The Conservatives’ Last Gambit: Smear Carney

A recent Angus Reid poll found that 55 per cent of respondents had a favourable view of Liberal Leader Mark Carney. By comparison, just 36 per cent favoured Pierre Poilievre. Carney was also preferred as prime minister, 50 per cent to 28 per cent, over the Conservative leader.

That represents an astonishing political revival for the Liberals, and a staggering collapse for the Conservative Party of Canada, or CPC. For nearly two years, the Conservatives were crushing the Liberals in every survey. Poilievre and the CPC have blown a 25-point lead and now trail the Carney Liberals. Conservative Kory Teneycke, Doug Ford’s campaign manager, told CTV News the Conservative meltdown amounted to “campaign malfeasance.”

All of which means that the last half of Canada’s federal election will be a cage fight, not a conversation.

Having failed to win over voters’ minds with his plans and promises, the new game for Poilievre will be to trash Mark Carney — the classic far-right politics of personal destruction.

The process has already begun.

The Pierre and Steve show

On April 7, the CPC took former prime minister Stephen Harper out of political mothballs to appear onstage at a Poilievre rally south of Edmonton. Harper heartily endorsed his former protege “for a better, stronger and more united future.”

Harper said: “I am the only person who can say that both of the men running to be prime minister once worked for me, and in that regard, my choice, without hesitation, without equivocation, without a shadow of a doubt, is Pierre Poilievre.”

That was not just partisan poppycock. It was false.

Carney never worked for Harper; he worked for the Bank of Canada. That bank has been a special federal Crown corporation since 1938. The bank is independent from government, and the governor is appointed by an independent board of directors that sets policy independently. The bank is accountable “to Parliament, the government and all Canadians.” Bottom line? Mark Carney worked for the well-being of the country and its citizens, not for the former PM.

Nor is it accurate that Poilievre worked for Harper. It is true the PM is the one who gives things out. Cabinet ministers like Poilievre served at Harper’s pleasure.

But all elected members take an oath or make a solemn affirmation of allegiance or loyalty to the sovereign of Canada, and to the institutions the sovereign represents, “including the concept of democracy.” So the minister is working for “the best interests of the country,” not for an individual PM.

“And by the way,” Harper said in his speech, “as the guy who actually did lead Canada through the global financial crisis, I hear there is someone else claiming it was him. It was, of course, our government, the late great Jim Flaherty and our Conservative team.”

Another baloney sandwich at two levels.

First, throughout the 2008 election campaign, Harper denied that Canada was in recession. On Oct. 10, 2008, just four days before the federal election, he proclaimed, “This country will not go into recession next year and will lead the G7 countries.” Harper admitted to the recession and what was then the largest deficit in Canadian history, $55 billion, only after the votes were cast.

Second, contrary to Harper’s remarks, Carney has never claimed to be solely responsible for the recovery from the 2008 recession — just to have been part of a team in his capacity as governor of the Bank of Canada from February 2009 to June 2013.

It has since been revealed by Carney himself that Harper asked him to join his cabinet as his finance minister in 2012. Very strange. Harper already had a finance minister in the person of Jim Flaherty, who would be in that position until March 2014, shortly before he died of a heart attack.

Despite the facts, including Harper’s job offer to Carney, Poilievre’s wife, Anaida, criticized Carney on social media, accusing him of “claiming the legacy of a man who has since passed.”

More nonsense. In response to this comment, Chisholm Pothier, who was Flaherty’s director of communications and deputy chief of staff, defended Carney from Anaida Poilievre’s attack: “Oh please. I was there and Carney played a big role. Flaherty and Harper provided the political leadership that was key, but Carney was on deck with insight and smart money policy. Trying to erase that for partisan reasons is, well, beyond disgraceful.”

Trying to smear the Liberal leader gets harder when one considers who else had praised Carney’s work in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis — Jim Flaherty in a video: “Mark has been a superb governor at the Bank of Canada for more than five years.”

And then there was the praise for Carney from Harper himself. When prime minister, Harper welcomed Carney’s appointment as chair of the Financial Stability Board. The FSB was established to co-ordinate national financial authorities at the international level. It was international recognition for a job well done.

Carney’s appointment was announced during the G20 leaders’ summit in France on Nov. 4, 2011. Harper said at the time: “The selection of Mr. Carney as chair of the Financial Stability Board is testament to his skills and to the strength of Canada’s financial system. This is the right appointment at the right time as the world works to strengthen the global financial system and sustain a fragile global economic recovery.”

Another feather in Carney’s hat? For the previous four years, the World Economic Forum rated Canada’s banking system as the soundest in the world. Forbes magazine also named Canada as the best place in the world to do business.

Taught by a ruthless master

So with all that praise, how does one knock Carney down a peg or two? The answer reaches back in time to a master of dark political arts who influenced both Harper and Poilievre.

At the rally where Harper endorsed him, Poilievre praised the former PM as “the best mentor” he could have had in his career.

And that conjures the identity of Stephen Harper’s mentor. His name was Arthur Finkelstein, a brilliant pollster and political adviser who helped right-wing governments in the United States and around the world get elected — including those of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. Sort of what the International Democracy Union does under Harper's leadership.

Finkelstein was most famous for one thing. He perfected the art of the political attack ad. In so doing, he transformed politics and became the most sought-after neo-conservative political strategist in the world.

How did Finkelstein work his black magic? He used pinpoint polling to find a weakness in an opponent, then produced trenchant, repetitive advertisements to exploit that Achilles heel. To Finkelstein, politics was war. If you couldn’t frame the ballot question and therefore began to lose, there was only one tactic left. You had to tear down your opponent, no matter how scurrilous your allegations, no matter the facts.

And that is where Pierre Poilievre finds himself with just two weeks left until election day. After sticking to his loop of slogans for the first few weeks of the contest, the polls showed that the old plan was not working. The Conservatives couldn’t improve Poilievre’s personal ratings, so they had to bring Carney’s ratings down.

That’s why Stephen Harper appeared at that rally south of Edmonton. He was there to trash the man he had once so highly praised.

Pierre Poilievre chimed right in. Assuming his familiar role as attack dog, Poilievre baselessly asserted that Carney was not a businessman. “He is a political grifter who’s used his political influence to turn decisions that profit his company at the expense of workers and seniors.”

And that is what to expect from the Poilievre camp for the balance of the current campaign. From the debate to their final ad blitz, it will be all swift-boating the Liberal leader. Carney as the exploiter of widows and orphans. Carney as the sneaky tax avoider. Carney as the buddy of Beijing. Carney as the elitist blowhard. Carney as the preferred candidate of Donald Trump. And more mudslinging.

The only question is whether gutter politics and character assassination can achieve for Pierre Poilievre what his plans and policies have utterly failed to do. He had two years to successfully vilify Justin Trudeau. Can he vilify Mark Carney in two weeks?