Francis and Mark Carney as Abusive Fathers

 

Two unaccountable and unpredicted things have happened recently. I think they are connected.

First, everyone thought the successor to Pope Francis would be a progressive “Francis 2.0.” After all, Francis had appointed 80% of the voting cardinals. Yet Leo XIV is so far signalling traditionalism. How did that happen? 

Second, having just won an election, Mark Carney’s cabinet and caucus seems rife with dissent. This shouldn’t happen right after an election win. Liberal MPs live in fear of their leader: he gets to veto their nominations if they alienate him. And Carney just saved the party’s bacon. Until he stepped in, they were headed for a historic defeat. Why the dissatisfaction?

In the case of Rome, I think we all missed the dynamic in thinking the divide in the hierarchy was between “progressives” and “traditionalists.”

The first sign was a report that, as they gathered for Francis’s funeral, the cardinals demanded the opening of a repository of traditional vestments kept under lock and key by Francis. Were they all secretly traditionalist?

Then reports of an elevated mood in the Vatican—shocking at the death of a pope. Now someone is quoted as saying, for the years of Francis’s pontificate, they were all living in fear. “It is like we are escaping an abusive father.”

And that, I think, is the key. Not left or right, progressive or traditionalist, but abusive.

Francis gave no moral direction. He seemed annoyed by those who followed the traditions of the church; yet offered no clear alternative either. This left everything up to the will of Francis. 

Take, for the most obvious example, the Latin mass. Francis suppressed it, on the grounds that wanting the Latin mass was an expression of opposition to his authority. That was a tautology: if he did not suppress the Latin mass, wanting it would not be an expression of opposition to his authority.

I(t was all about the exercise of power. Francis was a narcissist. Narcissists worship their own will.

When a parent, or a superior, acts in this way, one lives in constant fear. You can never know whether you are doing right or wrong, you can never relax or feel good about yourself; you never know when the hammer will fall. Francis’s position on any given matter was unpredictable: he blew hot and cold; it seemed to depend on how he was feeling that day. He had arbitrary favourites, and punished others arbitrarily.

This is the essence of abuse. The sense of disorientation this causes is the font and source of virtually all spiritual distress, which we commonly and improperly call “mental illness.”

Francis was driving everyone mad.

And Carney seems to be in the same mold. What is his true stand on any issue? He campaigned on imposing tariffs on the US, and standing up to Trump. Now he has quietly suspended the tariffs. He endorsed the carbon tax, then set it to zero. 

In personnel matters, word leaked out that Chrystia Freeland was being dropped from cabinet; then she wasn’t. I suspect this was not a false rumour; Carney changed his mind. A more public example is Nate Erskine-Smith. In Carney’s first, stripped-down cabinet, he kept Erskine-Smith. Only a month later, in his greatly expanded cabinet, he dropped Erskine-Smith. This seems inconsistent, arbitrary. This is clearly the way Erskine-Smith experienced it; he got blindsided. Carney kept Stephen Guilbault in Cabinet, and promoted Anita Anand, seeming to signal a turn to the left; then publicly adopted much of the Conservative platform. This seems like a mismatch; he seems to have blindsided them too. It is as though Carney is just enjoying imposing his will. Another narcissist. L’etat, c’est toi.

A dysfunctional caucus, a dysfunctional church, or a dysfunctional family, is the result. “Mental illness” is the result.

Liberal Majority Incoming?

 

The latest Canadian polls show the Liberals leading, and perhaps on the road to a majority government. A spectacular turnaround over just a couple of months, reversing a historic Tory lead of 20 points. 

I for one, did not see this coming. I did not think replacing Justin Trudeau would do much for the Liberals.

But that was before Trump’s tariffs. This is a dramatic “rally round the flag” effect.

It is also due to a collapse of the NDP vote, and to some extent the Bloc vote, not the Conservative vote. It is the NDPers who are rallying to the Liberals.

As with the Kamala mirage last summer in the US, I don’t think this Liberal surge will last. It is based on hype of Mark Carney as the man on a white horse, to voters who do not yet know him.

His popularity is bound to deflate. The party brains have oversold him. Bad command of the narrative.

I have heard it said that, in court, the side that wins is the side that tells a better story. 

This is unnerving for anyone hoping for justice. But it is human nature. Most people live entirely in delusions.

And the same principle holds with the media and the news cycle. Reporters want to spin the best story; drama sells papers or clicks. The public will usually accept this and act accordingly.

The most exciting story for now is Carney and Carney’s rise— because the Conservative lead had been so large. But as soon as Carney is well-established, the obviously more interesting story will be Carney’s fall. Fads are like this—nobody can stand pink flamingos, because everybody bought them, and now they feel foolish.

We have seen this totter and possible fall already in an exaggerated reaction to his getting one word wrong in the French debate Monday evening. He said “avec” instead of “dans”!  “Carney disappoints!” “Carney cannot speak French!” “He is sure to lose to Blanchet and Poilievre in Quebec!”

We should expect more of this. Carney has a target on his back that looks like the CBC logo.

Add to this that Poilievre is a historically good campaigner. Carney, having spent his career as a bureaucrat, is bland and charisma-challenged. History tells us campaigns matter.

I’d put money down on Poilievre still. 

Stop the Carney-val

 

Mark Carney

The polls in Canada are suddenly tightening. This is not because Conservative support has waned; it has held pretty steady. The big factor is a collapse of the NDP vote, and all of it going to the Liberals.

This is not strategic voting to keep the Conservatives out of power. That was as much of an issue two months ago.

I think it is because, now that Trudeau is gone, it is the NDP the voters want to punish for Trudeau. 

The NDP supported him voluntarily until the very end.

They do not blame the Liberals, at least yet, because Trudeau made that party so much about him. Now that he is gone, the voters see it as a new party under Carney. This is especially true because Trudeau’s own caucus revolted against him, and his chief lieutenant in cabinet. The general public can see them as his hostages, and sympathize.

I do not think the current Liberal support will hold up for long. To my eye, Carney has “beta” written all over him. He is a career bureaucrat. One is rarely challenged in any way in the government bureaucracy. It’s about blandness and staying inconspicuous and unimpressive. He is unlikely to blossom outside that hothouse. He is unlikely to be talented.

The Liberal Resurrection

 

Mark Carney

I fear Trump has put a stick in the spokes of the Poilievre bandwagon. Bad news for Canada. 

Six months ago, I thought the future looked sunnier for Canada than for the US. We had a strong opposition leader in Poilievre, and our system looked capable of managing the impending populist revolution in an orderly fashion. Things looked darker in the US, with lawfare, riots, and assassination attempts. It seemed that civil war or revolution in the streets might break out.

Now the situation seems reversed. Trump is upstaging Poilievre. The radicalism of his program makes Poilievre look less exciting by comparison, and more like controlled opposition. Enthusiasm flags.

Without a truly radical option to vote for, the choice between Poilievre and (presumably) Carney now devolves to who looks more competent to manage. And Carney’s resume beats Poilievre, whose expertise and experience is limited to parliament and politics.

Poilievre has always been good at sticking to one message, as one should on rhetorical principles. “Axe the tax.” His calculation was that the Liberals could not abandon this central plank of their platform. But his attack has been so successful that they, Carney and Freeland and Dhalla, actually have. And now the carbon tax looks incidental in comparison to the threat of tariffs and annexation.

And the Liberals can now run against a foreign adversary instead of Poilievre, and benefit from a “rally round the flag” effect. If he says anything against the current government, or dissents in any way from their proposed program, Poilievre can be accused of disloyalty in the face of the enemy. Is he on Trump’s side? But if he agrees with everything they are doing, and Carney has a reputation for competence, why switch leaders?

The best hope now is that Carney will stumble or blunder in such a way as to look incompetent. Not impossible; but also not to be expected.

If Carney does manage to pull things out for the Liberals, I think this will hasten the dissolution of Canada. Trump will have won. Alberta will opt for independence and join the Union, in frustration. Others will follow. Poilievre is Canada’s only chance of staying united and independent.

The Carney Is in Town

 

Man temporarily dismounted from his white horse.

Yesterday, we wrote a little about the chaos among the Democrats in the U.S. over their leadership. A simultaneous crisis is underway among Canadian Liberals. They have just lost one of the three to five safest Liberal seats in the country, Toronto-St. Paul’s, in a byelection. Their polling is underwater somewhere in Hudson’s Bay. What can they do?

My own local MP, Wayne Long, has just openly called for Trudeau to step down. But the Canadian system is not like the British system. The party leader must sign the nomination papers for all local candidates. That makes him or her a dictator within the party: any sign of disloyalty means the local member is out at the next election. This is very unlike the way the Westminster system is supposed to run; properly, the party leader serves at the pleasure of his or her caucus. After all, the people vote for their local members, not the prime minister. This Westminster system allowed Britain to quickly replace Chamberlain with Churchill in the crisis at the beginning of the Second World War. It could instantly solve America’s problem with Joe Biden’s senility. Losing it also loses the entire point of having debates over legislation in the House of Commons; members cannot vote their conscience. They are just expensive trained seals. 

Something like the Westminster system has been revived in the Canadian Conservative Party, thanks to the efforts of Michael Chong. Without it, they would still be stuck with Erin O’Toole, instead of Pierre Poilievre, as leader,

As a result of this Liberal dictatorship, MP’s do not dare come out against the leader. Wayne Long was able to, because he is not running again in any case. And because he has an independent profile back home. Rumour has it that a majority of Liberal members actually want Trudeau to go. But they do not dare raise their hands. All they can do is vote against their own leader in a confidence vote—leading to an election in which they would be barred from running—or cross the floor and join another party.

Trudeau has no intention, it seems, of resigning. Rumour has it that he plans a cabinet shakeup to try to get the poll numbers back up. He wants to sacrifice his finance minister and deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, scapegoating her for the taxes and rising cost of living that has queered Canadians on him. This is, interestingly, a tactic favoured by his reputed father, Fidel Castro: blame the economists for supposedly giving bad advice. Then Trudeau’s rumoured plan is to bring in Mark Carney as the new finance minister, as part of a wider cabinet shakeup. Freeland, after all, had no background in finance, business, or economics; she was a journalist. Carney has sterling credentials, literally--as in ponds sterling-- a banker and a former governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England. He might calm the public and give the government credibility. Folks might believe better times were ahead, if they just stuck with the gummint.

Many have pointed out a problem with this plan. Carney has no seat in parliament. All the commentators I have heard or read seem to think this is a constitutional requirement for a cabinet appointment.

It is not. 

Senators can be appointed to cabinet. Justin Trudeau can appoint senators. Pierre Trudeau, wanting cabinet representation from the Prairie provinces, and lacking any M.P.’s, appointed Hazen Argue from the Senate as minister for the Canadian Wheat Board. Appointing from the House of Lords is fairly common in Britain; David Cameron is currently serving as foreign secretary from the House of Lords.

So Trudeau could simply appoint Carney to the Senate. Problem solved.

He does not even need to do that. There is precedent for appointing a member of the general public to the Cabinet, on the understanding that they will run for election within a reasonable time. Pierre Trudeau appointed Pierre Juneau to Cabinet from outside Parliament in 1975.

Since the next election is relatively close in any event, and there is no written law on the matter, only convention, Trudeau could appoint Carney to cabinet on Carney’s public promise to run in that election.

So the Carney plan could work. 

Would Carney want to do it?

Would it save the Liberals?

I think he wants it.

I don’t think it can save the Liberals.

But it may be their best shot.