Michael Higgins: Carney's cabinet of Trudeau failures - "Prime Minister Mark Carney promised change, a new way of doing things at speeds never before seen. Yet to help him do this, he is relying on the same old, tired, incompetent ministers who got us into the mess we’re currently in. The Liberals will trumpet the large number of new faces in Carney’s 28-member cabinet — there are 15 MPs who have never served before. But the top tier of ministers — the ones sitting in the front row at the swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday — were all former Trudeau acolytes, cabinet ministers now committed to rescuing us from a crisis of their own making. In the front row was Sean Fraser, our new justice minister and attorney general, and the man who, under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, was responsible for immigration and then housing, two files he spectacularly failed at. If we want to know how bad Fraser was in those jobs, we need only look to Carney’s election platform... In December, when Liberal fortunes were in the toilet, Fraser announced that, for family reasons, he was quitting politics. Strangely, after the party witnessed a reversal in the polls, he announced he was returning. In Carney’s eyes, Fraser’s blundering on two key files qualifies him to become justice minister. The only thing worse than Fraser as a cabinet minister may be Carney’s judgment. Also in the front row was Chrystia Freeland, who served as deputy prime minister and finance minister under Trudeau and is now returning to cabinet as minister of transportation and internal trade. Freeland’s record is best summed up, again, by the Liberal platform: “Business investment in Canada has dropped from 14 per cent of GDP in 2014 to 11 per cent in 2024, undermining long-term economic growth.” Meanwhile, long-time Trudeau lieutenant Mélanie Joly, whose reign at foreign affairs was about as successful as Fraser was at housing and immigration, moves to industry. Carney has said that his government will focus on the economy and dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump. It is odd, then, that in this key portfolio, he chose someone who has already been at the cabinet table for 10 long and unsuccessful years. Dominic LeBlanc, another Trudeau loyalist (as well as his babysitter) and another long-standing member of cabinet, returns with responsibility as great as his title: president of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, intergovernmental affairs and one Canadian economy. And the list of top cabinet posts goes on, all sounding familiar because they were all Trudeau devotees who sat around his cabinet table: François-Philippe Champagne, Anita Anand, Patty Hajdu, Steven Guilbeault, Gary Anandasangaree, David McGuinty, Steven MacKinnon, Rechie Valdez and Joanne Thompson... it’s pretty clear that one thing that wasn’t working properly was the Trudeau Liberals. As Carney has acknowledged, the previous government left the country in worse economic shape, with a bad investment environment and a housing and immigration crisis among its many problems. And yet, the people responsible for that are in his new cabinet. This isn’t pragmatic, it’s more of the same. One of the Trudeau ministers who didn’t make the new cabinet was Jonathan Wilkinson, the former minister of natural resources. In a long post on X on Tuesday, Wilkinson seemed to criticize the Trudeau government’s economic policies, while also suggesting Carney should avoid them. “Opportunity also rests on economic strength, wealth must be created, not merely redistributed,” he wrote. Yet, in choosing the old B-Team, Carney is setting himself up to make the same mistakes, as well as reneging on a promise he made only last month. “A change of course is desperately needed,” read the Liberal platform. Canadians, in their desperation, thought Carney would be that change. They were wrong."
Tasha Kheiriddin: Carney's cabinet still looks a lot like Trudeau's - "It’s a cabinet for the economy, but the question is, whose? Carney has promised nation-building priorities, including pipelines and electrification corridors. Without strong western representation in cabinet, he had better tap other regional voices and experience for these key undertakings, not just to stave off Western ire — but to ensure that they are done right."
Champagne says no 2025 budget, while government focuses on fall update (May 14) - "Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne signalled Wednesday there will be no spring budget and only a fall economic statement, despite his predecessor announcing pre-budget consultations earlier this year."
Carney is already steamrolling basic constraints on power - "Only two months into the job, Prime Minister Mark Carney is already steamrolling through the usual checks by which a Canadian government is supposed to spend and manage taxpayer money. During the federal election, Carney greenlit a record $70 billion without Parliamentary approval. And now, even before the House of Commons has reconvened, his government has signalled its intentions not to publish a budget. With both actions, the new Liberal government has neutered one of the reasons Canada has a Parliament in the first place: To review and manage the disbursement of money... There’s long been a provision for the Governor General to release emergency funds to keep the lights on during a federal election. It’s called a “special warrant”; an emergency dispensation of money “urgently required for the public good.” Where Carney took the provision into uncharted territory is in the sheer scale of money, $73.4 billion, that he released via special warrants without the figures being approved by the House of Commons... It’s been more than five months since the federal government has actually approved funding the way it’s supposed to: Via an itemized “money bill” that is approved in a vote by the House of Commons... This is all the more notable given that even when the Liberals were telling Canadians their spending plans, they were conspicuously unable to stick to them. The resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was driven in large part by a disastrous Fall Economic Statement, delivered on Dec. 16, which revealed that the federal government was on track to rack up $61.9 billion in new debt, way higher than the $40.1 billion they had been shooting for. Although sometimes called “minibudgets,” Fall Economic Statements are different in that they don’t necessarily have to be passed by the House of Commons... There have been periods in Canadian history where the country has gone more than a year without a federal budget. But there were always extenuating circumstances. The most obvious being the failure to table a federal budget in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the midst of the Second World War, similarly, the feds went a then-record 482 days between budget presentations. But what hasn’t really happened before is a government refusing to table a budget in the immediate aftermath of a contentious federal election resulting in a hung parliament. Upon news of Carney’s “no budget” plans, Conservative MP Mike Lake noted that the Tories had a budget ready only five weeks after their victory in the 2011 general election"
Liberal government to table federal budget this fall (May 18)
Canada needs a full federal budget now - "Since Canada was born in 1867, there has always been an annual full federal budget presented. Until 2020, the COVID-19 year, there were annual budgets presented during the First and Second World Wars, the Great Depression years of 1929 until the 1930s and even with unstable minority governments — such as the Joe Clark government of 1979... And to be clear, an FES is not a budget — no matter how comprehensive it is — nor is a brief fiscal update that will likely be presented to Parliament before it recesses for the summer. An FES has historically been used as a mid-year update to provide revised projections and updates on economic and fiscal performance. The annual federal budget is the foundational policy document for the government and is a confidence motion; in other words, the government can fall if the budget is not supported by Parliament. The FES is not. Skipping a federal budget would have been a significant departure from convention while raising obvious questions about fiscal transparency, parliamentary oversight and accountability. Transparency, oversight and accountability are not aspirational objectives. They are foundational to providing a responsible government. Trust in institutions will inevitably erode when public scrutiny is evaded... Combine the original non-presentation of a federal budget with the proposal by Carney to “separate the operational budget from the capital budget” — an old and deceptive accounting trick to mask spending — the recent spending by special warrants and the retaliatory tariffs against the United States that were suspended during the recent election campaign while encouraging Canadians to be “elbows up” (a cringeworthy and vacuous slogan), the transparency record of this new government is not off to a good start... “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” Justice Louis Brandeis so appropriately stated. Instead of swaggering around with “elbows up,” it’s time for this new government to step into the sunlight and face Canadians directly — continuously. Our parliamentary democracy demands it. Let’s hope that the May 18 announcement by Carney of a “budget in the fall” means a full budget, not a “comprehensive” FES."
Weird how the Experienced Economist did not think a budget was necessary at first
Meme - "Trudeau promises affordable housing for Canadians" - 2015
"AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOGEMENT ABORDABLE" - 2019
"MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING" - 2021
"Liberals promise to build nearly 500,000 homes per year, create new housing entity" - 2025
Squid Game: "I have played these games before!"
Left wingers think words speak louder than actions, so they keep getting fooled
JAY GOLDBERG: Carney convinced enough people he’s different – but can it last? - "Since day one, Prime Minister Mark Carney has tried to convince Canadians that he’s not former prime minister Justin Trudeau. And until now, he has succeeded. Early on, Carney took decisive action to try to clearly distance himself from the Trudeau legacy. He signed an Order in Council to set the consumer carbon tax rate to zero. He promised to scrap the Trudeau government’s planned capital gains tax hike. And he made a middle-class income tax cut the centrepiece of his election platform, recognizing Canadians were hard done by after years of Liberal tax hikes. The childishness of the Trudeau era also seems to be in the rear-view mirror. Instead of playing political games, Carney pledged to call a byelection to allow Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to get back into Parliament as soon as possible. Carney’s first press conference after the election was also impressive. He ruled out a formal deal with the NDP, separating himself from Trudeau in refusing to sign a deal to be pulled to the left. And he pledged to work with all parties to have a productive Parliament. But the rubber is about to hit the road... When Carney announced his first cabinet after winning the Liberal leadership, there were many familiar faces. Too many... 87% of Carney’s ministers were part of the Trudeau cabinet... For most taxpayers, seeing a Carney platform pledging to spend more than Trudeau and add nearly $250 billion of new debt over four years was not on their bingo card. During the campaign, there were media reports that because the election was called so soon after Carney won the leadership, he largely ran on a platform that was crafted for Trudeau. If that’s true, Carney’s first budget should recognize the gravity of the moment the nation is in financially and walk away from many of the outlandish spending commitments that were in his platform. With taxpayers already on the hook for $1 billion in debt interest payments every week, the country cannot afford for Carney to make Trudeau’s debt binge look an ode to fiscal restraint."
KLEIN: Don’t confuse political announcements with achievements - "This isn’t a list of missteps — it’s a pattern. Reannounce, delay, deny. Trudeau’s team is banking on your short memory, but the facts are all there."
Left wingers believe words speak louder than actions, after all
Marc Nixon on X - "WTF is happening? Trump drops a video 9 hours later—boom—Mark Carney propaganda video drops. “Elbows up” turned into arms wide open real fast. The whole fight-fight-fight act vanished the second the votes were counted. Looks like they’re best buddies now"
Carney is a fresh face but faces old Liberal problems - "You have to give Canadians credit. They exhibited this uncanny knack to resist change and voted in a fresh face but the same party that governed these past 10 years during an unprecedented period of stagnant growth in the country’s private-sector capital stock, productivity, real income per capita and a record-long string of net foreign direct investment outflows. Somehow, all this managed to give the Liberal Party a fourth consecutive term. Never in the country’s history has such a long record of economic ineptitude been so well rewarded, but that speaks to the impact United States President Donald Trump had on Canada’s election and the implosion of the socialist NDP party, whose seat number collapsed to a mere seven from 24. Mark Carney is indeed a fresh face, but as we saw with his first cabinet choices after his successful Liberal leadership nomination, the same team that presided over a decade of economic sclerosis largely remains intact — we shall see how this changes, but don’t hold your breath. The Liberal Party does not appear likely to garner a majority, with its current tally of 168 seats falling short of the 172 needed to govern unilaterally (the Conservatives have 144), which means the Carney-led Liberals will need to cobble support from either the NDP or the Bloc Québécois (which has 23 seats so far), and both fringe parties are major fiscal expansionist entities. The Liberals had run their campaigns on larger deficits and more spending growth (prefab housing, green energy and public infrastructure), so the fact that they will likely have to team up with a partner that is even more ambitious on the fiscal front is not the greatest news for the Government of Canada bond market... For those of us who still believe in mixed free-enterprise economic policies and yearn for efforts to make Canada tax competitive, the fact that the Liberals won but did not garner a majority and now must again be supported by left-leaning budget spending enthusiasts can only be viewed as a major disappointment. That the NDP has likely lost official party status (it needs at least 12 seats in Parliament) and its leader, Jagmeet Singh, says he is resigning is at least a small dose of consolation for those who still believe in a modicum of fiscal responsibility and less government influence in the country’s economic affairs. It seemed unfathomable four months ago to think the Liberals would win this election, but the polls in the more immediate lead-up to the election did not expect the Conservatives to come as close as they did, nor did they expect the Liberals to do anything but secure a majority government."
Bank of Canada might go lighter on rate cuts with Liberals in power - "“Deeper-than-anticipated deficits could be the cost of coalition-building, though the government may wish to hold the line as trailing parties have little interest in heading back to the polls anytime soon,” said Rebekah Young of Scotiabank Economics... Under the Liberals’ plan the deficit is projected to rise to 2 per cent of GDP or about $62 billion, higher than the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s projection of 1.5 per cent of GDP. Avery said the forecast was reasonable if trade negotiations go well and the economy does not fall into recession this year. “But there is more downside risk to the economic outlook than upside risk, and the reverse will therefore be true for the budget deficit,” he wrote in a note. “Odds of the deficit topping 2 per cent of GDP are likely more material than an undershoot.”"
Newman: Carney did not protect Canada from the 2008 financial crisis - "Mark Carney sat back and failed to negate the claim that he deserved credit for having saved Canadian banks from the misadventures of our American neighbours during the 2008 financial crisis. Carney can claim no such credit. In actuality, there are historical reasons for Canada’s lack of vulnerability to such financial upsets, including a divergent institutional pathway and regulatory changes recommended by Canadian Supreme Court Judge Willard Estey that safeguarded Canada’s banking system from the financial crisis. According to a 2015 paper in the journal Economic History Review, the relative stability of Canadian banks during the 2008 economic crisis is a product of historical circumstances. According the authors, as early as the 19th century, Canadian and American banking systems took different paths. Canada set up a strong, single-regulator-concentrated banking system which they say, “absorbed the key sources of economic risk — mortgage and investment banking,” while the U.S. developed what they refer to as a “relatively weak, fragmented, and crisis-prone” banking system. In contrast to Canada, what emerged in the U.S. was a lightly to unregulated banking system and ultimately many more smaller and less stable banks. More importantly, the authors point out that the relative stability of Canada’s banking system in comparison to the U.S. during the 2008 crisis was not a “one-off event,” as Canadian banks were able to avoid other financial crises experienced in the U.S. from 1863-1914 (a period of panics and recessions) and the Great Depression of the 1930’s for the same reasons. These circumstances pre-date Liberal leadership and prime ministerial-hopeful Mark Carney by over a century."
Carney may not know why China likes him, but it's plain for all to see - "In China, uttering those words — one can only correct inappropriate policies in a timely manner if one sticks to seeking truth from facts — can land you in a lot of trouble these days. The editors of the nominally independent Caixin Media business news platform was punished for raising the admonition about seeking truth from facts in a December 2023 editorial that was mildly critical of the Communist Party’s reckless mismanagement of the Chinese economy. The editorial was made to vanish... A caveat about China’s resilience: nobody really knows what the Chinese economy can sustain. Seeking truth from facts in China can be a very dangerous line of work. After being detained last April for having said unflattering things about the regime’s handling of the economy generally and Xi Jinping’s mismanagement specifically, the respected economist Zhu Hengpeng, by last September, simply disappeared. Zhu was the director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Public Policy Research Center, which reports directly to the Chinese Communist Party’s State Council. Three days ago, the centre was shut down and any activity carried out under its auspices were deemed illegal. The centre’s social media accounts have gone dark along with its website. “All activities carried out in the name of the former research centre are illegal and legal responsibility lies with the perpetrators,” according to a statement from the Academy’s Institute of Economics. What got Zhu into trouble were comments he made in a private chat group hosted by WeChat. The platform is closely monitored, censored and manipulated by the Chinese state police... no reasonable person could be led to believe that Carney has no idea why Beijing would want him to come out on top in this month’s federal vote. The Liberal party’s intimacies with the Chinese Communist Party go back decades. Beijing’s business-class proxies are deeply embedded in the Liberal party establishment, as the recent Paul Chiang scandal once again made plain. The evidence is irrefutable that in the last two federal elections Beijing undertook strenuous clandestine exertions to monkeywrench the vote in several ridings to the advantage of its preferred candidates and to the disadvantage of the Conservative Party. During his time in the leadership of Brookfield Asset Management, Carney was back and forth from China frequently and was a vocal advocate of Beijing’s plans for a “multi-polar world” and Beijing’s hopes to challenge the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency with China’s own renminbi."
Weird. We are told that Chinese all love Xi because he's made them rich
Meme - The Shift has Hit the Fan: "Liberal boomers and loyalists are starting to realize that they got played."
Warren Kinsella: "This is so messed up"
Brian Lilley @brianlilley: "Trump says he'll have a great relationship with Carney."
Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 on X - "Mark Carney’s blind trust investment company Brookfield announced yesterday it plans on investing in U.S. manufacturing operations due to Trumps tariffs. Amazing how all of this is announced just days after Carney becomes PM."
Weird how we are told that Trump's tariffs can't bring manufacturing back to the US. Brookfield must be daft
Wide Awake Media on X - "New Canadian PM Mark Carney: "We can't stabilise the climate unless we get to Net Zero." 🤡"
Carney legit fooled people. : r/CanadianConservative - "So I have been lurking the other Canadian subs after the disappointing results and... People legit think Carney is going to build pipelines, cut taxes and create industry that isn't funneling money to Brookfield. One commenter was actually suggesting that 3 block members cross the chamber and join the liberals so that they can form a majority and perhaps open Quebec up to building pipelines. These people are in for a big surprise."
""at least we're not Americans and have healthcare" Canada could achieve greatness if failure stopped being excuses with more or less this exact phrase"
Carney legit fooled people. : r/CanadianConservative - "I don’t like Ford but I doubt he caused the nationwide housing crisis"
"Or the nationwide healthcare crisis. But the moment you point out these problems are nationwide, then they move the goalposts outside of the nation, declaring there's a global crisis. But then you point out that it's not really global, and that most of countries with similar degrees on these issues are anglosphere countries, but then they'll point to $xIslandCityState... long story short, they'll end on capitalism being the problem and yet vote for a rich banker without any sense of the irony. /rant"
Anaida Poilievre on X - "My husband was calling out inflation as soon as all the money printing began back in 2020. Meanwhile, Mr. Carney didn’t believe in inflation: “It is unlikely to materialize… in fact, we need some inflation to come up.” Not only was he clueless it would happen—he was HOPING it would happen. Who does that help? The bankers. Meanwhile, my husband was right here at home, warning that inflation would hit and crush everyday Canadians. So now, who do you trust? The man with the fancy résumé, or the man who was right all along—and actually connected to the real struggles of everyday Canadians? On April 28th vote for change."
Carney says he'll trigger a byelection if Conservatives seek one for Poilievre : r/WildRoseCountry - "If Carney had run as a con, the left wing would have labeled him a Trump style elitist, but he is their elitist now, so he is our savior. Same with labeling PP as having no work experience, but they had no problem having drama teacher trust fund Trudea running for 10 years."
"This is the problem with the left. They only want an economist when that economist is a liberal. They voted out Harper, who was an economist for a drama teacher. Mind you these same people talk down on conservatives and conservative voters, whilst accusing us of being partisan. Peak hypocrisy."
CHARLEBOIS: Elbows up, food prices up — until feds quietly backed down - "The “dollar-for-dollar” tariff response that Trudeau championed was always a high-risk strategy against the world’s largest economy. These countermeasures may have fit a political narrative — propping up nationalism under slogans like “Elbows Up” — but they were economically counterproductive. Tariffs on key food ingredients and finished goods raised costs for Canadian importers, manufacturers, and ultimately consumers. The contrast with the United States is stark. Despite imposing tariffs on food products from Canada, Mexico and other countries, the U.S. saw food inflation fall to 2% in April. In Canada, food inflation continues to rise. Our unemployment rate is ticking upward. The U.S. jobless rate remains stable. The policy gap — and its consequences — are increasingly visible. Still, the Carney government’s lack of transparency is concerning. On April 10, during the election campaign, Carney briefly paused his campaign to convene a cabinet committee meeting on tariffs. At the time, the move raised eyebrows. Now, it’s clear he was preparing to walk back Ottawa’s retaliatory measures. Yet the public was not informed, at least not openly. No formal announcement was made during the campaign. Voters were left in the dark — arguably to avoid alienating the Elbows Up base. Good policy? Yes. Transparent leadership? Not quite."
Carney dropped most American tariffs day after Trump meeting - "Turns out “elbows up” means reducing tariffs on American imports to near zero. Despite all the rhetoric from Mark Carney and the Liberals, a new report shows that Canada has effectively eliminated tariffs on most goods. Oxford Economics, a global advisory firm, looked into the matter and found tariffs are nullified by exemptions and suspensions to effectively mean the tariffs are either gone or near zero in most cases. “It’s a very strategic approach from a new prime minister to really say, ‘We’re not going to have a retaliation,'” Tony Stillo, Oxford’s director of Canada economics, said... “It’s a strategic play on the government’s part to not damage the Canadian economy.” So far, the Carney government hasn’t commented on the report, but it does raise questions about all the tough talk during the election and since. “We must respond with both purpose and force,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in response to American tariffs. Those comments were made on April 3 as Carney stood in Ottawa reacting to Donald Trump’s flurry of tariffs on his so-called “Liberation Day.” A week later, Carney was campaigning in Hamilton when he said Canadian counter-tariffs were meant to hurt Americans. “We are fighting unjustified U.S. tariffs, including those on steel and autos with counter tariffs of our own and that those are designed to cause maximum pain in the United States, but have only a minimal impact here in Canada,” Carney said. He framed these counter tariffs as the patriotic thing to do, an action that was needed to protect workers. Or not, it seems... When Carney took that photo with President Trump, both smiling and giving a thumbs up at the White House, was this because Carney had told Trump the tariffs were coming off the next day? The effective elimination of the tariffs took place the day after Carney met Trump at the White House, so it might have been a good idea for the PM to admit that public and add it to the discussion about how he is trying to deal with the Americans. That wouldn’t fit with his tough talking, elbows up rhetoric though. At that White House meeting, Carney couldn’t find his elbows as he sat there listening to Trump bad mouth Canada, our economy, Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland. It’s probably good that he didn’t start punching back verbally or he would have received the Zelenskyy treatment. That said, Carney acted just the way he warned voters that Pierre Poilievre would have acted. To Liberal voters though, none of this will matter – they still cheer on their man and his every move. Personally, I cheer for Canada, and right now, Canada needs a new deal with the United States. China already has one, the UK has one. We could be in the middle of negotiating one, we could even be close and you’d never know because what Carney says in public and what he says and does behind closed doors are two very different things... Carney has already shown us that his elbows are down. For the good of the country, he should drop the tough talk and start negotiating a new deal for Canada in Washington."
Melissa Lantsman on X - "🚨🚨🚨 So get this…Bloomberg is reporting that Carney secretly dropped the US tariffs mid election……..but he continued to tell everyone he didn’t. Mark Carney has a very bad habit of lying to Canadians. He lied about his tariff plan, and now he’s hiding his economic plan.
April 11: Carney and his cabinet secretly removed the tariffs on most American goods. Here are the lies by date:
April 17: Carney - “we're all going to stand up against Donald Trump. I'm ready. I've managed crises over the years. I've built strong economies. We'll fight back with counter tariffs. We'll protect our workers and those businesses, and we will build the strongest economy. We'll build Canada strong.”
April 20: “this is the most consequential vote of our lifetimes because President Trump has ignited a trade war that has ruptured, ruptured, ruptured….. We don't like Trump here. We don't like Trump here. Ruptured the global economy and changed forever our relationship with the United States. That old relationship is over unfortunately, It is a tragedy. It is a tragedy, but it's the new reality. And we're responding. We are responding with purpose and with force. We are fighting. We are fighting back with tariffs of our own that are causing maximum damage in the United States with minimum impact here.“
April 27: Carney - “We are fighting the Americans. We're fighting them with our own tariffs, that are having maximum impact in the United States with minimum impact here. Elbows up. Everyone else has their head down. Canada has their elbows up.”
Not a brilliant start for those elbows."
