Election 2025: Carney vs. Poilievre
It's on
The Liberal leadership race (with Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland as the front-runners) concluded decisively on March 9, with Mark Carney winning more than 85% of the vote. Justin Trudeau stepped down and Carney was sworn in as prime minister on March 14, with a smaller cabinet.
Carney hasn't called Trump - he says that he won’t negotiate with Trump until Trump stops disrespecting and insulting Canada. Instead, he immediately headed to France and Britain to strengthen alliances, then the Arctic; signed an agreement with Australia for over-the-horizon radar; and opened discussions on participating in European rearmament. He also cancelled the household carbon tax (which had become very unpopular) and the scheduled capital gains tax increase (which would have reduced incentives for long-term investment); ordered a review of Canada’s F-35 purchase; and met with the provincial premiers to work out an agreement on resource development and trade corridors.
On March 23, as expected - nine days later - Carney asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and hold an election. Election Day is Monday April 28.
The polls show a sharp reversal of fortune, with the Conservative vote share declining modestly, the Liberals closing the gap, and the NDP vote share dropping. That said, a week is a long time in politics. We don’t know what’s going to happen on April 28.
I have just asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and call a federal election on April 28.
We need to build the strongest economy in the G7. We need to deal with President Trump’s tariffs. Canadians deserve a choice about who should lead that effort for our country.
I am asking Canadians for a strong, positive mandate to deal with President Trump and build a stronger economy here at home.
CPAC: Liberal Leader Mark Carney speaks with reporters as federal election gets underway. “Canada has given me everything. I want to give everything back to Canada.”
More on Carney
Meet Mark Carney, Canada’s point man on the economy. A profile of Carney in the Globe and Mail from 2009, by Sinclair Stewart. Carney’s very experienced in dealing with economic crises.
Although Canada didn’t have the widespread banking failures that ravaged the United States and Britain, it has still been at risk of getting sucked into the wake of a global economic catastrophe, and that has meant a baptism by conflagration for Carney.
Since he was appointed to succeed David Dodge in February, 2008, Carney has been forced to confront one white-knuckled decision after the other. He helped co-ordinate emergency rate cuts with several countries last fall - a delicate task, given the announcement came before an election, and after the federal government seemed to suggest the Canadian economy was holding up fine. He played conciliator at meetings of the G7 countries that had threatened to fall apart because of hard feelings about the American response to the credit crunch. He took unprecedented steps to improve liquidity for Canada’s big banks. He has helped lead the international charge for an overhaul of the way countries manage and identify financial risk.
And he has done it all with a transparency and plain-spokenness that is a refreshing break from the Delphic style that Alan Greenspan made a hallmark of central banking. “To some degree he was the go-to guy on a lot of these issues which weren’t just economic and monetary policy,” says Gordon Nixon, CEO of Royal Bank of Canada.
After two years, Mark Carney’s Bank of England shake-up continues. Scott Hamilton, Bloomberg, 2015. Describes what he’s like as a manager.
Taking over the Bank of England shortly after it regained a role as a banking supervisor, he soon discovered an organization described by its own staff as “hierarchical” and “slow-moving,” with more than 70 decision-making committees.
In March 2014, he unveiled a shakeup that fused departments, created a new management layer, and came with a slogan that was soon on computer screensavers throughout BOE offices: “One Bank.”
Little has been left untouched in his whirlwind of change, from market operations to rate-meeting schedules to an overhaul of the library — a move that provoked a bout of resistance from staff a year ago. Last summer, the unthinkable happened at the BOE’s annual staff sports day: There was no cricket match for the first time anyone could remember.
Officials at the BOE, speaking anonymously because they’re not authorized to speak to press, describe Carney as bringing a more private-sector approach to management, combined with an openness to opinions — as he showed on whether or not to play cricket. Easing the blow for the old guard has been his trademark charm.
“He has managed the transition from the Bank of Canada to the Bank of England remarkably well and he has a good understanding of political processes,” says Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, a colleague at the Financial Stability Board and at Group of Seven meetings. “On top of that he is a very sympathetic and humorous person.”
Observers of Carney also note a flip side: a temper that can come out of the blue. One official says people on the receiving end can feel like they’ve been tasered.
More on Poilievre
Paul Wells, a veteran observer of Canadian politics, reviews Poilievre’s career: A brief history of not being great at this. “Pierre Poilievre built an aura of inevitability. Until January.”
He has an interesting observation on Poilievre’s housing policies:
I maintain that Poilievre has been unusually detailed in his policy proposals, certainly providing more concrete policy ideas, earlier, than Justin Trudeau did from his third-party perch in 2015. The proposals aren’t always persuasive. In general he seems to view government as a medieval office for the allocation of penances and indulgences. He’ll reward cities that build homes, as though cities built homes, and punish those that don’t. He’ll withhold research funding from universities and operating grants from museums that displease him, which incidentally is the only way we know he plans to have budgets for research and museum operations.
He concludes:
I’m as sure of this as I am of anything: Poilievre is limited in how much he can say about Trump because some Conservatives find Trump appalling and some think he’s fantastic. Liberals think every Conservative is the same, but what’s been striking is who’s found their voice during Trump 47 and who hasn’t. Stephen Harper knows what he thinks. Jason Kenney does. Poilievre, not so much, and the people he’d have thought would be natural allies smell his hesitation.
There’s a biography by Andrew Lawton, now a Conservative candidate. Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life. And there’s a biography coming out in early April by Mark Bourrie. Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre. The title refers to David Brooks’ classification of politicians as “rippers” and “weavers.” Excerpt describing Poilievre’s first run.