John Robson: Mark Carney's long track record of mistruth

National Post

5 days ago

He lied. Right in our faces. A brazen, self-serving, manipulative, obvious lie that was bound to get found out. Have we lost the capacity to care?
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No, I'm not talking about U.S. President Donald Trump. I'm speaking of Prime Minister Mark Carney. When accused during the election campaign of a conflict of interest over his extensive holdings, he declared indignantly: 'I own nothing but cash and personal real estate.' But he lied.
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As he did about his 'blind trust' being blind. As Democracy Watch notes, 'he knows what he put in the trust, chose his own trustee, was allowed to give the trustee instructions such as 'don't sell anything' and the trustee is also allowed to give him regular updates.' As Norman Spector wisecracked, it's a 'venetian blind trust.'
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Incredibly, it gets worse. Carney actually holds shares in over 100 firms, from Amazon to Uber. When former finance minister Bill Morneau forgot he owned a French villa, per Jeff Foxworthy's 'If you've ever mowed your lawn and found a car, you might be a redneck,' if you ever cleaned up your desk and found a villa, you might be an aristocrat. But Carney's a liar.
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He owns extensive investments, mostly American, on which the potential conflicts of interest across the board, from net zero to tariffs, is glaringly obvious. Including on the digital services tax. It's to prevent exactly this kind of thing that we have conflict-of-interest rules, however feeble. (Remember when Paul Martin gave his shipping company to his sons to sidestep them?) But Carney doesn't care. Do we?
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Watching the prime minister, who's notoriously irritated at being questioned in any way, tell a lie to brush off a challenge gives the impression that he's one of those people whose internal syllogism runs: 'I am great; that claim makes me look bad; therefore it is untrue.' And bam! Out it comes without any pause to ponder whether factually speaking it might be true, let alone whether someone is bound to notice. Like Bill Clinton and, yes, Trump. Which surely also raises concerns about his management style.
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We saw it during the campaign, repeatedly. He said Canada avoided a recession in 2008 thanks to his brilliant leadership at the Bank of Canada, which … um … declared a recession in 2008. He 'suspended' his campaign to deal with big grownup issues then went on 'Tout le monde en parle.'
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He blustered about sweeping measures to implement internal free trade, then blustered about preserving supply management. And when asked why the Communist Chinese Politburo wanted him to win he babbled, 'I have absolutely no idea, and yeah, I have absolutely no idea, and, well, I'll leave it at that.' Hardly a trifle, that last one. Like saying 'I know' when a protester accused Israel of genocide and then claiming he'd misheard.
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I'm under no illusion that in my youth, or before I was born, politicians spoke truth without fear or favour. They did not call Richard Nixon 'Tricky Dick' because he was good at bridge. So perhaps taking credit for lowering the price of gas by removing a tax your party imposed with your vehement support might be blamed on Carney the politician not Carney the man. Or going all 'elbows up' followed by cowering feebly before Trump. At least if he didn't have a huge personal stake in the U.S. economy.
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Oh, and remember how he claimed the formal decision to move Brookfield's headquarters to New York from Toronto was made after he left the company, even though he'd written a letter as board chair encouraging shareholders to support it? And how he'd 'resigned all my roles, cut all my ties' to run for Liberal leader while still among other things chairing the Group of Thirty? He lies chronically, casually and recklessly on everything from personal gain to big political issues and now, we learn, their problematic connections.
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How can we trust him on anything, from balancing the budget while running deficits to ethics or even climate? Of course, given Carney's record as a 'chancer,' including leaving the Bank of Canada to collect a record salary from the Bank of England for muffing inflation, then failing upward to multimillionaire 'International Man of Green' not 'International Man of Unemployment,' you could suppose his vociferous lucrative net zero advocacy was more about elevating Mark Carney than saving the planet.
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Especially given his oil company holdings. But if it was all fakery, we are entitled to disregard anything he says about anything. And if not, his current economic plans are fakery, so again we're entitled to disregard anything he says about anything. He lied. He lies all the time, about big things and small, without shame or hesitation. And we know it. The question is whether we care.
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