Ben Woodfinden: Canada needs a change agent in charge. The same Liberal playbook won’t fix anything

While it is only a few weeks into the Carney era, it’s clear that the new prime minister sees himself as a transformative leader. He came in during a “moment of crisis” and has signalled he wants to move boldly and aggressively to fix many of the problems facing the country. But there are plenty of reasons to think that Carney is going to be unable to deliver this change.

Fundamentally, the change Canada needs is going to require a fight, because it means upending the sclerotic status quo and getting us off a trajectory of managed decline. And to do this, it will require taking on powerful and entrenched players. As the saying goes, “you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.” Will Carney be willing to do this?

In order to get us off the current trajectory, Mark Carney and his government must have an accurate diagnosis of where we’ve gone wrong, and why. It’s unclear whether they do. All Carney’s rhetoric, and this was evident in the throne speech, makes it seem as if Trump and the destabilizing effect that his tariffs and talk of the 51st state have had on our politics are the root cause of the major issues facing this country.

But this is false.

Trump is a destabilizing force who has exposed our weaknesses, but he is not the cause of our weakness. The real cause has been the disastrous policies of the Trudeau era, which have resulted in a lost decade. To fix the mess we are in, much of the Trudeau legacy must be dismantled. If we pretend that all our problems are just a result of the president, we are inaccurately diagnosing what got us into this position in the first place.

But most fundamentally, if we go through, issue by issue, the major areas where Carney has signalled he wants to be an agent of change, there are a series of hurdles and roadblocks in his way.

Housing

Take housing, for example. Carney has said that he wants to make housing more affordable once again. But in the first week of his government, his hand-picked housing minister explicitly declared that house prices should not come down. It’s very simple—for housing to become more affordable, housing costs and house prices must be lowered. But to do so would require upsetting Carney’s Boomer base, who benefit immensely from the status quo.

And more practically, ending our housing crisis will require taking on the gatekeepers and NIMBYs in local and provincial governments who block home building, raise taxes and development costs, add red tape on home building, and who Carney and his housing minister still fund to the tune of billions of dollars.

Building housing will require both carrots and sticks, but the Carney government has shown no interest in wielding the mighty federal stick, and is very much continuing Trudeau-era housing policy.

Immigration

And then there is the other side of the housing crisis: demand. More specifically, immigration. It is now widely accepted that our astronomically high levels of immigration, which ramped up under Trudeau, have played a major role in doubling housing costs in the last 10 years. But even though Carney has signalled that he wants to lower immigration levels to something more sustainable, his promise seems shallow.

Immigration targets outlined in the Liberal platform largely represent a continuation of Trudeau-era levels of immigration. And even if Carney is genuinely dedicated to reducing immigration levels, doing so will require regaining control of a completely broken immigration system, not just commitments on the numbers. There has been recent reporting that the government doesn’t even know how many people are in the country right now.

More significantly, fixing immigration will require taking on powerful stakeholders who benefit from the broken status quo they helped build. Many of our major businesses and the service sector have become addicted to cheap, temporary foreign labour. ^{1 The Century Initiative, which came under the spotlight during the election, is well funded by corporate Canada. The Bay Street voices that push for the goals of the Century Initiative are the kinds of people who most enthusiastically backed Carney.  Its cofounder, Mark Wiseman, is a Carney ally and was added to the Prime Minister’s Council on Canada-U.S. Relations.}

Canada’s post-secondary institutions, colleges being some of the worst offenders, exploit international students as cash cows who have also become another source of cheap labour. And of course, high immigration levels keep the demand for housing high to maintain our real estate pyramid scheme. Similar to housing, fixing this system requires not only serious structural reforms but also the willingness to take on powerful stakeholders with a lot to lose from any reform.

Crime

On crime, Carney has at least identified that in order to make our streets safe again, Canada’s broken bail system must be reformed. The issue is that this would require both repealing Trudeau-era legislation and, more significantly, the federal use of the notwithstanding clause to overrule the radical reformation of the criminal system that our courts and judges have embarked on in recent years.

One does not need to be a particularly astute political observer to know that the odds of Carney ever being willing to use the notwithstanding clause to overrule the self-understood philosopher-kings and queens sitting on the bench are extremely slim. This means that, every day, dangerous people continue to be let out on our streets to terrorize Canadians.

Resource development and major infrastructure projects

One area where Carney and Tim Hodgson, his new natural resource minister, do actually seem willing to be a bit bolder is resource development and pipeline construction. But the rhetoric will have to match the reality, which means tough choices that upset activists and the serious repeal of Trudeau-era legislation.

Whilst Carney met with premiers on Monday to try and hash out a list of projects to fast-track, what is actually needed is serious legislative reforms that will make Canada a place that can once again attract resource investment and get major projects off the ground. Among the reforms needed are changes to—or even better, the repeal of—the Impact Assessment Act and the West Coast Oil Tanker ban, and the scrapping of the federal emissions cap.

Doing this will cost Carney and Hodgson significant political capital with many of the progressives who flocked to the Liberals in the last election, including those in his caucus. One of his most powerful ministers, and Quebec lieutenant, Steven Guilbeault, has already signalled he is not on the same page. Carney’s government rests on a large Quebec caucus led by this radical lieutenant; their views on pipelines and resource development may ultimately thwart Carney’s stated plan to make Canada a “global energy superpower.”

And even if Carney can keep his caucus in line on this and get premiers on board, he will still have to contend with radical, well-funded activists who will use the courts to slow down and stall development. As we’ve seen in recent years, activists have been willing to engage in physical protests like blockades to get their way. If any civil disobedience takes place, again, will Carney be willing to burn political capital to make his rhetoric a reality?

Mark Carney is in for a fight

Successfully fixing each of these issues will require taking on powerful players, upsetting groups and activists across the political spectrum (including chunks of his own coalition), and it will require a conscious rejection of the Trudeau era.

One thing Carney has going for him right now is that Trump has helped motivate previously unmotivated players into at least paying lip service to these much-needed reforms. But it’s unclear how long this moment of crisis can sustain a bold and ambitious agenda.

If “normal” politics return, if some deal with Trump is reached, tariffs are lifted, 51st state threats dissipate, and our relationship with the United States stabilizes, the newfound urgency of these needed reforms may also fade in the eyes of those whom, outside of this current moment, were much less interested in major reforms.

Carney is, by many accounts, a man who does not suffer fools and is willing to push people aside if they get in his way. But whether he has the stomach, desire, and political acumen to ultimately take on the myriad of powerful players, and the Laurentian establishment of which he is a part, remains to be seen. He was more than happy for the last few years to associate himself with the Trudeau government and its policies. As prime minister, that’s no longer an option if he wants to disrupt the status quo that so desperately needs changing.

He will have to step into the ring, take on these key challenges facing the country, and leave his own imprint on Canada. Being a transformative leader requires nothing less.