Why some Canadians are alarmed by Mark Carney's pledge to act with urgency

Hamilton Spectator

2 days ago

Canadians elected Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberal government based on its pledge to act with urgency and fix things — the country's economy, its security and its standing on the world stage.
But with the unveiling of a
bill to supercharge the economy
and early efforts to improve the country's adversarial relations with India and China, there's growing concern that Carney's plans to boost Canada could involve unsavoury trade offs.
Ask Indigenous leaders who were left out of 'nation-building' meetings or were given just a week to comment on legislation that will fast track infrastructure projects reasonably expected to pass through their treaty-protected territories.
Ask Sikh-Canadian leaders who have seen their members targeted for death or violence, allegedly on orders from Indian government agents. Last Friday, they listened as Carney defended his G7 invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as one that 'makes sense' based on India's economic power, population and key role in international 'supply chains.'
Ask foreign aid organizations, perhaps, if Canada commits to radically increasing defence spending along with NATO allies at a leaders' summit planned for later this month.
Carney is not alone in his apparent willingness to step on toes if it means he can move further and faster in responding to the sense of emergency at hand.
It's part of a global movement with governments invoking looming threats and emerging risks to push through all sorts of questionable — and sometimes contestable — priorities.
The most blatant example is the one that has sparked the economic emergency in Canada.
U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on imports have been pushed through not with legislation that can be studied, debated and voted upon, but through presidential executive orders invoking real or imagined national emergencies at the Canada-U. S. border.
They are premised upon risks from America-bound migrants, fentanyl, steel and cars and, despite initial court rulings that tranches of the tariffs are illegal under U.S. law, they remain in effect.
Likewise, the generalized panic that Russia's three-years-and-counting war against Ukraine has instilled in Europe.
There is legitimate reason to worry about the longer-term intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader who has been unwilling to agree to a ceasefire despite sanctions, despite diplomatic isolation, despite the more recent appeals, threats and exhortations of the Trump administration.
But preparations for a potentially wider conflict on the European continent now have German officials talking about rehabilitating long-abandoned bunkers, Poland
vowing
to build up 'the strongest army in the region,' and Swedish households receiving an alarming 32-page pamphlet from their government entitled: 'In case of crisis or war.'
'To all residents of Sweden: we live in uncertain times,' the booklet begins ominously. It goes on to cover everything from securing one's home to digital safety to instructions on how to stop bleeding to advice about handling pets and talking to children.
This is the political and emotional backdrop against which Canada and other NATO member states later this month are expected to back an agreement to steeply increase in their national defence budgets, moving to five per cent of GDP from two per cent.
If agreed to, it will result in many billions of dollars going to weapons, tanks, planes and soldiers' salaries. But before those purchases can go ahead, there will be many difficult choices made about how to come up with the funds.
Governments always talk about finding budget efficiencies for unexpected priorities, though saving is not a specialty for which politicians are well suited. Even Donald Trump and Elon Musk came up spectacularly short of their savings pledges through the Department of Government Efficiency.
More frequently, governments end up robbing Peter in order to pay Paul, as the saying goes — cutting spending in on domain to increase it in another.
That is exactly what the United Kingdom did with blunt effect when it
announced earlier this year
that it would slash foreign aid spending drastically in order to increase the defence budget.
'Few countries have articulated such a direct, one-to-one trade off before between those two areas of public spending,' noted
a report from ODI Global
, a think tank, that criticized the British government for thinking of defence and foreign-aid spending as an either-or choice.
Similar potential trade offs are cause for concern in Canada.
Will the urgency to build oil pipelines and assert the country as an 'energy superpower' in new markets come at the cost of Canada's fight against global warming?
Carney's reputation as a climate-change warrior is well-established, but his use of the oil-and-gas industry's '
marketing speak
' at a recent meeting first ministers' meeting with provincial premiers has some worried about the economy taking priority over the environment.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national association representing Canadian Inuit, wasn't even invited to the first ministers' meeting, which concluded with a
statement
about the need to 'unlock the North's economic potential.'
'It is troubling that in 2025, the Government of Canada is so comfortable with empty rhetoric in place of rightful participation,' the Inuit association said in a
news release
.
The legislation to get Carney's economic fast-track transformation under way — one that the Liberal government wants to pass into law by Canada Day — was decried by the Assembly of First Nations, which had just seven days to provide any concerns about the bill,
APTN News reported
.
There are those who will defend a go-fast approach to governing in extraordinary times. They will warn that there is a greater risk in being sunk by the status quo — the never-ending consultations, the delays, red-tape entanglements.
'The advantage of a wartime mentality lies in the sense of urgency it introduces, and the readiness it encourages to push aside unnecessary bureaucratic barriers,' wrote Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus professor of War Studies at King's College London, in
a piece
about Russia, Ukraine and Europe.
It's a line that can be applied as equally to Ottawa as to Moscow, Kyiv, Paris, Brussels or London.
But one person's bureaucratic barrier is the next person's guard rail — a measure ensuring confidence, protecting against damaging errors, saving lives.
Moving at high speeds, it can be difficult to spot the difference.