GOLDSTEIN: Can Carney Liberals fix damage caused by Trudeau Liberals?

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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mandate letter to his cabinet is largely an attempt to address problems created, ignored or exacerbated by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.

In that context, it’s hard to see how effective Carney’s cabinet will be in achieving his goals, given its large contingent of Trudeau-era ministers who, under Trudeau’s leadership, screwed up many of the files Carney now says he wants to fix.

In his mandate letter to his newly-appointed cabinet released last week, Carney wrote that he has seven priorities, which are:

– Establishing a new economic and security relationship with the U.S. and strengthening collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies around the world;

– Building one Canadian economy by removing barriers to interprovincial trade and expanding nation-building projects that will connect and transform the country;

– Bringing down costs for Canadians and helping them get ahead;

– Making housing more affordable by unleashing the power of public-private co-operation;

– Protecting Canadian sovereignty, strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces, securing Canada’s borders and reinforcing law enforcement;

– Attracting the best talent in the world to build our economy while returning overall immigration to sustainable levels;

–  And spending less on government operations so that Canadians can invest more in people and businesses that will build the strongest economy in the G7.

Here’s the issue.

Bringing down costs for Canadians and making housing more affordable were problems exacerbated by the Trudeau government’s high immigration policies, which Carney says he now wants to address by “returning our overall immigration rates to sustainable levels.”

The Trudeau government dramatically hiked immigration levels despite being warned in advance by its own public servants that that this would increase the cost of housing and put additional stress on public services such as health care.

Carney’s plan to reduce spending on government operations is a direct repudiation of the Trudeau government’s record of increasing the size of the federal civil service at more that twice the rate of Canada’s population growth during its almost decade in power.

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Carney himself said during the Liberal leadership race that two policies of the Trudeau government – unsustainably high immigrations levels and government spending increasing at a rate of 9% a year – weakened the Canadian economy, even “before we got to the point of these threats from President (Donald) Trump.”

Carney’s goal of keeping Canadians safe by strengthening Canada’s Armed Forces is intended to address the failure of the Trudeau and Stephen Harper governments to meet Canada’s promised NATO target of committing 2% of GDP to national defence.

As for Carney’s goal of securing Canada’s borders and reinforcing law enforcement, both would be massive improvements over the near decade record of the Trudeau government.

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The Trudeau Liberals had almost a decade to bring down barriers to interprovincial trade, which Carney now wants to address, while “nation-building projects” were few and far between, fraying national unity and exacerbating tensions between the Alberta and federal governments in particular.

As for Carney’s goal of making Canada’s economy the strongest among members of the G7, after their nearly-decade in power the Trudeau Liberals had the worst record on economic growth of any Canadian government since that of R.B. Bennett during the Great Depression.

Real GDP per capita – a widely accepted metric for measuring a nation’s prosperity – fell by 1.4% in 2024, following a decline of 1.3% in 2023.

It’s true the economic uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariff war with Canada is having a depressing effect on the Canadian economy, but as Carney himself has said, our economy was already weakened by Trudeau government policies before Trump was elected president.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com