Ginny Roth: The many faces of Mark Carney

Is Mark Carney pro or anti-Israel? Does he support a cap on emissions, or would he reverse the government’s…sorry…his government’s position on it? Does he think Canada needs an east-west pipeline or does he think there isn’t a business case for one? Does it depend on whether he’s speaking in English or attempting to speak in French?

There are very specific issues. Maybe I’m just nit-picking. But come to think of it, I also have some more thematic questions.

Does Carney think Canada can and should achieve net zero emissions by 2050? What does he think we need to sacrifice to get there? Now that he claims to have moved on from the “divisive” consumer carbon tax, which Canadians will need to pay to achieve his ends? How?

If he doesn’t still believe in net zero, when did he change his mind? Was it during his mission to convince business and political leaders around the world that “every financial decision” must take “climate change into account”? Can’t have been. That would have made the book tour a little awkward.

Was it when he was entertaining running for Trudeau’s famously pro-consumer carbon tax Liberals? Was it when he was giving them economic advice? Was it before major banks ran away from his Net-Zero Banking Alliance, or was it afterward?

If Carney isn’t a supporter of Israel, what kind of foreign policy would he promote? Perhaps most pressingly, how does he think about the president? Is Trump someone to be yelled at and belittled? Negotiated with? What about regular Americans? Are they our friends—generally good people we want to trade with? Or do they want to “destroy our way of life”? Let’s say we’re really done with the U.S.…OK! Will free trade deals with European countries replace the GDP lost from trade with the U.S.? What makes him think he’ll be able to get better deals with the Europeans? Has he decided he’s the only Canadian politician willing to give up supply management? I must have missed that announcement.

Now to economic policy. Carney’s been a central banker. It’s his calling card. Finance has got to be his sweet spot. With the pivot-to-the-centre and the (newfound) consensus around runaway government spending causing inflation, he’s got to be squarely for lower spending and smaller government, right? Well, depends on the day. On the one hand, Carney says he wants government to “spend less and invest more.” On the other hand, “invest more” sounds like another way of saying spend more. So, that’s confusing. And so far, while Carney hasn’t said what spending he’d reduce, he has listed all kinds of programs he’d continue to fund. So, clarity on this one later, I guess.

Given all these inconsistencies, Canadians can be forgiven for thinking Carney’s a bit of a weathervane. But maybe we should give the guy some grace. People change their minds! People evolve. One minute you’re proclaiming yourself part of Greta Thunberg’s “social movement,” and the next you’re grabbing a shovel to dig for “conventional” energy pipelines. Life comes at you fast. Still can’t say the words oil or gas though, can he? Maybe next week.

Now that I’m thinking about policy areas—what with a likely federal election only weeks away—it seems to me there is some terrain that’s not rife with contradiction (sorry, transformation). The only problem is the lack of irregularity seems to be more a matter of…silence.

Perhaps Carney just hasn’t had the time to get around to announcing major areas of policy priority. He’s got smart people around him, he can’t think social policy isn’t important. No doubt, he’s been brief on the rise in violent crime, the increase in homelessness and tent cities, drug overdoses, and urban squalor. Maybe we should interpret his silence to mean he’s moved on from the excesses of his party’s experimental drug and crime policy. But does that seem plausible at a time when Canada’s Liberal Party has moved so far to the Left it’s reduced the NDP to almost single-digit polling territory?

How can someone who chose a Zionist for a chief of staff, who decided the climate crisis is temporarily on pause, and who’s avoiding unpopular left-wing social policy like the plague possibly hold all those progressives in his voting coalition?

Speaking of progressives, it’s been reported that Carney and Singh’s New Democrats aren’t talking. Fair enough. But is it honest for Carney to imply to Canadians that a vote for him will be a vote for an old-fashioned business Liberal when anything less than a majority of seats would surely mean another round of attempted cooperation with the remaining left-wing rump of an NDP caucus?

Carney doesn’t just want to have it both ways, he wants to have it six ways to Sunday. And I’m betting the Canadian electorate won’t let him. Will the media push Carney to speak up on the issues he’s been silent on and clarify the ones he’s been slippery on? Why, for instance, has no one thought to ask the Catholic Carney where he stands on pro-life issues, just as they relentlessly hounded Andrew Scheer on the issue? Apart from a few notable exceptions, I won’t hold my breath. But I don’t think they’ll have to. Canadians aren’t dumb.

And neither is Pierre Poilievre, a guy Carney will have to confront on debate stages in French and English and spar with in dueling press conferences day in and day out on the campaign trail. Poilievre isn’t just a strong debater and a vicious prosecutor, he’s spent thirty years building a brand for being principled and consistent, a posture that will throw Carney’s chameleon act into stark relief.

Liberals are licking their chops at the prospect of slipping one past the goalie, hoping Trump will distract Canadian voters enough that they pull off another victory. But in the face of uncertainty, consistency and predictability win—and Carney’s positions have been anything but.