CORBELLA: When it comes to who's more like Trump, Carney trumps Poilievre
Of Canada’s top two federal party leaders, which one is more like U.S. President Donald Trump?
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Of Canada’s top two federal party leaders, which one is more like U.S. President Donald Trump?
Partisans of each party will understandably try to point at the other guy.
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This question, however, when answered with facts, should give pause to all Canadians who will head to the polls on April 28 to pick a new government to contend with Trump, while simultaneously making Canada an attractive place for enterprise and citizens to thrive.
The most dangerous attribute of Trump is he doesn’t think the rules apply to him. His Jan. 6, 2021, attempt to overturn his election defeat is the most obvious example of Trump’s disregard for the rule of law.
Not only is Trump’s word not his bond, but the deals he negotiates, including the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
Liberals argue that Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre is most like Trump because he uses alliterative nicknames targeting his political opponents, like: “Carbon-tax-Carney” or “Just-like-Justin.”
While Mark Carney has only been Canada’s prime minister since March 14, he has been an advisor to former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on and off for one decade and a cheerleader for his policies that have damaged our country in myriad ways.
During a May 27, 2021, House of Commons Industry Committee hearing, Carney — who was at that time the vice-chair of Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) and the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action — appeared as a witness.
Carney was asked by Poilievre if he supported Trudeau’s decision to veto the Northern Gateway Pipeline.
“I think it’s sensible. . . it was the right decision,” answered Carney, of the pipeline that would have shipped 525,000 barrels per day of diluted bitumen from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., and then onto Asian markets, making Canada less vulnerable to the whims of Trump or similar U.S. administrations in the future.
The cancellation of Northern Gateway was described by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers as “the most damaging thing that’s been done to our economy in decades.”
Arbitrary measures are poison to any economy while adherence to the rule of law is a growth serum.
Canadians are starting to understand the danger our country is in by having 96 per cent of our largest export — oil and gas — sold to one customer — the U.S.
After Enbridge spent 12 years and about $400 million jumping through onerous regulatory hoops, the project received regulatory and government approval on June 17, 2014, under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. On Nov. 29, 2016, however, Trudeau vetoed Northern Gateway — a move reminiscent of a Trump executive order minus the signing ceremony.
Northern Gateway had only one more court-ordered regulation to meet (for the feds to consult for a few more months with Indigenous groups — who were 80 per cent in favour and 20 per cent opposed to the pipeline). Instead, the feds did nothing for six months and then Trudeau announced the project’s cancellation.
Imagine how much stronger Canada’s economic position would be today against Trump’s destructive tariffs if that bitumen was being sold in Asia and how much smaller our crushing federal debt would be?
Few people know more about Northern Gateway than Sonya Savage, who worked for nine years on the project for Enbridge and then entered politics as energy minister in Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party government.
“When you get a veto after a very long, costly, arms-length, independent, quasi-judicial regulatory process and at the very end of that the government steps in and vetoes it, that undermines investor confidence which continues to this day,” explained Savage, reached last week at the Calgary offices of Borden Ladner Gervais, where she works as a senior lawyer.
“Trudeau’s vetoing of the pipeline was as arbitrary a measure as it gets and that’s why it was such a gut punch to everybody in the industry,” she said. “That decision reverberated throughout capital markets around the world, damaging all of Canada.”
On top of a tanker ban on Canada’s northwest coast (but not on its east coast where foreign oil tankers deliver dictator oil to Canadians), Trudeau also brought in Bill C-69. It was dubbed the “No-More-Pipelines Act” by Kenney, but is officially called the Impact Assessment Act (IAA), which came into law in August 2019.
Poilievre vows he will replace Bill-C-69 in the first 60 days if he forms the next government, in a bid to make Canada energy self-sufficient.
Carney, however, told reporters in Winnipeg on April 1: “We do not plan to repeal Bill C-69.”
It’s an astonishing statement since Bill C-69 has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in a five-to-two judgment on Oct. 23, 2023, ruling it violates the division of powers as set out in the Constitution and is “ultra vires parliament.”
The feds filed amendments to Bill C-69 on April 16, 2024, but the Alberta government has since asked Alberta’s Court of Appeal to determine if the amendments are constitutional. One constitutional expert, who asked to remain anonymous because they’re not authorized to speak on behalf of the province, said, “I have no doubt these amendments will be struck down, too. It gives politicians too much arbitrary discretion and continues to violate the division of powers in the constitution.”
There’s that word again — arbitrary.
Besides being unconstitutional, Bill C-69 is also terrible for business and is partly responsible for Canada’s dismal economic record over the Liberals’ 10 years in government. Canada’s real GDP per capita growth was ranked last out of 37 OECD economies from 2014 to 2024, growing just one per cent while Ireland topped the list at 70 per cent. Mexico, which was second last to Canada at four per cent, outperformed Canada by 300 per cent!
Since August 2019, when C-69 came into effect, only one of 25 large proposed industrial projects has been approved — the Indigenous majority-owned Cedar LNG floating terminal.
But there are many other things that make Carney more like Trump besides supporting arbitrary measures, unconstitutional laws and ignoring the Supreme Court.
Trump didn’t pay appropriate taxes. As for Carney, he helped BAM avoid paying taxes in Canada through offshore tax havens.
Like Trump, Carney says one thing one day and the exact opposite the next. He said in Alberta he wants Canada’s oil and gas sector to “be as competitive as possible,” but he then reversed his position out east and said he’s in favour of an emissions cap on Canada’s largest export.
While Carney thought it was “the right decision” to cancel a Canadian pipeline, he was in favour of BAM investing in pipelines in the United Arab Emirates and Brazil.
Clearly, Carney is not consistent on his position on pipelines. He’s opposed to them in Canada but supports investing in them elsewhere.
That’s inconsistent, arbitrary and terrible for Canada — just like Trump.
Licia Corbella (corcomm@shaw.ca) is a Calgary-based journalist and a former editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald.
To learn more about who’s running in your riding and the focus of their campaigns, check out our list of federal election candidates in Calgary and Southern Alberta.
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