Jamie Carroll: Carney has a plan. He also has a major problem

Already frustrated young voters need more than promises that the sacrifices to come will eventually pay off.

By: Jamie Carroll

Do you think Mark Carney regrets being Prime Minister yet?

Despite having clearly coveted the role since he was in short pants, based on his speech Wednesday night, one could be forgiven for thinking that he’d rather be getting a root canal from a proctologist than doing his current job.

It was impossible to reach any other conclusion after watching his appearance before a group of students directly, and the body politic indirectly, in Ottawa last night. His grim visage looked more like a neighbour coming to tell you they’d run over your puppy than the hockey/playing banker who projected calm confidence on the campaign trail six months ago.

Granted, the message was heady and not entirely positive: cuts are coming in next month’s budget; Canadians will need to sacrifice in the short term to shore up our economic sovereignty in the long term; and while he made clear certain sacred cows would continue to be grass-fed, everything else was eligible for the slaughterhouse. I like to think I have a pretty good appreciation of the scale of the challenge Canada faces. I was still surprised by the blunt tone of Carney’s speech. He is clearly prepping us for some major system shocks to come, perhaps starting as soon as the upcoming budget.

Let’s start from the premise that’s he’s right to be concerned: both the peace dividend from ending the Cold War and the incredible expansion of Canada’s economy under the ease and grace of free trade are over. No Canadian prime minister can responsibly assume that America remains a reliable partner.

It would be a foolish error to assume that risk ends with Trump’s presidency (and another error to assume that it necessarily ends on schedule). As I’ve written elsewhere, the strain of American nativism currently called MAGA comes around every few decades because a) it has a natural constituency, and b) it plays to just the right American prejudices.

So, assuming Canada can ride this out would be both foolish and naïve.

Second, as much as it’s not politic to say such things out loud yet, Trump may have done Canada a favour.

North American free trade may have been good for growing the Canadian economy, but it created an almost unique reliance on the American market. Yes, it is the largest market in the world. Yes, it is so geographically close it will always be the market of choice for Canadian exports. And yes, since the Second World War, we have been the closest of allies and so a natural partner.

But.

Those virtues are also vices, as we’ve now seen. Our overreliance on a single market as both the source of investment and the destination for trade has made us incredibly vulnerable to the whims of that market. While Trudeau I commented that when America gets a sniffle, we get a near-death flu (or words to that effect), our entanglement and reliance have only grown since his time. At the same time, our general neglect of the Armed Forces and national security more broadly has also left us dependent on America for our defence in an increasingly dangerous world.

Now, before anyone suggests otherwise, neither I nor Mr. Carney nor anyone serious is suggesting that Canada should no longer do any business with the United States or that we won’t try to remain military allies. That’s dumb for all the reasons stated above.

What the PM is saying — nay, obsessed with — is diversifying our trading relationships so that we are not quite as immunocompromised during this American flu season. Put another way, Carney’s CEO-brain is telling Canada what any good business leader knows: relying on a single customer is asking to get fucked over.

By focusing on attracting foreign, non-U.S. investment, buyers and suppliers, the PM is embarking on a long-term process to insulate Canada to the greatest extent possible from future American policy shocks. His simultaneous effort to begin reversing the decline of Canada‘s hard power is part of the same strategy.Again, that’s not to say Canada won’t be an ally or trading partner to the U.S., just that we won’t find ourselves quite as vulnerable the next time the nativists grab the levers of power.

But Carney still has a major problem that the speech didn’t address. So we have a 10-year plan. What about right now?

By choosing to speak to students, Carney really highlighted — perhaps more so than he intended — that wedge between building for tomorrow and addressing the issues that need addressing right frickin’ now.

Carney is apparently frustrated by the pace of … everything. While the public service is most often the long pole in the tent, a minority government has — and will increasingly be — a contributor to that frustration.

The Liberals lost their chance at a majority in April because Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative party won over voters in the 905 and 519 on issues of crime, affordability and access to housing.

For Carney and the Liberal party, if there’s any chance of getting those voters back, he needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time: to wit, he needs to be able to build for tomorrow while addressing those programs and priorities that meet today’s problems, especially for those specific voters.

That, in my opinion, is going to be the hard part of the Carney government: I believe the PM and his team are absolutely capable of delivering on the big-ticket, future-building stuff. It is the bread and butter of people like Carney and his clerk, Michael Sabia (who just finished delivering the first phase of the Montreal REM ahead of schedule and on budget).

But for right now, Carney’s major challenge is keeping people — like his audience last night — satisfied in the interim that any sacrifices they are being asked to make are reasonable and that the end result will be worth it. They need to see costs for housing, groceries, utilities and everything else come down. They need to have jobs when they graduate. And they need to feel safe when they walk the dog at night.

While even I admit that government spending can’t fix everything, cutting spending in that environment is an exercise fraught with risk. Like the rest of the Western world, Canadians — especially younger ones — have been trained by social media to expect instant gratification. And the high living standards of recent generations have also created an expectation of more of the same — the difficulty of achieving that lifestyle is a major source of frustration, even rage, for millions of voters.

Millennials and younger cohorts have been beaten over and over by global events and their faith in government and the global economy is basically non-existent. The idea of sacrifice for a future benefit is a big ask from these folks.

So, to answer the question asked off the top, does Carney regret being the dog that caught the car? Probably not yet, but the mandate is young.

Jamie Carroll is a former National Director of the Liberal Party of Canada and is now an entrepreneur and consultant who mostly lives and works in Ottawa.

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