Carney’s showing his weaknesses. But so is Poilievre: Selley

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Mark Carney had clearly been thinking about becoming prime minister of Canada for quite some time before it happened. To say the least, this wasn’t some spur of the moment decision. So, it is some kind of minor mystery that he managed to wander into a press conference in London, England on Monday and come off like a brittle, entitled arriviste.

Important disclaimer: I am quite certain that your average voter doesn’t give a hoot whether politicians are nice to journalists or vice versa, and I’m not suggesting the average voter should. But the two major parties’ ongoing media travails speak to much bigger issues.

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When the Globe and Mail’s Stephanie Levitz, one of the most no-nonsense reporters in the parliamentary press gallery, pressed Carney on the timeline for disclosing his assets with respect to the (presumably) forthcoming election, Carney seemed incredulous even to be asked, insisting he was “following the rules.”

“What possible conflict would (I) have, Stephanie?” Carney asked.

Seriously? The former vice-chair of Brookfield Asset Management, which boasts of “over US $1 trillion of assets under management”? About which Carney — at the very least — got cute with the truth with respect to the timing of his resignation and the company’s headquarters moving to the United States?  After our recent experience with very rich men wandering into politics? (Remember Bill Morneau’s chateau in France? Morneau apparently didn’t.) After our recent experience with a considerably less rich man who nevertheless enjoyed the perks of genealogy and office to the tune of a miles-offside vacation on the Aga Khan’s private island? The same guy who stood amidst the smouldering wreckage of the Kielburger/WE Charity catastrophe and accused NDP leader Jagmeet Singh of “cynicism … in regards to supporting students”?

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Nope.

Anyway, it got worse. When CBC’s Rosemary Barton began questioning Carney along the same lines, the prime minister suggested she was bringing “ill will” into the discussion and implored her to “look inside yourself” to find … well, presumably evidence of Carney’s all-encompassing benevolence.

How is it possible that over the months of cogitation and planning and second-guessing, no one screen-tested this guy in a press conference?

The Liberals seem to have kept on the same sad-sack social-media team that bombarded users with shameless hypocrisy for the better part of 10 years

Mind you, Justin Trudeau was pretty terrible at press conferences too. Or just being in public, for that matter. It just took folks a lot longer to realize it. (Remember canoe storage? Or “Thank you for your contribution”?) And I can’t help noticing the Liberals seem to have kept on the same sad-sack social-media team that bombarded users with shameless hypocrisy for the better part of 10 years.

You want to cultivate cynicism in Canadian politics? How about setting the consumer carbon tax you’ve for years been insisting is key to the future of the planet to zero, and then moments later crowing about it on X. “Mark Carney cancelled the carbon tax,” the Liberals tweeted.

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So that’s what’s up with Team Red. Now let’s see what’s going on with Team Blue.

Zoiks.

The latest Postmedia-Leger poll has the Conservatives three points behind the Liberals nationwide — 39 to 42 per cent. There is plenty of time for that to change. But as it stands, this seems to be a tie game.

Having already rebranded Pierre Poilievre some months back — out with the spectacles, in with form-fitting t-shirts — it’s not clear if there’s another pivot waiting to happen from the Conservative campaign. They’re in a tough spot. Not for any particularly good reason many more Canadians suddenly seem to think that “Canada is broken” — which it is, holy cow — is an antipatriotic slur.

If these poll numbers don’t improve in relatively short order, Poilievre may have trouble keeping the party’s rock-solid base happy while trying to reach beyond. The media play a role in that too, and not just from a reportorial standpoint.

In recent weeks, against the precedent set by his two predecessors, Poilievre has occasionally picked and chosen the media outlets who get to ask questions at his press conferences — with right-wing and minority-language press generally getting a leg up. Judge that as you see fit. Answering every reporter’s question is the way to go, if you ask me, but of course I would say that.

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Weirder, for a fellow who has otherwise been pretty clear he doesn’t think taxpayers should be subsidizing journalism (correct!) Poilievre has been musing about extending financial incentives to conservative outlets in pursuit of a “depoliticize(d) news media.”

On Monday one of those outlets reported a story about Mark Carney’s eldest child’s medical history in Britain. It didn’t even attempt to explain why it would be of any relevance to Canadian voters. It didn’t need to. It was about gender transition, and a chunk of the Conservative base is absolutely obsessed with that issue, and so there it was.

In a campaign against Justin Trudeau, in a time before Donald Trump’s second term, that might not have mattered. The risk for the Conservatives with Carney, uninspiring and entitled as he might be, is that he’ll be focused enough on the economy to make these culture-war issues look somewhat frivolous.

National Post
cselley@postmedia.com

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