‘A warmup’: The Hub’s political insiders on what to watch for as Parliament returns

After a long, eventful delay, MPs are getting ready to wipe the dust off their desks, find their green seats, and get back to business in the House of Commons. A lot has changed since Parliament was last in session, with a lengthy prorogation, a Liberal leadership race, a tariff war, and, oh yeah, a federal election.

How will Canada’s new prime minister fare under the bright lights of question period? Will there be any standout stars in cabinet or the Opposition benches? And what can we expect from this (admittedly short) parliamentary session? We’ve gathered a handful of The Hub’s political experts and insiders to break it all down.

The traps awaiting Prime Minister Carney

By Howard Anglin, former deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Principal Secretary to Premier Jason Kenney.

Mark Carney has been prime minister for more than two months; now he’s finally a parliamentarian. Prime ministers typically prefer to float at a statesman-like altitude above Parliament, but in every previous case, Canadian prime ministers have ascended to that higher plane from the bear pit of the House or the Senate. When they re-entered the lists for question period, they did so as assured veterans.

Carney, by contrast, is new to the hurly-burly of Commons. Does this matter? Maybe not. Parliament is still the heart of our Constitution, but it’s increasingly irrelevant in the national political conversation. And perhaps the schoolmarmish talking heads in the media are right that people want a leader who is above petty parliamentary mischief. But that’s not an attitude I’d advise Carney to take.

The genius of our Constitution is that, unlike a presidential system, our chief executive is also an ordinary member of the legislature, where he is held to account by the rest of the people’s representatives. It can be uncomfortable and demeaning, but that’s by design. If a prime minister acts like he’s above it, he risks giving the impression that he is above accountability—and above the people.

Arrogance is the Achilles heel of Liberal politicians, and Carney seems unusually susceptible to the flaw. During the campaign and since, he’s shown a Coriolanian discomfort with the mundane work of domestic politicking and a preference for presidential-style photo ops and the global stage. If he appears too good for Parliament, he will be playing to this weakness.

My guess is he won’t fall into this trap and that he’ll enjoy the cut-and-thrust of the Commons as a chance to show everyone he’s the smartest guy in the room. That is the other trap.

For better or worse, Carney is taking sole responsibility

By Scott Reid, principal and co-founder of Feschuk.Reid and former communications director for Prime Minister Paul Martin

Not with a whimper. Not with a bang. But with a twist.

That’s how the end came for Canada’s recent tradition of publicly posted ministerial mandate letters. Under Trudeau, the letters had become something of a show-horse burden, crammed with cut-and-paste hunks of boilerplate. It seems Mark Carney had little patience for the hand-cramping tedium of writing to his ministers with advice columnist homilies. Which is largely a welcome development.

However, instead of ending this convention with no letters whatsoever, Carney opted to retain and release one last communication. One mandate letter to rule them all, with seven clearly expressed priorities for the government as a whole.

It was an intriguing choice. Not just because it felt like a stunty bit of marketing to end what had become a tired marketing practice, but because of the message that was sent. The emphasis was on the sole letter. On the sole minister. On the prime minister.

That may not be surprising since the singular offering of Carney propelled the Liberals’ electoral revival. But now that the campaign is over, one wonders whether this exaggerated reliance on the prime minister—and the prime minister alone—is prudent.

When the finance minister flubs talk of the first budget, it falls to the prime minister to clean it up. When the issue of pipelines and energy infrastructure is blurred by his Quebec lieutenant, it is Carney who must make things clear. For now, the boss seems like he might be the only one worth listening for.

Which takes us back to the ministerial mandate letters. No one really cares about their fate. But if the message in releasing only one letter is that there is really only one minister, that will start to wear. On Canadians. And on Carney. Even the strongest leaders must be able to count on their ministers to help carry the heavy load of government.

Put this in writing: Careny can’t be expected to do it all on his own.

Don’t overreact, Conservatives—this is just the warmup

By Ben Woodfinden, former director of communications for Pierre Poilievre

The next election is likely not for at least a few years, which, if you’ve spent the last few years in Opposition and until a few months ago it looked like you were headed for government, is daunting. But based on the first few weeks of the Carney government, the Conservatives should be feeling relatively optimistic about their chances next time to seal the deal.

The desire for change will remain strong, and Carney is already looking very much like a continuation of the Trudeau era in most regards. His ability to deliver on change and reform, which is not what much of his coalition voter for, is going to be limited by the Trudeau/Ottawa blob that he has become the head of and already appears to be getting absorbed by.

One thing I’d watch for, and a piece of advice I’d give to the Opposition, especially, is that no one should overreact to how this mini parliamentary session goes. It’s short, both the government and Opposition are still very much in the process of building/rebuilding their teams, and three years from now, or whenever the next election is, no one will remember this small session at all. What we’re engaged in now is a long marathon to the next election, not a sprint. Endurance will be key.

Given how fast the world seems to move now, I expect the fall session in a few months will look quite different. The world will have changed, the madness with the Trump administration may die down, the expectations for a bold Liberal budget will grow, and the shadow team the Conservatives put forward will likely look quite different.

I view this session as a bit of a warmup before the show itself arrives in the fall, and the pieces really begin to line up on the board.

Pierre Poilievre opts for continuity in shadow cabinet picks

By Bryan Breguet, an economist at Langara College in Vancouver

New government means a new shadow cabinet for the official Opposition. Except the new shadow cabinet of Pierre Poilievre looks a lot like the old one. Out of the new MPs, only four have received a role. The list is missing some big names. Andrew Lawton isn’t on it, for instance, neither is Aaron Gunn nor Jamil Jivani. It’s interesting to see Poilievre ignoring these MPs as they are prominent among what we could call the online Right. The same faction that likely helped deliver new voters among the 18 to 34.

Is that a sign that Poilievre believes this demographic isn’t as important as others (namely, women and the 55-plus)? Maybe I’m reading too much into it and Poilievre just wanted to keep the experienced critics in their roles.

More generally, Poilievre decided to keep the same leadership group with Melissa Lantsman and Tim Uppal as deputy leaders and Andrew Scheer as House leader. Pierre Paul-Hus remains Quebec lieutenant. Why change something if it worked, right?

Except it’s debatable if it really worked, as the Tories, while winning many new seats, still lost the election to the Liberals. One might have thought that the new shadow cabinet would be the opportunity to build and show the world a different and better team.

But Poilievre’s choice of critics, as well as his decision to keep Jenni Byrne, despite growing calls to remove her as campaign manager, is in line with everything we have seen so far from him and indicate that the CPC leader most likely thinks last month’s results were actually good and he just got unlucky with Trump and the tariffs. Time will tell if he was right.