Andrew MacDougall: Mark Carney needs his Scottie Pippen
The PM is obviously busy, but a Netflix basketball documentary is worth his time. Seriously. It'll help the country if he watches it.
By: Andrew MacDougall
Canada’s new prime minister doesn’t seem like the type to Netflix and chill, but Mark Carney should put down his briefing books and binge watch The Last Dance, the 2020 docuseries about basketball superstar Michael Jordan and his career with the Chicago Bulls. In fact, it might just be the best investment he could make.
A series about basketball? Now? But doesn’t the prime minister have a lot on his plate? He’s at the United Nations this week. He was just in Mexico talking trade last week. He’s got a budget in just over a month. And then there’s figuring out Donald Trump. Why would Carney stop doing any of that to geek out on Michael Jordan?
Because government, like basketball, is about teamwork. At least good government is. And right now, Mark Carney is Michael Jordan circa 1984-1986, i.e. the brash kid who has come into the league thinking he can bend it to his will, only to realize his teammates are a bunch of stiffs and coke addicts. Carney might have all of the attention and all of the endorsements, but the job of government is simply too big for any one man, even if he thinks he’s Michael Jordan. The Carney Liberals aren’t going to win the championship until they build out the team. Even Jordan needed his Scottie Pippen.
Right now, Carney isn’t passing anyone the ball. He’s trying to dribble through five men and then chucking up some low-percentage shots (even if he, like Jordan, is still converting his fair share). A telling blurb in Politico’s morning newsletter this week shared the story of a minister who cut short a media scrum for fear of being one minute late for Cabinet. Sounds like someone is scared of receiving the infamous Carney hairdryer treatment.
Indeed, it feels like everyone in the Liberal caucus is afraid of their boss. And that their boss is afraid of them. The Politico story also described a communications apparatus that is somehow even more centralized than Justin Trudeau’s. Ministers aren’t scrumming, and when they are scrumming, they are saying next to nothing. The Liberal cabinet is leaving everything to Air Carney.
To be fair, turning things over to teammates like Gary Anandasangaree and Lena Diab must be what it felt like for Jordan to pass to Quintin Dailey and Caldwell Jones. You just know the turnover is coming. Although Anandasangaree appeared to be following a script when he told a constituent the Liberals gun confiscation program was being done for “political” reasons, and not public safety ones. But it was still a turnover, one Pierre Poilievre will fast-break the other way for a slam dunk. It must be frustrating for Carney to watch.
Like Jordan, Carney inherited his team. The current Liberal cabinet aren’t his preferred players; he was just drafted into the situation. And like Jordan found, there is some talent about. Orlando Woolridge could score (but also with drug dealers, which didn’t help). And Rod Higgins and Sidney Green went on to have respectable NBA careers. Carney has people like Dominic LeBlanc and Anita Anand.
But the depth and quality just isn’t good enough. Unlike basketball, Carney has no general manager around to initiate trades. But what Carney can do, and appears to be doing, is appoint some deadwood to patronage posts (e.g. Bill Blair taking my rightful place as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom) and ship out good players who no longer fit the team (e.g. the Chrystia Freeland trade to Ukraine). This will allow some better players to be drafted through a series of byelections after the budget vote. Carney is hoping to find his Pippen in this crop, along with (hopefully) a Horace Grant and John Paxson (to keep defences honest).
Even if he does find some better wood with which to build a cabinet, Carney will have to trust them to get on with their jobs. Watching The Last Dance, one sees how Jordan never fully trusted his teammates, even if they helped him win five titles before the series’ focus on the 1997-98 season — Jordan’s last title-winning season. The man was an absolute bastard to his colleagues, even if he was a worse bastard to his opponents.
At least Jordan’s teammates knew he was the best basketball player who ever lived. The Liberals who are looking to Carney to save them are looking at a guy who’s never played basketball in his life. And they’re looking to him when Canada is under threat from Trump and under severe stresses at home. That’s asking a lot from a rook, even a talented one.
Because Trump and his officials are every bit the title-winning “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons of the late 1980s, a.k.a. Jordan and the Bulls’ nemesis. They will take some skill, guile and toughness to beat. Trump is peak Bill Laimbeer, sneering and fouling everything in sight. JD Vance is Dennis Rodman, an Energizer bunny clearing the boards. And Stephen Miller is Isaiah Thomas, the floor general weaving through defences and chirping at his opponents with an insouciant mug begging to be slapped.
But like basketball in the early 1990s, the world is ready for a new champion. The Bad Boys have had their day. We need governments that can play as teams to deliver results for their supporters. And we need leaders who are humble enough to realize they can’t do it alone. Here’s hoping Carney can “be like Mike.”
Andrew MacDougall is a director at Trafalgar Strategy and former head of communications to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
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The Liberals used a "full court press" on Canadians during the election. They made it clear that the Carney way was the only way to deal with Trump and the Conservatives were essentially benched. Overpromising is the Liberal way and believing them seems to be the Canadian way. Well the "jig is up" and Canadians are waking up. With debris flying outside and inside the court Carney the "rookie" is having a hard time handling the ball never mind locating the basket and scoring.
Unfortunately, Carney is a smart, smug elitist who believes himself the smartest guy in the room and thinks himself talented enough to do it all. That is an impossible task of course but don’t tell him or his “elbows up” army or the msm that, they’ll tell you not to mess with the great Mark Carney, the greatest mind that ever lived. Canada is in deep trouble.