The upcoming federal election may be the most important one in decades. Please read this article carefully and share with as many of your contacts as possible. Voters need to know for whom they will be voting.
Bill Steinberg
Mark Carney – What most people don’t know
Mark Carney will undoubtedly be the next leader of the Liberal Party and thus automatically Prime Minister. He will then, most likely, call an immediate election to get a mandate to deal with Trump or recall Parliament and probably within a month lose a confidence vote. Either way an election is coming soon, and it will be a very important one.
They say you can put lipstick on a pig, but it will still be a pig. Will the Liberal party change under Carney? All the Liberal candidates have been chosen, and they are the same people who supported the failed policies of the current Liberals and the people who are pushing Carney for the leadership.
Many people will believe that Carney was an excellent head of the Banks of Canada and England and will be able to weather the storm caused by Trump’s tariffs but that is unrealistic. Carney was against Brexit and predicted correctly that it would seriously hurt Britian’s economy, but he couldn’t do anything to stop the damage. There is a limit to what you can do with interest rates and monetary stimulus. The same will be true if Canada and the US get into a trade war.
Carney has been a very close senior advisor to Trudeau since at least 2020. There is little daylight between Trudeau and Carney on policy. The number one priority for both is climate change, not the economy.
Climate change
Carney was appointed as United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance in 2020. The same year he launched the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets—an initiative to increase trading of voluntary carbon offsets. His book, “Value(s): Building a Better World for All,” which is focused on how to “build an economy and society based not on market values but on human values” was published in 2021. That should tell us that Carney’s focus will be the same as Trudeau’s – climate change and not the economy. In fact, since 2020 all his initiatives have revolved around climate change. This is his passion, and his hero is Greta Thunberg.
Canada’s contribution to global warming is about 1% of the world’s. However, the Liberals want us to set an example for the US, China and India. Only a fool would believe that they are listening to us.
Wealth inequality
In 2011, Carney referred to the Occupy Wall Street protests as “entirely constructive”, citing frustrations being felt over inequality. For those who do not recall, these protests which spread to several cities, involved people taking over public spaces like parks for weeks and refusing to leave. If the cause is just in his view (global warming, wealth inequality, Palestinian rights, etc.) then he will turn a blind eye to lawlessness just as Trudeau does.
Further, while there is great wealth disparity in the US, the average person is far wealthier than in Canada. In 2021 the median income in the US was $70,000 USD vs, $50,000 USD in Canada. The median employment income is higher in every US state (even the poorest ones) than in the wealthiest province in Canada. Personally, I don’t care if CEOs, hockey players, etc. earn incredible amounts if the system means that the average person benefits. However, Carney believes in lower incomes for everyone
Ethics
Starting in October 2020, Carney became vice chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, where he led the firm’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) impact fund investment strategy. He claimed that the Brookfield Asset Management fund was carbon neutral. However, after critics claimed that the statement was false and the result of accounting tricks, he admitted that, in fact, the portfolio was not carbon neutral and that the fund’s carbon footprint was about 5,200 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
A week after being appointed as special advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, it was revealed that Brookfield Asset Management solicited the federal government for $10 billion in federal funds. Carney said he did not need to follow standard ethical disclosures mandatory for prime ministerial advisors because he was employed by the Liberal Party rather than the Prime Minister’s Office.
A not so solid grasp of ethics is something else Carney and Trudeau share.
The Mideast
In a recent tweet, Carney criticized Trump’s plan to relocate the population of Gaza. He said he is for a two-state solution and went on about the poor residents of Gaza. There was not a word about the hostages, the brutal massacre on Oct. 7 or about Hamas’ use of civilians by fighting from schools, mosques and hospitals. Carney is just as anti Israel as Trudeau and virtually the entire Liberal party.
Dealing with Trump
The first point that I made in my last article, How Canada should deal with Donald Trump, was that politicians should stop talking about it. Carney is trying to score points in Canada by waving a red flag at the Trump bull. Commenting on Trump’s desire for Canada as a 51st state, he compared Trump to the evil Voldemort (from the Harry Potter books). Then he stated that we can influence Trump a bit but only if we pull the wool over his eyes and pretend that we didn’t. These comments are similar to Trudeau’s own dismissive and scolding statements. They are counter productive.
Carney’s carbon plans
Like Trudeau, Carney is a politician who wants to fool the voters in order to get elected. He says he will scrap the Carbon Tax because it is unpopular even though he was totally in favor of it in the past. However, he will replace it with incentives for people who buy electric cars or heat pumps or other “good” things. Voters prefer getting money to paying taxes. But who will pay for these incentives? Yes, taxpayers. Or, we could go even deeper into debt and leave the problem for our children.
He also has proposed we level tariffs on countries that are major carbon emitters. That means China, India and, yes, the US. Imagine how that will play out with Trump.
Conclusion
In short, anyone who votes for Carney, thinking we will get change is sadly deluded. He will not allow pipelines so our vast oil wealth can go to markets other than the US. He will not increase spending on the military (even though he says he will, just as Trudeau has said he would every year since 2015). He will not impose uniform rules to allow free trade between provinces. He will not end supply management or the digital tax on US companies like Google which are rightly criticized by Trump. He will not reign in our out-of-control spending. He will not bring us to a balanced budget. He will not increase Canada’s anemic productivity. His policies will lead to higher inflation. His top priority will be reducing carbon emissions. He will be as antisemitic as Trudeau and the liberal party. And if he pushes enough of Trump’s buttons, we may end up in a destructive trade war which will devastate the Canadian economy.
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Dr. Bill Steinberg
Dr. Steinberg has a BSc from McGill University, a PhD in Psychology from Northwestern University, and was a professor at Concordia University. He was Mayor of the Town of Hampstead for 16 years and led the demerger battle. He was was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal and is currently President of the Cochlear Implant Recipients Association.