Please Advise! Will Canadians Invest in Mark Carney?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

As widely predicted, Mark Carney has won the Liberal leadership race and will be our new prime minister. What does your crystal ball portend, Dr. Steve?

Signed,

Hopeful

Dear Hopeful,

Dr. Steve no longer owns a functioning crystal ball. The damned thing was working about as well as a cantaloupe. Plus, his previous crystal ball exploded. Dr. Steve asked, “What's going to happen in the U.S.?” and boom, it blew up like a SpaceX rocket. Come to think of it, maybe it was accurate after all.

Perhaps that's why Carney won. His victory was expected. People are craving a bit of predictability. They want day to follow night, flowers to bloom in spring, American states to total 50. They want politicians who kiss babies instead of giving them measles. They want politicians who at least appear to prefer Pericles to Charles Manson. They expect insincere piety, not sincere lunacy; cynical flag-waving, not craven jackboot-licking. They want normal.

But chaos reigns. Planes are down. Elbows are up. Gretzky has gone from great to goat, and tariffs are flapping back and forth like a bald eagle caught in a ceiling fan. This spring, Canadians long for chill.

Once, this leadership race might have seemed a bit of an anticlimax, coming so soon after the crucial National Hockey League trade deadline. But no. Gone are the days when March Madness referred only to college basketball. Thanks to Donald Trump, March 2025 came in, not like a lamb or lion, but like a rabid woodpecker. In trying to make the case for his strobing tariffs, Trump said politicians who disagree with his tactics are “dishonest, stupid or paid off.” It was like watching a budgie attack a mirror.

Meanwhile, as Canadians added a few extra f’s to “tariff,” puzzled pundits pretzelized themselves trying to figure out Trump's tariff strategy. But as Althia Raj commented last week on CBC's At Issue panel, “I think we have to open ourselves to the possibility that maybe they're just stupid.”

Why didn't the party choose Chrystia Freeland, the cabinet minister whose defection sounded the death knell for Justin Trudeau's term as prime minister? On Sunday, Freeland's once promising candidacy was, as the old saying goes, 86ed. Carney’s total was 85.9 per cent to Freeland's eight. Kind of makes “stop the steal” a non-starter. Talk about an underdog — the Liberal party will surely be receiving a complaint from the SPCA. This was not so much a leadership race as a remake of Bambi vs. Godzilla.

Perhaps there is historical precedent. Cassius and Brutus slew Julius Caesar, but it was Octavian who eventually became emperor. In 1990, Michael Heseltine challenged Margaret Thatcher and fatally wounded her political career. But the assassin did not claim the throne — John Major won the U.K. leadership. Perhaps the one who wields the knife is always cast aside. Clean hands, clean start.

So now we get Prime Minister Mark Carney. He's a reassuring figure, a bank governor. What could be more soothingly tedious? It's like electing a human bowler hat. Would Carney ever hand a chainsaw to a Himmler fanboy whose recent business track record includes successes like SpaceXplode, Tesless and Less, and Xpired?

Never. He is an economist. He has never bankrupted a single casino. He has never told Canadians to invest their savings in cryptocurrency. Presumably he does not eat an apple as though he bears it a personal grudge.

But will Carney be able to overcome the entrenched poll deficits of the Liberal party? Dr. Steve's crystal ball is currently in the shop. And this head of cabbage is revealing nothing. Ask again later.