Carney’s trick is not talking about his climate policies. Ivison

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Pierre Poilievre gave a solid push to voters during his visit to St. John’s on Tuesday, focusing on the “lost decade of freedom” and policies that promote “the poorest growth in the G7.”

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Using a letter sent to political leaders by the CEO of Canada’s 14 largest energy companies as the framework of his case, he contrasted the Conservative stance with the liberals of Mark Carney, among five key requirements: the need to simplify regulations through overhaul of C-69, the Impact Assessment Act; ensuring the need for major projects approved within six months; the CEO believes that the emission caps that remove oil sand caps will shrink production. The requirement for a carbon tax to kill large launchers; and the desirability of creating ownership opportunities for Indigenous Canadians through extended federal loan guarantees.

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Poilievre went back to the basics, bringing his Sharpie Marker Pen to the poster board and canceling his support for all five measures while marking the “X” of the liberals for each measure.

Conservative leaders have raised a case where President Donald Trump wants Carney to win as Liberal leaders will make Canada’s economy weak. He said the industrial carbon tax is a tax on the backbone of the country’s industrial sector. “This is another area that Trump and Carney agree to – they both want to tax Canadian industries, Trump and tariffs and Carney are charged carbon taxes. Neither of me wants it,” he said.

It’s all about putting the Liberal Party on its back foot and succeeding to a limited extent.

Even at Winnipeg’s event, whether Carney planned to repeal the Impact Cessionment Act and was forced to admit that he would not (even if he could have pointed out that the Supreme Court of Canada has judged that it was unconstitutional and requires a thorough overhaul of the federal government).

So good for conservatives so far.

If the election becomes the leader who is most likely to launch the resource industry in the country, then Poilievre can be fine.

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But for the moment, the 2025 election is about who is best suited to sail into the perfect storm while sailing in Canada. It’s about who has the judgment and experience to know when to sail, when to nail, when to catch up with the trend and when to drive it out.

Poilievre repeatedly talks about Carney being “weak and lost contact”, but the liberal tone is consistent with the country’s mood.

“We are facing the biggest crisis of our life. President Trump fundamentally reorganized the U.S. economy, which means our economy needs to change dramatically, too,” Carney said. “As I made it clear to President Trump on our phone last week, I will reject all attempts to weaken Canada, to get us tired, to break us, to enable us to have us. This will never happen.”

Carney made progress in the neutralizing allegations that he opposed the growth of the resource industry

Poilievre portrays Carney as a radical environmentalist who advises Justin Trudeau to oppose the East Pipeline (because Carney had full contact with the Brexit governor in 2017); and, if the world was to live within its carbon budget (which Carney did in his book value), it advocated that 50% of global oil reserves should remain on the ground.

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But, like a good magician who manages to get listeners to pick up the cards he wished they picked, Carney has so far avoided talking about too much climate policy.

In fact, his new flyer bus manufacturing event in Winnipeg is designed to celebrate the death of the consumer carbon tax as it is no longer effective on the first day of gasoline pumps and prices drop.

A attacker needs some bile to seek gratitude because he no longer punches you in the face, but anything in the election will happen.

Carney has moved from Trump to talking about how liberal policies can abolish consumer carbon taxes, child care and his promised tax cuts that will make Canadians more affordable.

But he also tried to cover up Poilievre’s attack on his economic plan.

In his reply to the question of whether he wants to abolish C-69, Carney said he would speed up approvals by ensuring federal and provincial procedures related to it so that there is only one assessment per project.

He further noted that he recommended double the Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program and expand it to include other industries such as critical minerals.

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Carney remains a strong advocate of the industrial carbon tax and is unlikely to win the vote from the energy CEO. However, he made progress in the neutralization allegations that he opposed the growth of the resource industry – an allegation that could be fairly revoked by many members of the Trudeau administration.

The strategy promoted by former President Bill Clinton’s campaign manager Dick Morris is a classic triangulation that advocates the use of traditional liberalism and conservative policies and rhetoric to gain maximum political visibility.

In Morris’ words, you try to use both sides’ solutions to solve each other’s problems while still continuing to focus on your own problem agenda. He wrote in 2003’s The Drama of Power: “Triangulation as a method involves transfer to the center. As an ideology, it requires rejecting the number of one’s own ideas and listening to the voice of the “intrinsic thoughts” of one’s own country.”

Leaders like Clinton and Tony Blair are trying to stomp their third path from the left. But the Canadian liberals suffered so much when they were won by Carney that he managed to reposition his party with minimal fuss.

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The nation’s “inner thinking” is as inclined to change like the U.S. president, and if Trump signs easily with tariffs on Wednesday, we can see a shift in public opinion as striking as the 30-point swing of the past two months. But I won’t bet.

State Post

jivison@criffel.ca

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