Mark Carney, who was elected leader of the Liberal Party to replace Justin Trudeau just weeks ago, has called a snap election set for April 28.
In preparing for this pivotal election, we produced an election primer meant to provide a common framework for understanding the current political moment, one that people could engage with, debate, discuss, and be inspired to take action together.
We argued that we needed to both resist the rise of Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives, and to organize a broad-based movement to fight back against the corporate agenda and to build the Canada we want, both during the election and after.
The election primer was written before Justin Trudeau’s resignation, before Trump’s threats of annexation and his trade war rhetoric became reality, and before the arrival of Mark Carney to lead the Liberals in this snap election.
How well do its arguments hold up, in light of these most recent political developments?
We Still Need to Resist the Rise of Poilievre
One thing that has not changed is our assessment of the danger that a Conservative majority government led by Pierre Poilievre would represent. In many ways, his policies are a mirror image of those currently being pursued by Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their underlings in the U.S. – to devastating effect.
If elected Prime Minister, Poilievre has signalled that he would lead a DOGE-style assault on our public services, slashing new programs like pharmacare, dental care, child care, and school lunch programs and squeezing existing federal spending on health care and education, while boosting military spending by $40 billion.
To divide working people, Poilievre would crack down on migrants’ rights, vilify drug users and scaremonger about DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and trans kids, while shovelling tax cuts into the pockets of his wealthy backers. He would weaken unions and do nothing about price gouging by corporations like Loblaws – indeed, his top advisor (Jenni Byrne) is a registered lobbyist for Loblaws.
Like Trump, Poilievre would abandon any meaningful efforts to tackle the climate crisis, instead spending billions in public money on subsidies for oil companies and building pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Environmental regulations on extractive industries would be slashed, while Indigenous land defenders resisting destructive resource projects on unceded lands would face increased targeting and repression by the RCMP.
With Trump using his trade war to seek ever-expanding concessions from Canada, there is a real risk that as Prime Minister, Poilievre would cave in and give away our natural resources – and even our water – to appease the regime to the south. Under Poilievre, we risk getting a federal government that would operate as if we were already the 51st state.
Mark Carney and the Corporate Agenda
The Liberals, after a decade in power, seemed headed for a blowout loss just a few months ago. But Trump’s bullying and Trudeau’s departure have revived their electoral fortunes, since many Canadians don’t trust Poilievre to stand up to Trump.
Carney has struck a combative tone vis-à-vis both Donald Trump and Pierre Poilievre. At the Liberal leadership convention, he declared: “The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country. … We must protect them; we must promote them. We will never, ever, trade them for any trade deal!” He lauded public, universal health care as central to “our way of life.” “In America, healthcare is a big business. In Canada, it’s a right.” On Poilievre, Carney warned that the Conservative leader “would let our planet burn” and denounced his intention “to shut down CBC and Radio-Canada at a time when disinformation and foreign interference are rising.”
Look behind this righteous rhetoric, however, and a different picture emerges. Carney, after all, is a former Goldman Sachs banker who headed the central banks of Canada and England and that is reflected in his policy orientations. He is “in every cell of his body a neoliberal technocrat – albeit a neoliberal who presents himself as possessing an enlightened social conscience,” writes Jeet Heer in The Nation.
What Carney says we need to get through this crisis is disturbingly similar to the corporate agenda being pushed by the Business Council of Canada and other lobby groups representing Canada’s wealthy elite.
Carney’s first moves as Prime Minister were to repeal the carbon tax and cancel the increase in the capital gains tax – a massive giveaway to the wealthiest Canadians, with more cuts to personal income taxes on the way.
As Prime Minister, Carney has vowed to “spend less and invest more,” which appears to mean rapidly balancing the budget while dishing out a series of handouts to corporations. This includes massive increases in military spending, tax breaks for artificial intelligence, and subsidies to oil companies for costly and ineffective carbon capture and storage projects.
Carney’s definition of “investment” doesn’t appear to include rebuilding Canada’s battered health care system or other struggling public services. “We need to reduce operational deficits. This means, transfers to individuals, transfers to provinces … and all that,” Carney told a Quebec journalist. (Carney’s campaign has since walked back those comments.) Nor does Carney seem to have much use for the kinds of publicly-owned Crown corporations that could give Canadians greater control over their economic destiny.
Where will the money to pay for Carney’s tax cuts, business handouts and military spending come from? Carney has promised to cap the size of Canada’s public service and undertake a program spending review if he wins the election – something Canada’s top CEOs have been agitating for. There is an ominous precedent here. In the 1990s, Jean Chretien’s Liberal government implemented a program spending review that resulted in deep cuts to health and education transfers and a gutting of our Employment Insurance system.
On climate, Carney has said he will use federal emergency powers to push through east-west pipelines and other infrastructure projects in the “national interest” – exactly what a coalition of oil companies (many of which are U.S.-owned) recently called for. Climate groups have warned that such infrastructure will do nothing to insulate us from Trump’s economic coercion and will lock us into an economic model that is worsening the climate crisis.
Organizing in an Election and Beyond
“Elections aren’t — yet in Canada — about finding the perfect party that represents us,” writes migrant right organizer Syed Hussan, “but about choosing our opposition.” We cited this assessment in our election primer, and this sober judgement still seems like the right one.
If Carney and the Liberals manage to get re-elected – an outcome which is far from given – Canadians may still be faced with a federal government intent on implementing a lot of the same corporate-friendly policies as Poilievre would have pursued. As journalist David Moscrop notes, Carney’s policies “are so Tory friendly that Conservatives are complaining that he’s cribbing from their notes.”
The NDP, the Greens, and other parties have put forward strong progressive candidates in many local races, but as a whole they have not succeeded in tapping into people’s frustrations with the status quo or in offering a genuine political alternative.
We can’t wait around for politicians to save us, and beating Poilievre is only the start. Whoever is elected, we will need a revitalized grassroots movement prepared to fightback against the corporate agenda and to clearly articulate a popular agenda to help us resist Trump and build the Canada we want. At the Council of Canadians, we are deeply committed to doing just that.
Getting from the Canada We’ve Got to the Canada We Want
Learn more about how we’re building our movement and our plans for the federal election and beyond. Join us to share ideas on how we can gather our forces, rally our allies, and build a movement to win the Canada we want.
Nikolas Barry-Shaw
Nikolas is the Trade and Privatization Campaigner for the Council of Canadians and author of the book “Paved with Good Intentions.”
