Geoff Russ: For Carney, saving the country won't be as easy as saving the Liberals

The Liberal party can thank leader Mark Carney for its stunning reversal of fortunes. In a matter of months, he revived a party that was thrashing in the death throes of the Trudeau era and led them to another term in government. The Conservative party that nearly everybody believed to be ascendant has been badly stung. However, having greatly expanded their vote and seat share, the Conservatives positioned themselves to return to Parliament as an energized and strengthened Opposition. Yet Carney had help. U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex the country left Canadians reeling. It created a moment for millions of voters that the Conservatives could not capture, seemingly no matter what they did. The Carney campaign did what it had to do. By portraying himself as a boring technocrat with an impressive resume, Carney seemed to be the right man for enough Canadians. This is not a unique phenomenon. Australia’s centre-right Liberal-National Coalition was marching ahead of the Labor government in its own federal election, campaigning on a populist platform that reflected the country’s discontent with the incumbent prime minister. Trump did not even have to muse about annexing Australia to make frightened middle-class voters want to run for cover amidst the chaos created by his tariffs. As in Canada, Australians appear poised to give a mediocre, toothless government a second chance because of Trump’s “America First” rhetoric. Carney’s new challenge will be staving off the reminders that his government is staffed by the same people and filled with the same politicians who oversaw the decline of Canada as a healthy, middle-class country. Since 2021, progressive governments around the world have been elected with tremendous mandates to deliver positive change, only to crash and burn. Chile chose the left-wing Gabriel Boric as president in 2021, but he failed in his effort to impose a new progressive constitution, and is poised to be succeeded by a right-winger. In Germany, the Social Democratic government was overtaken by the economic hangover of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, leading to a brutal drubbing in last fall’s election. Keir Starmer’s Labour party in Britain won a smashing majority last year, only for its approval ratings to fall off a cliff after just a few months. British voters elected Starmer as the safe, boring candidate to end post-Brexit chaos, only to realize that simply having a new prime minister will not fix the country’s longstanding problems. Granted, these countries all have vastly different political cultures than Canada, but they are all dogged by crises of affordability and stagnant economies that do not deliver for middle-class families. Affordability was the clear-cut top issue for Canadian voters before Trump upended everything and dashed the hopes of a Conservative government. Yet Carney’s victory will not automatically restore the dream of home ownership or even reasonable apartment rentals. The Liberals were returned to power on the backs of older Canadians who have every reason to believe Canada is not broken, having made good lives for themselves when it was still possible here. Unless the Grits prioritize affordability with as much vigour as the crisis posed by Donald Trump, their eventual decline will be inevitable. The coalition behind Carney benefited immensely from the objectively laughable NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. In the midst of a crisis of relations with the U.S., Singh proved just how unserious he was as a politician when half his party’s supporters bolted for a millionaire central banker and former chairman of a multinational investment firm. Also rallying to Carney were a smattering of moderate, disaffected and often spiteful business-first types, who are uncomfortable with the evolution of the Conservatives into a younger, brasher, more populist party. People voted for Carney, not the Liberals, and his coalition of party loyalists, adulterous NDP supporters and homeless Blue Liberals and Red Tories will be very difficult to hold together. Despite winning the largest share of the popular vote in the modern Conservative party’s history, over 40 per cent, it still was not enough to secure a victory in this strange moment in history. Nevertheless, the Conservatives are well-positioned to return to Parliament as a determined Opposition, and it will be very difficult to shake the perception that they remain a government in waiting. The sheer variety of interests and pressures — including national defence, building energy corridors, affordability, trade diversification, Trump and more — will be impossible for the Liberals to satisfy. Promises made to earn votes, like attainable housing and national unity, may be broken, and Carney’s premiership may represent a mortgaging of the future rather than a revival of Liberal fortunes. Still, in the immediate aftermath of an election that polarized the nation, it is the duty of every loyal and patriotic Canadian to wish Carney well, at least for now. Yet Conservatives and those who voted for them must not relent. They have to scrutinize every misstep of the Liberal government and zero in on the inevitable failures and broken promises so they can make the case that they are still the party of change. National Post

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