Weekend reads: Say anything

A political 'outsider' throws his hat in the ring: 'It's no time for politics as usual'

Artur Widak/Anadolu/Getty Images

Let’s say you’re a member of the establishment, and are much-admired by the rich and the powerful. Let’s say you were educated at Harvard and Oxford, worked at Goldman Sachs, and went on to become a celebrated financier and central banker. Suppose, too, that you have close ties to the government in your home country, despite often living abroad. Not only are you a special advisor to the outgoing prime minister, but you’re also godfather to the former finance minister’s son. The prime minister’s chief-of-staff reportedly makes calls on your behalf (although you deny this), and the PM’s former right-hand-man is on your campaign team.

You are so involved in your country’s incumbent government, in fact, that you have played a role in at least three of its recent crises, first helping shape its Covid response and then publicly calling trucker protests sedition. And most recently chairing an economic task force during the time of a disastrous deficit.

Let’s also say you played an as-yet-unclear role in the moment that brought down the current prime minister — his finance minister’s resignation, after the PM reportedly told her that he planned to replace her with … well, you.

Now, imagine that you want to become the leader of this unpopular party — which would make you prime minister, without a single election vote ever being cast — and you want to do so in a moment of profound populist backlash against global elites in general, and, in Canada, this party in particular.

What should you do?

If you are Mark Carney, you would be wise to confront these liabilities head-on. Instead of portraying yourself as an “outsider” simply because you’ve never held political office, you might want to understand that in the eyes of many Canadians you could not be more of an insider.

It would be wise, too, to acknowledge the ways in which the establishment that you represent has failed ordinary Canadians. And commit that you, as a consummate political insider, were going to use your power to challenge the existing system, and to enact reforms that would rebalance it in favour of working Canadians. You would be wise, then, to lay out a concrete plan that incorporates at least some elements of the economic populism that’s ascendent in the United States right now, and that’s proven popular with its electorate (and, judging from polls, ours).

In other words, you would be wise to learn the lessons of the recent American presidential election.

But so far, it does not look like Mark Carney is going to do that. Instead, he soft launched his leadership campaign on an American TV show that’s a favourite of liberal elites, and made jokes about the populist sentiment that his political career depends on not inflaming.

Days later, Carney launched his leadership bid in Edmonton, saying that “I’m not the usual suspect when it comes to politics, but this is no time for politics as usual.” When questioned by Carrie Tait at The Globe and Mail about his finances and any potential conflicts of interest, he declined to disclose his compensation at Brookfield, where he’s been a senior executive, and proceeded to list off a number of roles, including Brookfield, that he’d recently resigned from — inadvertantly illustrating just how establishment, or “politics as usual,” he is.

Carney’s strategy demonstrates, yet again, the Liberals’ failure to read the mood in the country. The party is seemingly so removed from the public that they are meant to serve that they have no idea what its chief criticisms are, and no idea how they play into them.

Here’s the thing: When you’re that much on the inside, you have no idea what a real outsider might think — or say.