NP View: Week one, and Mark Carney's cabinet is even worse
Prime Minister Mark Carney's cabinet hasn't even been around a week, and it's produced what should be a month's worth of gaffes. It's an omen so bad that even many Carney backers are slumping in disappointment, taken by surprise at how swiftly their hopes were dashed.
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Carney's cabinet was named Tuesday, and with that, the apprehension began. Key problem ministers of the Trudeau age were left in: Steven Guilbeault, former environment minister, was moved to culture; Chrystia Freeland, finance minister of ill repute, was moved to transport and internal trade; Mélanie Joly, former inconsequential foreign affairs minister, went to industry. Sean Fraser, who handled both housing and immigration with catastrophic results, is now in charge of justice.
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In case there was any doubt as to their incompetence, they were quick to demonstrate why any skeptics' misgivings were correctly placed. Guilbeault immediately took to dismissing the need for new pipelines, perpetuating the myth of peak oil and peddling the falsity that Canada's newest pipeline was running at under half capacity (in fact, it was running at 77 per cent capacity).
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Fraser, meanwhile, started off his tenure by telling media, heading into the new cabinet's first meeting, that he intends to work more from home. In December, he had announced he planned not to run again to spend more time with his 'amazing family,' and another candidate was lined up for his seat — only for him to un-resign three months later, after Carney's ascent.
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'Given the nature of the portfolio, a lot of the stakeholders we have are less interested in having you attend groundbreakings, the openings of new buildings that you may have funded, and are quite accustomed to having meetings virtually,' he told the scrum. 'So I anticipate during constituency weeks, I'm going to be based in my hometown a little more than I was before.
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'There may be an opportunity, depending on what's going on in the House, to avail myself — not all the time, of course, but once in a while — of the virtual abilities to participate in the House of Commons proceedings, so we're going to figure some of this out as we go.'
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Crime is already worsening in Canada, and citizens increasingly feel unprotected by the system, which seems more interested in balancing racial scales and excusing any criminal that can spin a victimhood narrative. It's a bad sign that the attorney general — one of the most critical roles in the federal cabinet — is already planning how to not fully devote himself to the job.
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Joly and Freeland, at least, have managed to keep their first week relatively blemish-free. Their longtime colleague, Anita Anand, newly arrived at the foreign affairs post, was quick to use her new platform to blame Israel and put up a defence for Hamas, however.
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As for the new ministers, they've provided Canadians even more reason for concern — Housing Minister Gregor Robertson being chief among them. The fact that Robertson was even named housing minister was an immediate red flag, given his record of overseeing Vancouver's transformation as city mayor (a role he held from 2008 to 2018) from a family-friendly coastal city into Ground Zero of Canada's drug and housing crises. Under his watch, detached home prices in his city doubled and rents skyrocketed. He denied responsibility for this at the time, even though he addressed development fees and zoning at a glacial pace.
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