Mavros Whissell is a Sudbury-based geologist and land technicianThe newly implemented US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), now headed solely by Elon Musk, is rattling the cages of leftists everywhere. The very idea of moving “backward” to unfettered post-industrial capitalism terrifies the progressive mind. Deregulation shifts focus away from stakeholders, ESG metrics, and the woke ideology..In contrast, such self-perpetuating WEF claptrap will indubitably be exacerbated if Mark Carney is ever elected as prime minister of Canada. For although both Carney and Musk are technocrats, they’re of entirely different minds.True, both have similar problems to solve. More than the United States’ steady increase of federal employees since 2000, Canada’s federal bureaucracy has ballooned since 2015. We’re going the way of the Titanic if Trump doesn’t snap the Liberals into more of what they should’ve started 10 years ago.Or we could finally get an election and save ourselves.Can a technocrat help us?In general, technocrats cut the fat by replacing bureaucrats with their less numerous and more efficient technocrat brethren. Economists, policy analysts, data scientists (nerds in general) get your resumes ready. For lawyers and humanities majors — for many administrators — there’s bad news coming.You’re redundant.Carney is an older, more predictable technocrat, much like the central banker Lucas Papademos, who took over as Greek PM during their debt crisis. Papademos had to implement severe austerity measures in order to secure a bailout from the European Union.Under a Carney government, Canada can expect austerity measures combined with a hitherto unsuccessful net zero policy. Although several banks are already putting a stop to Carney’s UN-backed agenda, he will likely continue to try and “optimize” toward an energy-sustainable future if elected PM. To achieve this utopia, he will tax and regulate the life out of Canadians.Carney is ready to bury Canada in a net zero agenda, austerity measures and, by whatever name it hides under, the carbon tax.He implied the federal public service would not escape his reach either: “While he hasn’t said where this cap [to the size of public service] would be set or how much he would reduce spending, Carney told a press conference on Wednesday he would review program budgets and use new technology like artificial intelligence to improve efficiency.”That’s the DOGE’s purpose, isn’t it? “Modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity”. While carney’s toying with an agenda many in the US clearly despise, somebody had better warn Canadians what’s coming.Elon Musk, on the other hand, is little like Carney.What Musk has done that really sets him apart is to embrace free speech.You can call it populist if you like, but technocrats don’t do populism. Think of free speech as an attempt to overcome the most serious flaw in the technocracy regime type — technocratic depoliticization. Technocracies around the world (Singapore most strikingly) are notoriously undemocratic, and exclude people and politicians from decision making.Mark Carney, who has revealed little interest in free speech, is going to exacerbate the separation between everyday Canadians and the elite if we allow him to.An example of this would be if the Liberals resurrect Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, which is an awful lot like Singapore’s 2019 Protections from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act. Singapore’s legislation requires social media platforms to remove or correct content deemed false by the state. It’s censorship under the guise of preventing harm.Unlike Singapore’s technocracy, Musk may have found a way to be a good technocrat — good for the people. Through DOGE, he’s preferentially targeted DEI bureaucracy early on, which has accounted for over $1B USD in taxpayer savings so far.Carney isn’t going to cut the woke.Mark Carney has been skulking behind the Liberal Party of Canada for years now as an economic advisor. Together, they imposed “solutions” during the coronavirus pandemic like quantitative easing, the inflationary effects of which we’re still experiencing (the BOC denies this). He’s been busy helping Trudeau make the bad decisions that got us here in the first place.Even If you wish for the government cuts that Carney is flirting with, you must remember, he will use technology to replace bureaucracy. That’s his mandate. He will cut people but not regulations. The result will be increased automation of government services, but with more regulation than ever before. In a word: dehumanizing.Mavros Whissell is a Sudbury-based geologist and land technician.
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