliation policy. From being forced to sit through deceptive land acknowledgements, BC-ers watching in shock as their province is turned into a patchwork of race-based 'nations,' and pretending that bodies have been found when they haven’t, the Trudeau indigenous policy has been a massive failure. Under Trudeau, what was originally a well-intentioned plan to bring indigenous people into the mainstream and enable more of them to prosper has become just another money-making plan for opportunists. The many billions being spent are certainly enriching some, but there has been no significant improvement in the lives of the chronically dependent indigenous underclass. A reasonable reconciliation policy must be based on providing economic opportunities, and not on kowtowing and giveaways.It is too early to tell whether the Carney indigenous policy will differ from the failed policies of his predecessor. But Western Canadians will be watching.GenderThe gender issue is not a bread and butter issue, but it is important, all the same. We see Alberta and Saskatchewan passing legislation, for instance, that would ensure that parents are informed if their child is expressing a wish at school to transition. Most Western Canadians are fully on board with the idea that trans people should be respected, and should not suffer discrimination. However, they overwhelmingly do not support the placement of trans men in women’s jails, rape crisis centres, and other women’s places. They do not want trans women (i.e. men with gender dysphoria) in women’s sports. And above all, they don’t want children subjected to surgery, and drugging in the name of 'gender affirmation.'Most Western Canadians were distinctly uncomfortable with Justin Trudeau’s famous tweet that “A trans woman is a woman” and the policies, such as men in women’s jails, that the tweet entailed.But Carney has gender views that are at least as extreme as those of Trudeau — beliefs that differ radically from the views of most Western Canadians. He said:“Boys have a Charter right to become girls and girls have the right to become boys and Ottawa will defend these rights.”That is more radical that Trudeau’s position. If taken literally it means that his government will continue to have have men in women’s prisons, women’s sports, and other women only places. It will also mean that the drugging and cutting of confused children — practices that have now been discredited in the United States and most of Europe, will continue in Canada, and that the Alberta and Saskatchewan premiers who are trying to assure parents that their children will not be “transed” at their schools without them even knowing what is going on are going to have Ottawa actively working against themUnless Carney is prepared to modify those extreme views on gender there will be trouble ahead.ConclusionSo far, Carney has said many nice things about pipeline development, as well as some other items on Premier Smith’s list of demands. But every indication — so far — is that he is not prepared to make the ideological concessions absolutely required to begin to solve these massive problems. I am not at all optimistic that Carney is prepared to actually reverse course on his long-held views, such as his fixation on 'net zero' — especially so, when most Eastern Canadians think that the very real prospect of Western independence is just “Western whining”.But I worry it is not just the case of a man having ideas that conflict with those of most Western Canadians... that it goes deeper than that. Carney is a very intelligent man, and he has an amazing ability to tell two opposing groups exactly what they want to hear, while committing himself to nothing. And, because of his formidable skills at obfuscation, it is not completely clear what he wants Canada to be.He is perfectly aware, for instance, that the less energy available to a nation, the poorer it becomes. In a nation where people had to depend on energy sources of less density, such as solar and wind, fewer citizens could afford to drive vehicles, take vacations, or buy the things they want. A look at any third world country tells him that. But the emissions cap, and the Liberals’ war on fossil fuels, means less energy. Does he want a Canada where people are poorer, and more reliant on the government — his government?He knows that mass immigration destroys the soul of a country. A look at France, Britain, Sweden, or any of the other Western European nations makes that clear. And allowing people who hate everything about the West to live here is perhaps the worst idea the Liberals have ever come up with.He understands perfectly well that granting a veto over resource development to the 2% of the Canadian population that live on reserves in the name of reconciliation is quite insane.He knows that transferring parenting responsibilities to school teachers, social workers, 'affirmative care practitioners,' and others will undermine the nuclear family.But he seems intent on doing all of these things. Why? Is it his intention to turn Canada into a globalist’s vision of a Utopia? If so, that would be most Westerners’ vision of Hell.Premier Danielle Smith is currently sounding an optimistic note about working with Carney. She tells Juno’s Candice Malcolm that he is easier to work with than Trudeau, and that he appears to be open to pipelines, mining, and other resource development projects. At the same time, Smith has given Carney six months to demonstrate that he is not just talk.So, are the Carney Liberals different from the Trudeau Liberals?I guess in the next six months we will find out.Brian Giesbrecht is a retired judge and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
