Carney-ism is off to a shaky start

Is Mark Carney a lethally Machiavellian technocrat or just a slick central banker blessed by the fates? We'll know soon enough.

Source: Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.

The phrase “honeymoon period” is one of those cliches of political discourse I dislike, for no other reason than that it happens to be used so much. Nevertheless, in a narrow sense at least, it certainly refers to something real: namely, the period of generalized calm and sometimes enthusiasm that greets a new government after it takes office. When it comes to Canada’s new government, of course, an obvious caveat applies: this isn’t strictly a “new” administration but rather an old one under new management.

Still, Canada’s Liberals have just won an election that until a few months ago seemed unwinnable and are doing their utmost to rebrand under prime minister Mark Carney. It’s early days yet, but the honeymoon period has already become one defined by a string of gaffes and errors that have some members of the press smelling blood.

In brief:

• After the swearing in of Carney’s new cabinet, he was asked about the appointment of former Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson as Housing Minister (Robertson having presided over skyrocketing rents and property prices during his tenure in office). Specifically, he was asked whether the appointment signalled that the government wasn’t intending to bring prices down to which he replied “You would be very hard-pressed to make that conclusion.” Less than 24 hours later, Robertson directly contradicted him, replying “No, I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable” when asked if prices should come down.

• The same week, former environment minister (and now “Minister for Canada Identity”, good grief) Steven Guilbeault contradicted stated government policy as well, this time around the issue of pipelines. For context, Guilbeault is a former activist who premised his political reputation on the Trudeau era carbon tax only to endorse Carney despite his (since realized) commitment to repealing it. In any case, Guilbeault is no longer environment minister but decided to weigh in on a new pipeline the government is officially committed to pursuing — contradicting its quite explicitly pro oil and gas stance with his own more qualified one. (I happen to think the pipeline is a terrible idea, but I also wasn’t just sworn in as a minister in a government committed to building one.)

• Wayne Long, a New Brunswick Liberal MP recently sworn into cabinet offered the following characterization to reporters: “I think we’re going to see our government run like a corporation, which I think is long overdue.” This wasn’t a gaffe per se, but I think it’s indicative of a similar breakdown in messaging and narrative discipline I’m going to elaborate further on below.

• Finally, Carney’s government has flip-flopped on it’s initially stated intention not to table a federal budget this year. Having sent the Minister of Finance out last week to do the rounds on various shows and explain (badly, I would add) why no budget was coming this year, it turns out an “ambitious, prudent” budget will in fact be tabled next fall. (Ambitious and prudent? What will they think of next…)

To be clear: I am not precious about any of these things, and I often find the media tendency to become preoccupied with “gaffes” excessive. One of the simple virtues of having my politics is that you don’t really expect to get much (or anything) from L/liberal administrations in the first place. So this is not primarily a post about how the Carney Liberals lack message discipline or are needlessly spending what should be their grace period slipping on political banana peels (though they do and they are).

No, what really interests me is how visibly the past week appears to contradict the generally received wisdom about Mark Carney. To a more than negligible chunk of the Canadian electorate, and of the press, Carney is understood to be not just a technocrat par excellence but also an immensely skilled political operator. Even on some parts of the left — where there’s more understanding of how conservative Carney’s politics actually are — it’s been my anecdotal experience that plenty nonetheless also see him that way.

Whatever you make of Carney, in this view, he is someone who is lethally competent and will find a way to carry out his objectives and get things done if he really wants to. As I wrote back in February, I do think Carney is slicker than plenty of other politicians in the same mould. But when it comes to the Machiavellian impression he’s given some, I am a good deal more skeptical. For one thing, I find it hard to imagine Carney ever becoming prime minister or winning an election without the extremely specific array of circumstances that have amplified his appeal since January. Throughout the election, for a variety of reasons, Carney was able to campaign as an almost Jupiterian figure: distant from the usual political fray, and being attractive to many voters less for explicitly ideological than (for want of a better word) spiritual reasons.