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The Last Thing Mark Carney Needs Is Trudeau-Era Rhetoric
The prime minister’s strongest asset is competence, not progressive applause lines
I’m trying to figure out what Prime Minister Mark Carney thought he was doing at this year’s Global Progress Action Summit.
The Global Progress Action Summit is an annual gathering of Canadian Liberals, United Kingdom Labour figures, United States Democrats, and assorted compatible figures from other countries. Carney spoke at this year’s summit on Saturday in Toronto, which took place the day after former US president Barack Obama gave a speech for Canada 2020, the Canadian organizers of the Global Progress Action Summit. This was, in turn, the day after the Public Policy Forum’s annual Testimonial Dinner and its affiliated Canada Growth Summit. Which is why, if you work in Ottawa, you might have had a hard time getting calls returned that week.
The prime minister read from his prepared remarks after a few minutes of impromptu nervous-jokey preliminaries of the sort he often indulges when he knows a lot of the people in a room. He also half-apologized for speaking French to a room of mostly anglophones, which is also something he unfortunately can’t seem to stop doing.
Then he said this, reading from remarks in French. “Today, I want to talk to you about the rupture in the world. Our response, at this time, must be to resist any temptation to preserve or restore elements of the past. We prefer to build anew. New infrastructure, new energy systems, new trade relationships, and new institutions. This is what the new progressive politics could be.”
I’m wondering how this sort of writing made it past quality control. The best that can be said for it is that it means nothing. I’m pretty sure the Carney government will continue trying to preserve supply management, the CBC, the St. Lawrence Seaway, federalism, the monarchy, and other elements of the past.
This is the sort of prose that reads better in all uppercase. “RESIST ANY TEMPTATION TO PRESERVE OR RESTORE ELEMENTS OF THE PAST, the sign over the dingy entryway to the Ministry of Love read. WE PREFER TO BUILD ANEW.”
It’s reminiscent of Justin Trudeau discerning an “opportunity for a reset” during the COVID-19 crisis of 2020, or Michael Sabia, in a piece the Globe published ten days after the COVID-19 lockdown began, urging governments to “leave their orthodox thinking behind and, most of all, avoid the trap of incremental, piece-by-piece action that is so often the reflex of bureaucracy.”
Having forsworn any temptation to preserve or restore elements of the past, Carney delivered an ode to Canadian history. “Canada was built by Indigenous peoples and voyageurs who mapped a continent and built trading networks coast to coast to coast before the Americans had even left St.........