A look back on PM Carney’s first year in office

0:00At twice in Canadian history, a leader has led his party to more than 200 seats in parliament. The chief, he was first back in 1958, John Diefenbaker, leading the conservatives to 201 seats and percentage-wise, still remains the biggest majority in Canadian history. Brian Mulroney, bested that number in 1984-211. That number still stands, no one's come close. Even as the lower chamber is expanded to 343 seats, but polls suggesting they all went to vote tomorrow, the Liberals could set a new record. And let's go call Spada Spade, full credit for that. Goes towards Mark Carney, a.k.a. Lazarus, who celebrated his first full year since being sworn in as Prime Minister on Saturday. So to chat about Mark Carney's first full year on the job, we are joined now by Dwayne Brat, political scientist at Mount Royal University. Thanks for taking the time. Appreciate it as always. Yeah, good afternoon, Courtney. Yeah, by the way, we'll quick test because I always like to put to political experts on the spot here.

1:00Here's now, I believe, 20th in terms of the all-time tenure in office. Can you name the four Prime Ministers who served shorter periods than Mark Carney? John Turner? Yeah. Mark Carney, sorry, Kim Campbell? Yeah. Jill Clark? Yeah. And this one you have to go way back in time. Yeah, I'm sure it's one of the guys that replaced McDonald. There was about four or five of them in a row that after McDonald died. So I'll go with Thompson. No one will blame you for forgetting Charles Tupper. And he was a premier too. Yeah. Of course, yes, as we mentioned, Mark Carney has left Charles Tupper and the three that you've mentioned in the rear view mirror. Let's walk through his first year because what I find fascinating about this is that when this election happened, it certainly was not a done deal for the Liberals by any stretch of the imagination, but 12 months later, he's grown in favorability. His party is as popular as any party

2:03in recent memory. This has probably been about as successful a first 12 months on the job as Mark Carney could have asked for. Well, absolutely. And I think the two metrics you have to look at is his polling numbers are rising, which is unusual after election. Usually the election is the high polling, but he's more popular now than he was in April. But the second is the four crossers, right? So it's not just Canadians, it's other parliamentarians who go, hey, this is something I want. I want to participate in. And it is plumixing the conservatives. But let's walk through why that is. So he reached a significant MOU with the Smith governor on energy policy. Yes, there is no pipeline, but when we saw some of the work that came out last week, it shows that stuff is happening on this file. That MOU in November had a series of

3:05deliverables for starting to deliver on those. And I would say the other was the Davos speech. That I teach a course in Canadian foreign policy at the school of public policy at UFC, every Wednesday night. And we talk about that speech every class. And it's not just us, it's around the world. And we're also seeing action in that. So two things I want to highlight would be going to China and getting the dropping of Canola tariffs and going to India and getting a $2.6 billion trade agreement to sell uranium to India. So when you hear, always just talk, it's just chatter. He hasn't actually accomplished anything. Talk to Scott Moe. Well, one of the other metrics that I look at in terms of gauging just how successful he's been is that you take a look at the recent polls and he's even winning over Albertans. I mean, this is no longer flyover country for the Liberals, at least as things look right now. Oh, absolutely. And you'll notice that conservatives have stopped using the message just like

4:10Justin, because he's not just like Justin. He's actually replacing many of the Trudeau policies. We saw that on day one when he removed the consumer-based carbon tax and then reaching the MOU that would allow for removal of impact assessments, which they confirmed last week to come up with a one-window policy on environmental assessments. The tanker bet. All of those things the federal government is doing now it's up to the province. So E is reversing and in his team as well. So a lot of the people that were around Trudeau, Kristia Freeland, Bill Blair, you'll notice they're not in cabinet anymore and they're not even in parliament anymore. So step by step he is distancing himself. And I think one of the reasons that Alberta seems to be encouraged by Carnegie isn't just the MOU. It's the fact like quite honestly, he's operating like a progressive conservative prime minister.

5:12You do mention obviously him rolling back a lot of what the Justin Trudeau government put on the books. I think maybe another component of his success. And I've looked here thoughts on this. It's just the fact that his character, right? Because there are a lot of people, especially towards the end of Trudeau's run, that just found him absolutely grading. And you know, I mean, he did. Obviously, Kanye is not a slam boy. Not as dramatic. Hair is less wonderful. But I wonder how much of that character change is maybe contributing to his success? At the moment, yes. But in our mind, everything you described about Trudeau, that people dislike by 2024, they liked in 2015. Trudeau didn't change. It was perceptions of true growth that changed. Now, I don't want to say, Mark Carney is going to be around for 10 years. But the longer he is, all of those things that we like about him now, we are going to dislike. And that's just the nature of politics. Well, we've obviously talked about the secret sauce here behind his success. But when you do look back at the the first 12 months in office,

6:15what are some of the stumbles, some of the missteps that he's taken that, you know, kind of maybe show that he's still a little wrong the job or could potentially come back to bite him in some capacity? All you have to do is look at the recent statements around the US Israel war in Iran. He is on much firmer footing when he wants to talk about the economy and trade and monetary policy. That is his background. But once you start to get into war and security, he seems flimaxed by this. And so, well, a lot has been made about, you know, the Trump administration coming up with multiple statements on the war, countries come up with something similar. And well, domestically, he has put a lot of things in place, whether that was the major projects office and the priority list and things like that. We haven't quite seen a lot of the deliverables yet, but he is being methodical step by step

7:16by step. Likewise, well, he is talking about a major trade agreement between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union. That hasn't come to fruition yet. So, I think we haven't seen all of this yet. We have seen evidence of a pathway. We have seen some successes, but the full realization of Tarni's plan isn't there. And quite frankly, we don't have it deal with the United States. We're going through Kuzma review in 2026, but I think Canadians look at that and go, it's not Kurdish fault. We don't have an agreement with the United States. It's Trump's fault. And no matter how many times Paul Yevin the Conservatives bash him for not reaching a deal with the Americans, Canadians look at this goal. Of course, he hasn't reached an agreement with Trump. Who could? To that point, though, I mean, you know, you talk about the deliverables still have not been delivered. You take a look at the job numbers for this last month. We're down 80,000. And certainly part of that can obviously be attributed to the fact that we are anchored to the United States.

8:18But at some point, you know, he's going to have to deliver. And I'm curious just to how much, you know, much longer the honeymoon can last for Karni if he doesn't bring the goods in a more tangible way. Well, if you would have said back in March, not only was he going to win in April, but was going to win bigger than what Crudo did in 2021 or 2019, that would have been a surprise. If you would have said in March that his honeymoon not only would be increasing, but he'd be having a better honeymoon a year later, I think that would have been a surprise. So yeah, at a certain point, there could very well be a reversal, but we don't know when that will be and what will strike that. Well, Dwayne, this has certainly been a fascinating first 12 months from our Karni, whether you love him or hate him. And it looks like guys got a little bit more runway at least before we potentially see an election on this. I appreciate you coming on in chatting about this first year in the books for him. Okay, you're welcome, Courtney.