LILLEY: Mark Carney sounds more like a Conservative with each new promise

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Mark Carney wants to build national trade corridors across the country, he just doesn’t want to build oil and gas pipelines across Quebec.

Following a meeting with provincial premiers in Ottawa, Carney spoke about the need for diversifying our trade, it just doesn’t involve pipelines that might possibly cross Quebec’s jurisdiction.

Over the past several days, Carney and his team have tried to make it sound like they are a departure from the Trudeau Liberals, even though all of Carney’s cabinet was part of Trudeau’s team.

That is one of the main issues with Carney and his team – they aren’t different in any way from the Trudeau team.

This is the team that has overseen what is being described as the “Trudeau Lost Decade” where gross domestic product per person fell dramatically compared to the United States and other OECD countries.

Over the last ten years, GDP per capita has grown by more than 18% in the U.S. but by just 1.4% in Canada. Bottom line, we are all much poorer than we should be due to bad political decisions in Ottawa.

Now, Carney wants you to believe he will change course even though he has been advising the Trudeau Liberal government since 2020.

Speaking in Ottawa on Friday, Carney sounded like a Conservative as he promised to speed up the approval of resource projects. Yet, when asked about sounding like his opponent, even sounding like a Conservative, Carney downplayed the changes his party has made.

He downplayed the idea that Canada should see more oil and gas projects approved quickly.

This is the main issue with Mark Carney, he will tell audiences in Western Canada, while speaking in English, that he wants to expand Canadian oil and gas. Yet, when speaking in French, Carney will downplay the importance of the oil and gas sector and offer up a veto for Quebec on any national pipelines.

Will Carney be able to work his magic and not be asked questions about these discrepancies? That remains to be seen.

We do know that most of the establishment media is firmly behind Carney and his team. They are acting like a halleluiah chorus for the Liberal leader.

On the sidelines is Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre who is trying to win over voters thrown aside by the Liberals and NDP.

At an event on Friday morning, Poilievre said that if he were elected prime minister, he would boost training for skilled trades.

“The people who build the homes are not able to buy them,” Poilievre said.

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Poilievre promised to train 350,000 workers as part of his “boots, not suits” program that would return federal apprenticeship grants and expand EI training to workers who are currently left out of the system.

The coming election is one that will be fought over swing voters, often over what appear to those on the outside to be small issues, but they will be the deciding issues for those voters.

While for some voters, especially older votes, the fight against Donald Trump will be all encompassing, that won’t be the case for all voters.

Polls show that voters under 45 are still concerned about the cost of living and housing costs. How this plays out over the election is something everyone will be watching.

blilley@postmedia.com