This is the second of a three-part series and focuses on Mark Carney's policies. The first article, dealing with his character and values, can be read below
We now know the significant planks of Carney’s policy framework, including his demonstrated values in recent leadership positions. Troubling, and perhaps difficult for many voters, is that the announced Liberal policy framework is inconsistent with his life, past responsibilities to date, and the previous decade of Liberals in power.
Has he had an epiphany?
Not likely, but Carney has cleverly repositioned the Liberal Party by co-opting already announced Conservative policies such as making Canada “an energy superpower,” pretending to eliminate the consumer carbon tax by making it invisible, getting tougher on crime, tax reductions, strategic immigration policies, and “one-stop regulatory approval”.
But his longtime passion to reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere remains. It was so as Governor of the Bank of England, when he actively lobbied against Brexit, so that Great Britain could remain under the European Union's thumb. The EU, of course, is one of the most over-governed and under-performing regions in the world, with a fixation on the climate crisis narrative.
Carney has been for a long-time a Director of the World Economic Forum (WEF,) an aggregation of self-appointed global elites with a progressive agenda, which has a formal agreement with the UN to reach the climate goals of the Paris Accord in 2015. After his years as Bank of England Governor, he became a Special Envoy of the United Nations for Climate Action and Finance. He also headed up the United Nation’s Glasgow COP 26, which pledged action and financing, including promised $100 billion to developing countries.
Carney’s further role, until he decided to be our Prime Minister, was as founder and co-leader of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. (GFANZ.)
Its purpose is to limit financial and institutional lending to the energy sector. Most US big banks and the six largest Canadian banks joined this initiative. Consistent with the growing realization that Net Zero is both unrealistic and undesirable, GFANZ is unravelling and the six Canadian and most American banks have withdrawn.
Carney has resigned from all these global institutions, and stepped back from his role as Chairman of Brookfield Investments. Longing to be prime minister of Canada, he has downplayed his intention of continuing the Trudeau folly of Canadian climate crisis leadership is misleading.
(That is why Part I of this series, revealing his ambition and character flaws, is so important for voters to understand.)
After the Trump tariff announcement and the obvious fact that Canadian oil primarily shipped by pipeline to the US is now at risk, one Liberal cabinet minister after another suddenly identified the need for oil pipelines to tidewater.
Even the problematic Energy East project is receiving further consideration. But Carney has been vague about what energy superpower means, saying “we'll see,” regarding oil pipelines, displaying his disingenuous proclivities.
We all know what those weasel words really mean — a “CLEAN energy superpower. By definition they exclude Canada’s most important export and largest source of foreign exchange — oil. He has pledged an electricity corridor with no reference to Canada's most significant comparative and competitive advantage, our extensive oil and natural gas resources.
Dare I say moving electricity across the country is an expensive ‘pipe dream?’ While Manitoba and British Columbia are blessed with moving water and dams in place, the prairies require coal or natural gas for dependable electricity supply. Most of Ontario has neither.
Everyone knows the importance of Canada’s world leading energy sector, the fourth largest oil and the fifth largest natural gas producer in the world (rated even higher, for reserves in the ground.) The only significant change on the Liberal team is Carney with still the same Trudeau anti-oil ideologues such as Wilkinson, Freeland, Champagne, Fraser, Guilbeault, Joli, LeBlanc and others.
Carney is much smarter than Trudeau, but what else has changed?
Illustrating his big-government approach is the Carney policy taking us back to World War II. The federal government's election policy is to build homes, hoping to mitigate the crisis it created. Home building is primarily local or regional and seldom conducive to large national or international companies.
I reached out and learned from successful Calgary builder Jay Westman, that building homes is “labour intensive,” requiring timely availability of many specialized sub-trades. Successful outcomes depend on the local entrepreneurs who must show up when needed and “perform services reliably, quickly, and cost effectively.”
Who in Canada would argue, other than of course the postal union, that the federal government should first show Canadians an ability to deliver the mail (a ridiculous shortcoming that is demonstrated regularly) before considering home building, which the market demonstrates is a local enterprise? Ottawa’s Crown Agency, a federal agency overseeing surplus land, helped launch just a pitiful 13,000 homes over almost a decade.
By contrast, Poilievre understands the need to reduce regulation, both the number of steps and the time frame, get out of the way, and allow the myriad of entrepreneurs to build. No subsidy, nor Mark Carney's command and control is necessary, or desirable.
Remember Canada's decline during the Pierre Trudeau years and the lengthy, challenging, and painful reform that took Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, and Paul Martin leadership decades to remedy.
A Carney election increases the likelihood Canada's economic performance will continue to decline in absolute and comparative terms.
Decline is a decision for voters.
In Part Three tomorrow, the devastation of potential Carney values and leadership is further identified, and the warnings of others as to this unnecessary risk for Canadians.
