The Weekly Wrap: Is Trudeau to blame for Carney’s disappointing budget? 

The Carney government has chosen a different path. Its decision to unwind some of the excesses of Trudeau-era immigration represents an implicit rejection of the idea that growth can be imported rather than earned. It will, however, make the underlying challenge of low productivity even more acute. With fewer new arrivals propping up headline numbers, Canada will need to find growth from other sources. (The government’s spike in deficit spending ostensibly aims to offset some of the drag from lower immigration.) The key takeaway: while one way to read this budget is as a rightful repudiation of the Trudeau government’s immigration-driven growth mode, it doesn’t mean the Carney government has yet found a credible alternative. A temporary fiscal cushion isn’t a productivity plan, and lower immigration alone won’t fix the economy’s structural weaknesses. After too long of relying on population growth to paper over stagnation, Ottawa must finally confront economic reality. Conservatives should lament the course of Canada’s courts—and do something about it  The recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in Attorney General of Québec v. Senneville has rightly received criticism from conservative commentators. In particular, I’d encourage readers to check out Howard Anglin’s thoughtful analysis for The Hub. At its heart, the Court struck down a one-year mandatory minimum for possession or accessing child sexual-abuse material on the basis that a uniform penalty could hypothetically capture young adults in consensual relationships. As much as the decision has provoked conservatives, it’s important to note that it wasn’t unanimous. Four justices—Chief Justice Richard Wagner, and Justices Suzanne Côté, Michelle O’Bonsawin, and Malcolm Rowe—dissented. The crux of their dissent was that the mandatory minimum sentence served the legitimate objectives of denunciation, deterrence, and community condemnation of child-sexual-abuse material, and that the hypothetical scenario put forward by the majority was too remote to trigger gross disproportionality. As the dissenters wrote: …the constitutional standard of a “grossly disproportionate” sentence is a demanding standard that requires the exercise of normative judgment. A sentence that is merely excessive does not cross the constitutional line; it must be so excessive as to be incompatible with human dignity. … When a court engages in normative reasoning to determine whether a sentence for child pornography is so long that it becomes grossly disproportionate, the court must necessarily bear in mind the profound wrongfulness and harmfulness of these crimes. These heinous offences call for strong condemnation; the court owes greater deference to Parliament’s decision to enact the mandatory minimum. From a conservative perspective, this case underscores two imperatives. First, cultivating a network of law students, lawyers, and legal scholars who reject left-wing judicial policymaking. Second, winning elections and appointing them to the bench. To that second point, one of the regrettable outcomes of April’s election, if the Carney government lasts close to a full term, is that it will enable the prime minister to appoint Justice Rowe’s successor when he retires sometime between now and 2028. Losing Rowe will be a serious loss for common sense and for the country. Although appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau, he has distinguished himself for his pragmatism and thoughtful restraint, reflected not only in this dissent but also in his 2024 keynote address to the Runnymede Society, where he urged judges to “respect institutional boundaries and resist the temptation to legislate.” His voice—including in this case—is valuable precisely because of his penchant for prudence. Conservatives rightly lament the direction of Canada’s courts. The Senneville decision offers another reason to do so. Yet in Rowe’s example, we’re reminded that judicial restraint and democratic humility still have a small number of defenders. There’s an onus on the critics of judicial activism to add to their numbers in the coming years.