Meme - Aide: "IT'S A GIFT BASKET FROM Mark CARNEY"
Trump: "OUR MOUNTIES ARE RED, OUR LABATT BEER IS BLUE, I WOULDN'T BE PRIME MINISTER IF IT WASN'T FOR YOU."
Meme - Jesse Allen: "If you really need this explained to you, I will. You insufferable dumbasses. When Trump began threatening Canada, Poilievre sold his international funds/ stocks and bought Canadian ones (CARNEY WOULD NEVER). One of those Canadian investments (Vanguard FTSE Canada Index ETF) happens to contain Brookfield among its holdings. This is called a PASSIVE INVESTMENT. He has no direct control or active role in Brookfield. In contrast, Carney served as CHAIR of Brookfield Asset Management, a senior leadership position where he had significant influence over the firm's strategic decisions. He holds significant stock options valued at approximately USS6.8 million and potentially tens of millions in carried interest from clean energy funds he helped manage. He put these in a blind trust to try to avoid ethics violations. See the difference? Jfc liberal voters are the most retarded people on the planet."
Left wingers don't understand how index funds work. Or indeed conflict of interest
Carney agrees to ethics screen for 103 companies - "The screen means that Carney cannot be involved in “any official matters or decision-making processes” that would further either his or the interests of the 103 companies, many of which operate in the renewable energy and real estate sectors. “That’s the largest scope I’ve ever heard of,” commented Ian Stedman, a government ethics specialist who previously worked for Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner. “I think that they’re going to have to get creative to make administration of this screen efficient,” added Stedman, now an associate professor at York University."
Mark Carney's ethical guardrails more of a smokescreen - "If Prime Minister Mark Carney is truly serious about making sure he does not breach the Conflict of Interest Act then he is going to be exiting cabinet meetings on a regular basis. Carney has pledged to literally leave the room if a discussion starts involving matters that he has placed behind a conflict-of-interest screen. But the 103 companies behind that screen are extensive and have tentacles stretching far and wide in the business world. And it is not just the screen that is problematic, but also a blind trust in which Carney has shares in hundreds of different companies, a full 16 pages worth, everything from Adobe through to Zoom Communications... worryingly, Carney in his statement to the ethics commissioner’s office, has inserted certain caveats that could act as loopholes... When asked in March about Brookfield moving their headquarters to New York from Toronto, the prime minister essentially said it had nothing to do with him — before it was revealed he played a key part in the decision. Again, in March, Carney’s transition team was playing coy refusing to reveal whether he still had any assets with Brookfield... “The loophole is that as long as the decision applies generally or affects a broad group of people or entities, then PM Carney is allowed to participate in the decision even though it will affect a business he is invested in, and even though he can profit from the decision,” says a statement from Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, an organization devoted to government accountability. This is no way to run a conflict-of-interest screen. Canadians are supposed to be able to trust public officials are not abusing their position... “Prime Minister Carney has as many financial conflicts of interest as Trump, and his blind trust isn’t blind at all because he knows what stocks he put in it, including stock options he will definitely own for years, and he chose his own trustee and was allowed to give the trustee instructions such as don’t sell anything, and his trustee is allowed to give him regular updates on his investments,” says Conacher. For Conacher the answer is for Carney to sell, sell, sell as “the only effective way to end the serious … financial conflicts of interest caused by his investments in more than 550 companies.”"
Of course, Trump is full of conflicts of interest, but Carney is not, because tribal loyalty and polarization mean logical consistency is bad
Nine companies Carney had disclosed investments in have lobbied his office
John Robson: Carney's conflict-of-interest falsehoods part of a long history of mistruths - "When accused during the election campaign of a conflict of interest over his extensive holdings, he declared indignantly: “I own nothing but cash and personal real estate.” But he lied. As he did about his “blind trust” being blind. As Democracy Watch notes , “he knows what he put in the trust, chose his own trustee, was allowed to give the trustee instructions such as ‘don’t sell anything’ and the trustee is also allowed to give him regular updates.” As Norman Spector wisecracked, it’s a “venetian blind trust.” Incredibly, it gets worse. Carney actually holds shares in over 100 firms, from Amazon to Uber. When former finance minister Bill Morneau forgot he owned a French villa, per Jeff Foxworthy’s “If you’ve ever mowed your lawn and found a car, you might be a redneck,” if you ever cleaned up your desk and found a villa, you might be an aristocrat. But Carney’s a liar. He owns extensive investments, mostly American, on which the potential conflicts of interest across the board, from net zero to tariffs, is glaringly obvious . Including on the digital services tax . It’s to prevent exactly this kind of thing that we have conflict-of-interest rules, however feeble. (Remember when Paul Martin gave his shipping company to his sons to sidestep them?) But Carney doesn’t care. Do we? Watching the prime minister, who’s notoriously irritated at being questioned in any way, tell a lie to brush off a challenge gives the impression that he’s one of those people whose internal syllogism runs: “I am great; that claim makes me look bad; therefore it is untrue.” And bam! Out it comes without any pause to ponder whether factually speaking it might be true, let alone whether someone is bound to notice. Like Bill Clinton and, yes, Trump. Which surely also raises concerns about his management style. We saw it during the campaign, repeatedly. He said Canada avoided a recession in 2008 thanks to his brilliant leadership at the Bank of Canada, which … um … declared a recession in 2008. He “suspended” his campaign to deal with big grownup issues then went on “Tout le monde en parle.” He blustered about sweeping measures to implement internal free trade, then blustered about preserving supply management . And when asked why the Communist Chinese Politburo wanted him to win he babbled, “I have absolutely no idea, and yeah, I have absolutely no idea, and, well, I’ll leave it at that.” Hardly a trifle, that last one. Like saying “I know” when a protester accused Israel of genocide and then claiming he’d misheard... remember how he claimed the formal decision to move Brookfield’s headquarters to New York from Toronto was made after he left the company, even though he’d written a letter as board chair encouraging shareholders to support it? And how he’d “resigned all my roles, cut all my ties” to run for Liberal leader while still among other things chairing the Group of Thirty? He lies chronically, casually and recklessly on everything from personal gain to big political issues and now, we learn, their problematic connections. How can we trust him on anything, from balancing the budget while running deficits to ethics or even climate ? Of course, given Carney’s record as a “chancer,” including leaving the Bank of Canada to collect a record salary from the Bank of England for muffing inflation, then failing upward to multimillionaire “International Man of Green” not “International Man of Unemployment,” you could suppose his vociferous lucrative net zero advocacy was more about elevating Mark Carney than saving the planet. Especially given his oil company holdings. But if it was all fakery, we are entitled to disregard anything he says about anything. And if not, his current economic plans are fakery, so again we’re entitled to disregard anything he says about anything"
Poilievre says Carney lied about conflicts after ethics disclosure reveals investment portfolio - "during the election campaign, Carney claimed that he had only cash and real estate holdings, and it turns out he held hundreds of stocks, stock options and deferred profits from Brookfield and other companies. In the early days of the election Carney said he had set up a blind trust. “I actually don’t own – directly – any stocks in those companies,” and “I own nothing but cash and personal real estate,” Carney said at the time. Carney also said then he no longer had any financial connection to Brookfield Asset Management and that he didn’t know what was in his blind trust"
Mark Carney is a misinformation machine - "Carney is unique in that he is a virtual fountain of claims and comments that are easily disprovable. He’s not a typical politician who bends the truth, he breaks it with a frequency and level of comfort that’s rarely seen in Canada. On Thursday, it was revealed that during Carney’s phone call with Donald Trump, the U.S. president did, in fact, bring up his desire to annex Canada and make it the 51st state, contradicting Carney’s claim that Trump “respected Canada’s sovereignty” during the call. Also this week, Carney claimed that it was “a fact,” not merely “an accusation,” that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would use the notwithstanding clause to override abortion rights. Poilievre has, of course, said he would not seek to restrict abortion. Liberals have long tried to argue that their Conservative opponents wouldn’t protect abortion rights, or stand up for the right to choose, or otherwise imply that Conservatives want to make “The Handmaid’s Tale” a reality. Yet rarely have Liberals made such a pointed and false claim as Carney did — or one that could so easily be shown to be wrong. It wasn’t enough for him to say he doesn’t trust Poilievre to respect abortion rights, he had to say it is a “fact” that the Conservative leader would use the notwithstanding clause to restrict abortion, which is obviously false. This approach has become something of a habit for the Liberal leader. When running for the party leadership, he tried to say he had nothing to do with Brookfield Asset Management’s decision to move its headquarters to New York from Toronto. Carney, who served as Brookfield’s board chair until January, told reporters in February that the “formal decision” was made after he left the company. “I do not have a connection with Brookfield,” he said at the time. While the move may have officially happened shortly after Carney resigned, he wrote a letter to Brookfield’s shareholders on Dec. 1, encouraging them to support the move, and noted that the board, of which he was the chair, endorsed the decision. Also when running for the leadership, Carney claimed to have resigned from all his roles before throwing his hat into the race, even stating on Jan. 16, “Just to be clear: I resigned all my roles, cut all my ties. I am all in.” However, this also proved to be untrue. According to reporting by National Post’s Ottawa bureau, as of Feb. 28, Carney still had connections to at least five organizations, including as president of Chatham House, a British charity that claims to help “governments and societies build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world,” as a board member of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and as chair of the Group of Thirty, an international non-profit, among others... When Carney was heckled at a Calgary event about the false claim that a “genocide” is taking place in Gaza, he said, “I’m aware,” only to later claim he didn’t properly hear the heckler. During the French Liberal leadership debate, Carney similarly said that he agrees “with” the terrorist group Hamas, but later claimed he intended to say that he agreed “with no Hamas.” He was also caught telling western audiences that he supported pipelines, while appearing to tell Quebec audiences the opposite, that he would “never impose (a pipeline) on Quebec.” In another time, any number of these gaffes and lies would at least have dented a politician’s popularity, if not ended his career altogether. But in this day and age, where reality is a matter of politics, Carney is getting a pass, riding on the myth of his presumably impressive pre-politics career, but even here the truth isn’t what it seems. During the English Liberal leadership debate, Carney said, “It was my privilege to work with Paul Martin when he balanced the books — and kept the books balanced,” a statement that is, at best, highly misleading. Martin balanced the budget as finance minister in 1998, and Carney didn’t join the finance department as a senior bureaucrat until 2004. Yes, that was when Martin was prime minister, but it was long past the time when he balanced the budget, and the finance department would have reported to the finance minister of the time, Ralph Goodale, not the prime minister. Carney is most happy to let people believe that as governor of the Bank of Canada, he, practically alone, steered the country through the 2008 financial crisis, when in fact, the crisis barely touched this country thanks to a long history of aggressive bank regulation (some might say overly aggressive). He lowered interest rates, but so did every other central banker in the western world. The Liberal leader’s aversion to the truth is so blatant, it is almost refreshing. A more experienced politician would spin. Carney does exactly what he wants to do, and that doesn’t involve telling the truth."
Mark Carney's Trumpian moment - "For Canada, the opportunity was not only to develop the natural resources we have allowed to sit idle for years, but to forge an alliance of free-trading nations that could act as a counterweight to Trump’s protectionist policies. Carney is not only squandering this unique opportunity, he’s introduced policies that will only serve to broaden the global trade war. This week, the prime minister announced a series of measures intended to protect Canada’s steel industry after Trump increased tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to a punishing 50 per cent. Some of the more sensible policies include a pledge to use Canadian steel for domestic infrastructure projects and funds to help retrain affected workers. But Carney also announced sweeping tariffs on foreign steel imports, including from countries that Canada has free trade agreements with. Going forward, the tariff rate quota will be set at 50 per cent of 2024 levels for countries that don’t have trade agreements with us and 100 per cent for those that do... Carney is all but inviting our trade partners to bring in retaliatory tariffs against Canadian products... The worst part is that Carney’s tariffs are also being imposed on countries that have free trade deals with Canada, which will surely violate the spirit, if not the text, of those agreements. If any of those countries are found to be dumping steel into Canada at below-market rates, the proper course of action would be to use the dispute-resolution mechanisms contained in our existing agreements, rather than imposing blanket tariffs on everyone. When he made his announcement at a steel company in Hamilton, Ont., on Wednesday, the prime minister said that, “Moving forward, we must diversify our trade relationships.” But who’s going to want to do business with a country that stabs its closest allies in the back? And how are we going to entice more countries to open their markets to Canadian products when Ottawa has shown that it can’t be trusted?... Yes, he travelled to Europe in June and signed a security and defence pact with the European Union, but it merely reiterates our commitment to the free trade deal we signed in 2016 but still hasn’t fully come into force because not all EU member states have ratified it. If Carney can’t even convince his pals in Europe to ratify an agreement that’s already been negotiated, it’s hard to believe he will have much luck convincing other potential partners to cut new deals with us. Especially given that one of the first things Canada’s 45th Parliament did following the spring election was pass a law protecting supply management from future trade negotiations"
The Master Economist strikes again
Here's what we know about which U.S. goods are still subject to Canadian tariffs - "While it’s tough to say exactly why some decisions were made by the federal government, Stillo has a hunch: There are some goods that are easily replaced. For example, Canadians can buy Canadian chicken instead of American chicken. Or chicken could be sourced from other countries. This is similarly true with all sorts of food and all sorts of cosmetics and clothing. However, there are some goods and materials moving through North America’s heavily integrated supply chain that can’t easily be swapped out... fundamentally, the United States has an effective tariff rate of 14.1 per cent on Canadian goods, while Canada’s effective tariff rate is more like 2.8 per cent, if you account for all the tariff relief."
Some Carney supporters were claiming that the tariff exemptions were fake news and they were minor exemptions. The narrative is strong indeed.
Jack Mintz: Mark Carney’s conservative progressive government - "We are witnessing the rapid transformation of the federal Liberal party from NDP-lite to something much more like Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government. Whether with a newfound love for energy development or deep cuts to federal spending, Mark Carney is making clear there’s a new kid on the block running Ottawa. I don’t mean to disparage this shift. Far from it. There’s good precedent. Back in 1995, the Chrétien government took a hatchet to federal spending once it realized it could have trouble selling more Canada bonds. It also encouraged energy development with a 1997 incentive package that sharply boosted oilsands development. After balancing the federal budget, the Liberals then gradually cut personal and corporate income taxes, starting in 2000. Canada’s per capita economic growth recovered, helped along by further tax cuts by the Harper government. In the two decades from 1995-2015 Canada benefited from what were in effect two right-of-centre governments. Though social programs were largely maintained, the federal tax burden fell from 17.4 per cent in 1996-7 to 14 per cent in 2014-5. (It’s now 16.2 per cent.) The government’s gross debt declined sharply — from 78 per cent of GDP in 1996 to 51 per cent by 2014. (It was 61 per cent in 2023). Despite the 2008 financial crisis, the Harper government ran an essentially balanced budget in 2015. Actions speak louder than words so it’s way too early to stamp the new government as Conservative-lite. And although Carney deserves credit for shifting the Liberal campaign focus from social programs to economic development, the party platform still reads like the usual profligate Liberal budget, with tens of billions more in deficit spending over four years — not to mention a carbon plan that would hamstring the oil and gas industries and much of manufacturing. But recent announcements suggest a stronger shift right is in the cards. A cumulative cut of 29 per cent in federal operational spending over the next three years would be a welcome change after the Trudeau government’s 40 per cent expansion of the civil service. But the extra $70 billion in spending needed to get defence and defence-related expenditure up to five per cent of GDP has to come from somewhere... One bright spot is the prospect of new resource development in Canada. The government has reached out to the private sector to encourage proposals, enabled by Bill C-5, which provides a five-year holiday from Trudeau legislation and regulation that effectively blocked new ventures. So far, there is provincial support for a B.C.-Hudson Bay corridor for LNG and other resource exports. Although opposition in Quebec likely will block an east-west oil pipeline, Ontario is interested in a pipeline to Sarnia so western oil would no longer be routed through the U.S. Though an oil pipeline to the West Coast would have even greater value the Eby government remains opposed. The project might gain “social licence” if it transported “decarbonized” oilsands product: the oil itself still contains carbon but any carbon emitted by the combustion of energy in its extraction is sequestered. The Carney government may even relax the Trudeau-era prohibition on using sequestered carbon for enhanced oil recovery. Energy development won’t succeed, however, unless Ottawa rescinds the regulations currently blocking development, including the oil and gas emissions cap, the B.C. tanker ban and the project-killing Impact Assessment Act. Temporary regulatory relief provided by Bill C-5 won’t provide certainty for future investments. If the Liberals really are shifting to the right, that could cause problems for true Conservatives, just as the Chrétien government’s rightward move ate into the Reform Party’s vote. On the other hand, the Liberals and Conservatives could differ in many other ways: on DEI, health and social policy reform, the Middle East and how tough to be on crime, to name just four. And there’s still a big difference in their policy philosophies. Carney focuses on government-led growth “catalyzed” by investment subsidies. A sizeable number of Conservatives would still favour removing obstacles on the private sector to enable growth by, for example, reforming, simplifying and lowering taxes. The Carney government’s focus on economic growth rather than new social spending is consistent with what Canadians tell pollsters they want. Ontario Premier Doug Ford always seems to have his finger on the public’s pulse. Mark Carney’s first months in office suggest he may, too, but only time will tell for sure — especially his first budget."
Tasha Kheiriddin: A Carney pipeline means an angry Liberal base - "First, Carney has a very verdant past. He is a longtime climate finance evangelist, promoting green energy projects as chair of Brookfields, authoring a book on “value(s),” arguing for ESG investment frameworks, and serving as the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. Will he turn his back on those beliefs — or find a way to reconcile them with pro-development positions? Second, the Liberal Party’s green flank is likely to see red. Former and current environment ministers Steven Guilbeault and Julie Dabrusin are part of the anti-oil crowd, as are many rank and file members of the party in urban Ontario, Quebec, and B.C. Until now, they called the tune: under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Liberals were the party of carbon taxes, not carbon capture, of emissions caps, not Energy East. Third, there are potential roadblocks that are out of Carney’s control. Opposition is brewing among environmental and indigenous groups to his recently passed Bill C-5, the “One Canadian Economy Act,” which promises to streamline approval for resource projects. Canada has seen civil disobedience before, when members of the Wet’suwet’en band blocked railways in early 2020 to protest pipeline construction: a sequel could be coming to a rail line near you, and it’s not clear how Carney would respond. So far, Carney has stickhandled these issues by avoiding specifics. He hasn’t said which pipeline, or where, or when. But when plans start to firm up, maps are drawn and suddenly a pipeline is running through someone’s back yard, he’ll have to make a choice — and that choice will have serious political implications for both his party, and others. For the Liberals, it means possible internal rifts, as cabinet minister are asked to fall in line. For the NDP, Carney’s embrace of energy infrastructure could boost the green left, as the party prepares to choose a new leader and possibly new direction. For the Conservatives, it could deny leader Pierre Poilievre his monopoly on “common sense” jobs-and-growth politics. But in some ways, Carney doesn’t have a choice. As with everything else these days, policy is being dictated by what’s happening south of the border... Meanwhile other markets, in Asia and Europe, are looking for stable suppliers of oil and LNG. Diversification isn’t just a buzzword; it’s survival. In the end, Carney may find that the green that speaks loudest is in Canadians’ wallets."
Dan Knight on X - "A Predictable Retreat- Canada Reversed Course on the Digital Services Tax
Warnings were clear from experts, industry, and trade partners—yet Ottawa moved forward. Now, with negotiations at risk and tariffs mounting, the government is walking back its digital tax policy.
It’s official, Canada just folded. The Trudeau-Carney DST, the retroactive digital tax on U.S. tech giants that triggered a full-blown trade crisis, is dead. Gone. Rescinded. And not because of some multilateral agreement or smart diplomacy. No. It’s gone because Donald Trump walked away, shut the door on trade negotiations, and dared Canada to blink. And blink they did. The news dropped like a stone out of Ottawa: Canada’s Liberal government—now led by Mark Carney, the global finance technocrat turned Prime Minister—announced it will halt collection of the Digital Services Tax and bring forward legislation to formally repeal it. All to “support negotiations” with the U.S., now aiming for a July 21 deal. Carney was sold to Canadians as some sort of economic savior—a sober, seasoned banker who’d deliver Harper-style fiscal resurgence. People thought they were getting 2008-era competence. What they got instead was a recycled globalist who walked straight into an avoidable trade blunder with the DST that nearly torched Canada’s largest economic relationship. Turns out the suit doesn’t make the man—and the buzzwords don’t build the economy. But let’s be honest—this was inevitable. Carney’s tax was a political vanity project from the beginning. A 3% levy on revenue, not profit. Retroactive to 2022. Aimed squarely at American companies. And everyone saw where it would lead: retaliation, tariffs, trade breakdown. Trump made it clear. The business community warned him. Expert testimony in Parliament predicted it word for word. But Carney, like Trudeau before him, pushed ahead with ideological arrogance and zero economic sense. Now they’re backpedaling—hard... Let’s be honest—this tax wasn’t about “standing up” for Canadians. It was a copy-paste EU policy, inspired by the bureaucrats in Brussels who’ve spent years trying to kneecap American tech because they can’t compete. And what did Ottawa do? They followed Europe right off a cliff—without the economic leverage or tech sector to back it up. And now? With Trump threatening to torch trade negotiations? Where’s the EU? Nowhere. Silent. Not a word. No coordinated defense. No solidarity. Because they’re not the ones getting hit with 25% tariffs on auto parts and steel—Canada is. That’s what you get when you hitch your policy wagon to a continent with no skin in your game. Here’s the truth the Liberals don’t want to admit: they’re mad that Canada doesn’t have a homegrown Amazon, Twitter, Uber, or Netflix—but they wouldn't know what to do with one if they did. Why? Because the second it got big, they’d tax it to oblivion. Instead of fostering innovation, streamlining regulations, and letting competition thrive, they attack success with punitive taxes and endless red tape. Canada is anti-competitive by design—a country where the market is controlled by monopolies, protected incumbents, and a government that punishes growth instead of enabling it. That’s why we don’t have global tech champions. It’s not a lack of talent—it’s a lack of freedom. The feds don’t want innovators. They want tax targets. Don’t believe me? Look at the Shaw–Rogers merger. The federal government signed off on one of the largest telecom consolidations in Canadian history—shrinking the number of national wireless providers and handing even more market power to an already dominant player. How is allowing less competition better for consumers? It’s not. And the results? Exactly what you'd expect. The Competition Bureau has flagged concerns that Rogers is failing to offer pricing comparable to the affordable bundled plans that Shaw Mobile customers once had, especially in Western Canada, where affordability was already a concern. The data backs it up. In June 2025, Rogers rolled out a revamped set of mobile plans—with higher prices across the board... You don’t slap a retroactive tax on the biggest, most powerful companies in the world—companies headquartered in your largest trading partner—and expect it to go unnoticed. You certainly don’t expect it to go unpunished. But here we are. I’ve seen incompetence before. I’ve seen arrogance. But this? This was willful ignorance wrapped in ideology and sold as economic policy. Everyone said this tax would have repercussions. Business leaders. Trade experts. Even Canada’s own financial institutions. It was all on the record. And yet Carney and the Liberals plowed ahead like nothing could go wrong. Well, it did. Canada got hit. Trump walked. And now the same people who dragged the country into this mess are congratulating themselves for cleaning it up. And here we are. Wreckage everywhere. This wasn’t just predictable. It was inevitable."
