Thought provoking as always - thanks for this. But )naively perhaps) I do hold out some hope that Carney will change directions for the Liberals. Admittedly he’s already thrown a huge sop to wealthy Canadians by announcing he’ll cancel the planned increase to Capital Gains. But his knowledge of how these big players avoid taxes could be a real help to figuring out how to get more fairness in the tax system. He talked in his acceptance speech about the fact that corporations don’t work in the interests of people. I’m happy to give him a chance to prove himself.
True, he's never worked a day in his life, sucking off the government teat for 20 years now with zero accomplishments to show for it, aside from making himself unlikable. What makes him think anyone can take him seriously? PP is a court jester, on his best day.
Thank you so much for this thought provoking article.
You asked, "Is Mark Carney going to be the saviour of the middle class?"
This is the core flaw I’ve observed with Canadian and US politics, and shows how similar they are.
British North American settler-colonial citizens are generally not looking for a strong and healthy democracy, but a "saviour". They are looking for a benevolent dictator, with a subjective concept of benevolent. Different political factions are looking for a different saviour as they want to be "saved" from different things, but fundamentally they are looking for some strong individual able to implement their vision in a top-down way, rather than strengthening Democratic Institutions such that no single individual ever matters.
Liberals were the first "Canadian" party to adopt the American national convention process to have a Leadership Primary where corporate party "members" (shareholders, whatever) determine the leader rather than the leader being decided by and at all times accountable to elected caucus members (as is the system used in other Westminster Parliamentary Systems, and what Canada did prior to the Liberals party adopting a more US Presidential system).
While the Liberals may have started this US policy, the NDP, Conservatives (various names over Canada's history), the Bloc and even the Greens are using the same US Leadership Primary system.
The flaws of this top-down unaccountable hierarchical system should be obvious from what we have been observing with the USA, except few Canadians actually see themselves different enough from US citizens to notice those systemic flaws.
If what you were asking is there was a Canadian Federal political party whose politics I admire, and I have to chose between parties who had seats in the previous parliament, my answer would be "none of the above". They have all adopted a less democratic top-down corporate culture. Some are worse than others, they are all horrible. Citizens need to demand more if we are ever to get anything better.
----------
While I don't think the federal parliament or Provincial parliaments need to go this far, so I'm not advocating that, but I do admire what is done in Nunavut and NWT.
If you want to talk about politicians who have better ideas on process we can do that, but I believe process and systems are where the focus needs to be and not on individuals.
Well, there's now competition for money. From Dan Gardner and Paul Wells on substack:
Dan Gardner:
We need new allies. To get new allies, we need a ground-up reconstruction of the Canadian Armed Forces that fixes decades of atrophy and only then expands CAF capabilities rapidly. Rebuilding and expanding the CAF will require staggering amounts of money. And that means all the talk of tax cuts and new social programs — all the stuff that Canadian politicians continue to talk about like this is 2019 — is empty chatter.
---------------------
Paul Wells:
I spoke to a European diplomat last week who absolutely could not believe that Canadians, including Mark Carney, are still talking about defence spending drifting lazily up toward 2% of GDP in a half-decade.
----------------------
The only good news I can see there, is that there may be a real "zero-based" re-evaluation of what defence we need. A lot of our purchases, I think, were not for shooting plausible attackers, but just for "keeping up" with American partners.
As recent events have proven, Canada's only natural enemy is the United States of America. It's the only country to have invaded Canada, and probably still has invasion plans somewhere in a Pentagon vault. It is not in Canada's best interest to continue to spend tens of billions of dollars on military equipment designed to further the global aims of the American Empire.
Canada's economy cannot thrive while engaging in a trade war with the world's two largest economies at the same time. Carney has recently travelled to France and Great Britain, which is fine. But Europe is in as much (or more) economic trouble as Canada. While Canada and Europe can help each other, both need to expand their trading and co-operation with the BRICS group of nations if they are to escape their common American economic stranglehold.
However, you can't trade with the enemy. Canada needs to get over its U.S. influenced hatred of China and Russia so it can repair its trade and co-operation with them. Increasing our "defence" spending on aggressive weapons aimed at China and Russia won't get us where we need to go.
Enough with the fake enemies and the counter productive spending on weapons of war.
So....here we are. I believe that housing is one of the great failures of our governments in the past 20 years. This failure has a massive effect on society and the quality of life. I live in Vancouver, where housing is no longer affordable and homelessness is all around me. I have lived in a housing co-op for 25 years. The co-op housing program is one of the best solutions to housing unaffordability. The liberals started it 40 years ago and Paul Martin put an end to it. So now a we have corporate executive whose corporation cultivates unaffordability in housing as our new leader!
The housing minister is in a cabinet meeting and for some crazy reason he is touting a revived co-op housing program with CMHC backing, the carney listens while shuffling the papers in front of him at a frantic pace and a video starts behind him showing all the Open Houses that start tomorrow where nothing is below $1m. The housing minister is shuffled off while the rest of the cabinet gawk at the video.
Agreed, BUT the housing problem is just one symptom of a much deeper illness. Canadians must wake up to the choice to either treat the symptoms or to treat the disease. As his resume reveals, Carney Boy is the disease made flesh. Voting for Carney is like hiring a convicted pedophile to babysit your kids. He's Trudeau with a brain, and that's a dangerous profile.
Pierre Poilievre is a clear and present danger to Canada. Who else but Carney for Canada? I’ll take my chances with the back-up goalie who happens to be a banker.
An "even more rabid" Conservative party just becomes easier and easier to defeat 🤷♂️ Canadians consistently demonstrate that the majority of us disdain such howler monkeys.
If he's so terrible with money, why was he Stephen Harper's advisor? 🤔 And why hasn't PP released a costed platform with only a week to go..it looks like he knows his numbers don't add up 🤷♂️
Loving the nuance, it is certainly something that has been missing from our politics for a while. I'm not a Pollievre supporter, but Liberals need to acknowledge that the Conservatives weren't the ones most recently running our country. And Carney's cabinet picks still include a lot of Trudeau's people -- Champagne, Freeland, LeBlanc, Joly etc. So why should we assume things will be hugely different under Carney?
The electoral choice between the Fiberals and the Cons is like choosing between smallpox and the plague. There is no evidence that, economically, Carney Boy will be any better for working Canadians than Poilievre. However, there's plenty of evidence that Carney will be far more destructive than Poilievre on a whole range of issues, from national sovereignty to individual freedoms and the looming prospect of a digital gulag.
Let us not forget Carney is a Poster Boy for global neoliberalism and techno-feudalism. Whatever his faults (and they are many), Poilievre says he stands against the WEF and the WHO, advocates for individual rights and freedoms, and has a Canadian nationalist perspective. This is where the most important, even crucial differences lie. With Poilievre there is a chance Canada can regain some of its lost sovereignty, economic independence and national pride. With Carney, Canada is finished.
Let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees, a good Canadian metaphor.
“ There is no material difference between having someone beat you up and insult you versus having someone beat you up and apologise. ”
Nice.
I don't recall hearing any Fiberal apologies, do you? All I've heard is contempt and gaslighting.
Thought provoking as always - thanks for this. But )naively perhaps) I do hold out some hope that Carney will change directions for the Liberals. Admittedly he’s already thrown a huge sop to wealthy Canadians by announcing he’ll cancel the planned increase to Capital Gains. But his knowledge of how these big players avoid taxes could be a real help to figuring out how to get more fairness in the tax system. He talked in his acceptance speech about the fact that corporations don’t work in the interests of people. I’m happy to give him a chance to prove himself.
He's already proved himself. Just look at his public record, it's all there, and none of it is good.
True, he's never worked a day in his life, sucking off the government teat for 20 years now with zero accomplishments to show for it, aside from making himself unlikable. What makes him think anyone can take him seriously? PP is a court jester, on his best day.
Thank you so much for this thought provoking article.
You asked, "Is Mark Carney going to be the saviour of the middle class?"
This is the core flaw I’ve observed with Canadian and US politics, and shows how similar they are.
British North American settler-colonial citizens are generally not looking for a strong and healthy democracy, but a "saviour". They are looking for a benevolent dictator, with a subjective concept of benevolent. Different political factions are looking for a different saviour as they want to be "saved" from different things, but fundamentally they are looking for some strong individual able to implement their vision in a top-down way, rather than strengthening Democratic Institutions such that no single individual ever matters.
Liberals were the first "Canadian" party to adopt the American national convention process to have a Leadership Primary where corporate party "members" (shareholders, whatever) determine the leader rather than the leader being decided by and at all times accountable to elected caucus members (as is the system used in other Westminster Parliamentary Systems, and what Canada did prior to the Liberals party adopting a more US Presidential system).
While the Liberals may have started this US policy, the NDP, Conservatives (various names over Canada's history), the Bloc and even the Greens are using the same US Leadership Primary system.
The flaws of this top-down unaccountable hierarchical system should be obvious from what we have been observing with the USA, except few Canadians actually see themselves different enough from US citizens to notice those systemic flaws.
So whose politics do you admire, for contrast? 🤔
There are many individual politicians that I admire, but what I wrote above was about systems, policy, process, law, etc.
https://r.flora.ca/p/lets-work-to-fix-parliamentary-flaws
If what you were asking is there was a Canadian Federal political party whose politics I admire, and I have to chose between parties who had seats in the previous parliament, my answer would be "none of the above". They have all adopted a less democratic top-down corporate culture. Some are worse than others, they are all horrible. Citizens need to demand more if we are ever to get anything better.
----------
While I don't think the federal parliament or Provincial parliaments need to go this far, so I'm not advocating that, but I do admire what is done in Nunavut and NWT.
https://www.ntlegislativeassembly.ca/legislative-business/how-legislative-assembly-works/consensus-government
If you want to talk about politicians who have better ideas on process we can do that, but I believe process and systems are where the focus needs to be and not on individuals.
Well, there's now competition for money. From Dan Gardner and Paul Wells on substack:
Dan Gardner:
We need new allies. To get new allies, we need a ground-up reconstruction of the Canadian Armed Forces that fixes decades of atrophy and only then expands CAF capabilities rapidly. Rebuilding and expanding the CAF will require staggering amounts of money. And that means all the talk of tax cuts and new social programs — all the stuff that Canadian politicians continue to talk about like this is 2019 — is empty chatter.
---------------------
Paul Wells:
I spoke to a European diplomat last week who absolutely could not believe that Canadians, including Mark Carney, are still talking about defence spending drifting lazily up toward 2% of GDP in a half-decade.
----------------------
The only good news I can see there, is that there may be a real "zero-based" re-evaluation of what defence we need. A lot of our purchases, I think, were not for shooting plausible attackers, but just for "keeping up" with American partners.
As recent events have proven, Canada's only natural enemy is the United States of America. It's the only country to have invaded Canada, and probably still has invasion plans somewhere in a Pentagon vault. It is not in Canada's best interest to continue to spend tens of billions of dollars on military equipment designed to further the global aims of the American Empire.
Canada's economy cannot thrive while engaging in a trade war with the world's two largest economies at the same time. Carney has recently travelled to France and Great Britain, which is fine. But Europe is in as much (or more) economic trouble as Canada. While Canada and Europe can help each other, both need to expand their trading and co-operation with the BRICS group of nations if they are to escape their common American economic stranglehold.
However, you can't trade with the enemy. Canada needs to get over its U.S. influenced hatred of China and Russia so it can repair its trade and co-operation with them. Increasing our "defence" spending on aggressive weapons aimed at China and Russia won't get us where we need to go.
Enough with the fake enemies and the counter productive spending on weapons of war.
Absolutely this.
thanks for this. Right on.
Excellent post!
Love the headline, great analysis.
OMG how long were you holding this headline in your back pocket?? 😄
hah I've been making carney jokes all weekend but it didn't hit me as a headline till this moring.
Mine, for a year, has been,
"Chrystia Freeland wrote this great book, 'Plutocrats'. It's about all Carney's best friends."
So....here we are. I believe that housing is one of the great failures of our governments in the past 20 years. This failure has a massive effect on society and the quality of life. I live in Vancouver, where housing is no longer affordable and homelessness is all around me. I have lived in a housing co-op for 25 years. The co-op housing program is one of the best solutions to housing unaffordability. The liberals started it 40 years ago and Paul Martin put an end to it. So now a we have corporate executive whose corporation cultivates unaffordability in housing as our new leader!
The housing minister is in a cabinet meeting and for some crazy reason he is touting a revived co-op housing program with CMHC backing, the carney listens while shuffling the papers in front of him at a frantic pace and a video starts behind him showing all the Open Houses that start tomorrow where nothing is below $1m. The housing minister is shuffled off while the rest of the cabinet gawk at the video.
Agreed, BUT the housing problem is just one symptom of a much deeper illness. Canadians must wake up to the choice to either treat the symptoms or to treat the disease. As his resume reveals, Carney Boy is the disease made flesh. Voting for Carney is like hiring a convicted pedophile to babysit your kids. He's Trudeau with a brain, and that's a dangerous profile.
Trolling
Pierre Poilievre is a clear and present danger to Canada. Who else but Carney for Canada? I’ll take my chances with the back-up goalie who happens to be a banker.
An "even more rabid" Conservative party just becomes easier and easier to defeat 🤷♂️ Canadians consistently demonstrate that the majority of us disdain such howler monkeys.
If he's so terrible with money, why was he Stephen Harper's advisor? 🤔 And why hasn't PP released a costed platform with only a week to go..it looks like he knows his numbers don't add up 🤷♂️
Loving the nuance, it is certainly something that has been missing from our politics for a while. I'm not a Pollievre supporter, but Liberals need to acknowledge that the Conservatives weren't the ones most recently running our country. And Carney's cabinet picks still include a lot of Trudeau's people -- Champagne, Freeland, LeBlanc, Joly etc. So why should we assume things will be hugely different under Carney?
The electoral choice between the Fiberals and the Cons is like choosing between smallpox and the plague. There is no evidence that, economically, Carney Boy will be any better for working Canadians than Poilievre. However, there's plenty of evidence that Carney will be far more destructive than Poilievre on a whole range of issues, from national sovereignty to individual freedoms and the looming prospect of a digital gulag.
Let us not forget Carney is a Poster Boy for global neoliberalism and techno-feudalism. Whatever his faults (and they are many), Poilievre says he stands against the WEF and the WHO, advocates for individual rights and freedoms, and has a Canadian nationalist perspective. This is where the most important, even crucial differences lie. With Poilievre there is a chance Canada can regain some of its lost sovereignty, economic independence and national pride. With Carney, Canada is finished.
Let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees, a good Canadian metaphor.
Thanks for the much needed info!