Oh, Canada
You don’t have to be a political junkie to have followed the erratic path of government in Canada over the last six months or so. A Liberal Prime Minister leading a minority government propped up by an agreement with the lefty NDP party. Continuously falling approval ratings for both the Liberal party and its leader, who made no effort to change course or to indicate any willingness to consider stepping down until his ill-advised shitty treatment of his Finance Minister, followed by her resignation from Cabinet, led to his finally indicating that he would, indeed, resign once the Liberals had chosen a new Leader.
And, of course, during the last few months of this political soap opera came the inauguration of DJT as US President, his tariffs, and ‘the 51st state’. It was hard to see anything good in the way Canada was being governed during all that, but then –The Resurrection. Mark Carney, the former double-central-banker, was chosen as the new Liberal leader, with some 80% of all votes cast, then installed as the new PM, and then won a minority-almost-majority government in the April 28 federal election. A party whose approval ratings had fallen into the 20% range by the end of 2024 found itself forming a government again.
I spent more time than usual deciding for whom to vote in that election. I even watched the one English leader’s debate on TV, and I hate watching debates. In the end I voted for the Conservative candidate in my riding, who lost to the long-serving Liberal candidate. I did this despite my misgivings about the Conservative Leader, because I simply could not check a box that said – the last decade of Liberal Party rule was ok. It was not, it was an epic disaster for Canada in too many ways, and so I used my tiny voice to say that. Retrospective voting, that’s called. Or, in Canadian language, ‘Throw the bastards out, eh?’
The new Liberal government has been in power less than a month, and Parliament has only just started meeting again, with King Charles giving the traditional throne speech just yesterday. People who I respect voted Liberal, I know, with a hope that Carney’s version of the Liberal party would be a big improvement over the King Justin version, and I can see that point of view. Carney is not, to be sure, a lifetime politician, and I can see the appeal in that. Indeed, now that we have what we have for a government, I am hopeful that positive view of this new government turns out to be largely correct.
However, I am writing to say that the early signs seem to me to be less than auspicious.
To be sure, in Carney’s meeting with Trump he was the adult in the room, he made it clear that Canada had zero interest in becoming the USA’s Area 51, and left with his dignity intact. I doubt Poilievre would have done better and have no doubt Trudeau would have done worse. But, all the US tariffs are still in place, as are our own retaliatory ones, and I still can’t buy Bourbon, while the US and EU are bargaining on a new trade deal. The bible says ‘by your fruits shall you know them’, and I see no fruit yet. I know – patience, Al, it’s early days.
When Carney first became Liberal leader and PM after the Liberal leadership vote, he appointed what was clearly an interim cabinet that was encouragingly stripped down from the bloated monstrosity of a cabinet that Trudeau had built up to mostly do nothing but his bidding. A good sign, but once the Liberals were in government after the federal election, Carney introduced a new Cabinet, now consisting of 28 Ministers and another 10 secretaries of state….whatever those are. Worse, the Ministry of Silly Names has returned, as we have a Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations along with a Minister of Indigenous Services – I would love to be a fly on the wall during their get-togethers. There is also a Minister of International Trade, but another Minister responsible for Canada-US trade, which I guess is not considered international. That second Minister is also responsible for intergovernmental affairs and – I’m not making this up, it’s right on the Cabinet website – ‘One Canadian Economy’.
No, I don’t know what that means, either.
And don’t get into the Secretaries of State. One is responsible for ‘Combatting Crime’ (really, that’s what it says), which one might think was in the portfolio of the Attorney General. There is even a Secretary of State (Sport). Go, Oilers!!
So, we are back to Cabinet and other positions being used as a means of rewarding good Liberal Members of Parliament. The Times Literary Supplement some years back suggested a ‘All Must Have Prizes’ Literary prize, to be awarded only to books that had not won any of the rapidly-multiplying number of other literary prizes. We now have ‘All Must Have Ministries’ ministries in the Canadian Parliament, with Secretaries of State positions serving as consolation prizes. At this rate, if the Liberal government is in power in two years nearly all Liberal MPs will be Ministers or Secretaries.
However, the darkest cloud on the horizon in my view is what happened on Sunday May 25, when the caucus of Liberal MPs voted to not give themselves the right to call for a review (and possible replacement) of the Liberal leader if 20% of the caucus indicated that such should happen. It is a matter of law that at the start of each Parliamentary session each party holds this vote. The Conservatives did, and voted to give their caucus, almost as large as the Liberals’, that very right.
Now, I do not know if this vote occurred under a secret ballot. I would hope so, but no source I have checked mentions it. If it was a voice vote, it is easier to see how it happened, and to blame it on Mr. Carney. He still has the authority to sign the nomination papers for anyone who wants to run for Parliament as a Liberal in any riding in the next Canadian federal election. I can see how Liberal party MPs might not want to say out loud that they want the right to remove their leader, given that. It does not impress me at all if that is what happened, but I can understand it.
On the other hand, if this vote outcome is from a secret ballot, then I can only say – Woe is Canada. We will again have a Parliament of sheep, following their Leader into whatever quagmire he chooses. A majority of Liberal Parliamentarians simply do not want to be responsible for what happens.
The Globe has a pretty good editorial in it today about this very vote, and one apt quote from that article is this:
“One might think the Liberals would have learned the lesson of 2024, namely that the country’s interests must be put above those of the party – or at least, that the party’s interests must be put above those of any one person. One might think that, but one would be wrong.”
The editorial also quotes one Liberal MP as saying that Mr. Carney is “by far the greatest leader that we’ve seen since Lester B. Pearson,”.
I suppose it is a necessity for those in politics to be able to utter such words with a straight face. As the GM editorial board points out, it would have been easy to find Liberal MPs with the same view of Justin Trudeau back in 2015.
I will continue to hope that this Liberal government will be less destructive to Canada, and that it proves able to navigate well the choppy seas that are surely to come. But one month in, I do not regret my vote for the Conservative candidate in my riding.