Tammy Nemeth is an energy analyst based in the UK.In a previous piece on Mark Carney's approach to power, I introduced the concept of Exemptocracy: a system in which rules bend, exemptions multiply, and discretionary power flows according to political loyalty rather than transparent criteria, the public interest, or economic merit. It is governance by favour and punishment, dressed up in the language of pragmatism and urgency.Two recent episodes confirm this pattern with striking clarity. One involves a sitting MP whose riding saw funding slashed until she crossed the floor. The other features the Prime Minister openly telling a provincial premier that federal enthusiasm for major projects depends on getting with the program on an unrelated priority. These are not anomalies of politics-as-usual. They are textbook illustrations of Exemptocracy in action.What makes these examples powerful is their brazen directness. In both cases, senior figures in the Carney Liberal government linked the flow of federal resources to alignment with the governing party's agenda. There was no elaborate pretence of arm's-length decision-making — just a clear message: play ball or watch the tap run dry.In a recent podcast appearance, former Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu (now sitting as a Liberal) described how federal funding for projects in her Sarnia-Lambton riding was cut by more than half. She approached Minister Evan Solomon on what she called a "begging mission" to restore it. His response was blunt: the funding would flow more readily if she crossed the floor. She recounted the exchange with a mix of surprise and eventual acceptance, framing it as part of her decision to switch parties..This is not a normal constituent service. It is the explicit politicization of regional economic development funding. Canadians are told the federal government behaves with “fairness” and “equity,” but the reality does not match the narrative. When ministers treat taxpayer dollars as leverage for floor-crossing, they transform representative democracy into a patronage machine. The implications go beyond one riding; they signal to every MP, provincial leader, business, and local stakeholder that access to Ottawa and favourable consideration of projects depends on demonstrated loyalty to the Liberal Party. Merit, need, and prior commitments take a back seat to partisan arithmetic.This pattern of loyalty-driven deal-making extends beyond individual MPs to leaders of provinces. The November 2025 Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding, and its May 2026 Implementation Agreement, saw Alberta agree to stronger carbon pricing, major investments in carbon capture and storage (CCS), and closer alignment with Ottawa's net-zero 2050 targets, in exchange for federal support for a new oil pipeline to the BC coast. Speaking at the Vancouver Board of Trade before meeting Premier Eby, whose NDP has fought Alberta oil pipelines since 2012, Carney delivered a pointed warning: "If things get stalled [in BC], we're going to be spending more time elsewhere in the country because we need to move forward." This was not a vague comment; it was a veiled threat: federal prioritization would shift based on provincial cooperation on the pipeline.This is Exemptocracy applied intergovernmentally. Federal project approvals become bargaining chips in unrelated policy disputes. Provinces are pressured to align on one file to avoid delays on others. The "national interest" is increasingly redefined as whatever aligns with the Prime Minister's Office's prevailing priorities at any given moment — mutable, capricious, and untethered from Canada's long-term economic security. Canadians are being conditioned to accept that the “national interest” simply means whatever Mark Carney and the current Liberal Cabinet view as their priorities today..Some will shrug: this is just hardball politics. Every party rewards allies and pressures holdouts. Why clutch pearls over political reality?But that blasé attitude misses the danger. What separates routine partisanship from Exemptocracy is the open systematization and normalization of transactional governance. When a Prime Minister explicitly ties funding and project queues to loyalty tests, he doesn't just play the game harder — he rewrites the rules so the game itself is rigged by design. Over time, this doesn't just breed cynicism; it crowds out competence, deters investment, and teaches communities that their economic fate depends less on merit than on keeping the right people happy.This approach undermines Canadian federalism, which is supposed to operate with predictable criteria, fair competitive processes, and insulation from day-to-day partisan warfare. But this is eroding quickly; decisions are becoming arbitrary, leading to investment uncertainty, and when legitimate priorities can be deprioritized for failing partisan loyalty tests, there is a collapse in public trust. Discretionary power concentrated in the executive is always tempting for those who hold it. But Canadians deserve better than the transactional patronage of the Exemptocracy. Mark Carney's system flows from a theory of power that views rules as obstacles and supplicative loyalty as the highest virtue. One has to wonder whether Premier Danielle Smith's appeasement — mandatory carbon capture storage for oil sands companies — is a reasonable trade-off, or whether, as Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, Carney will simply alter the deal whenever his next whim demands it.Tammy Nemeth is an energy analyst based in the UK.
