GUNTER: Carney pauses Liberal campaign to avoid tough questions
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On Thursday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney announced he was pausing his campaign for the third time so he could deal with the Trump trade tariffs.
But Trump’s tariffs are the campaign.
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Without the chaos created by the deranged trade policies of the Madman of Washington, the Libs would still be a distant second in voter preference.
No, what Carney is doing is trying grab the No. 1 campaign issue for himself without the scrutiny of the media or the opposition. He is trying to make himself look above the daily fray, not because he is, but because that’s a vote-winner in this campaign.
Carney said he was dropping his campaign events for the time being so he could rush back to Ottawa to meet with his cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations and his national security officials on Friday.
Think about it this way: If he were on the hustings answering questions several times a day, some smart-alecky reporter might ask him questions he doesn’t really want to answer, such as “In what country do you pay your personal taxes, Mr. Carney? Name all of the countries, please.” Or, “What funds and accounts are you invested in? No, really, sir. It’s not good enough for you to tell us they’re in a blind trust and you might divulge them after the election.” Or “Why do you think China’s Communist dictators are secretly endorsing you to be prime minister?”
Instead, if he hurries back to Ottawa to meet with his ministers (What? They don’t have Zoom on our campaign plane?), Carney and his handlers get to control the messaging. All of it. No one sees their behind-closed-doors sessions. And when he and his ministers emerge from seclusion, they and only they get to say what happened.
Pausing his campaign is Carney’s biggest dodge.
Convenient, isn’t it, that whenever there are uncomfortable questions that Carney doesn’t want to answer, he removes his Liberal-leader hat and drapes himself in his prime minister’s robes. Meanwhile, he has the cameras and microphones shut off and the doors bolted shut.
Justin Trudeau did this last December when the pressure on him to resign was becoming unbearable. He prorogued Parliament so he could first try to reconcile with his caucus. When that failed, and he was made to resign, he maintained the suspension of the House of Commons and Senate so his Liberal party could choose his successor without the distraction of Parliament.
Now Carney, rather than face the Commons without a seat and with little experience with question period, he pauses his campaign so as to avoid crowds and press. He will make monumental decisions affecting the future of our country, our economy, our jobs and standards of living all without a glimmer of light being shone on the whole process (unless he chooses to leak a comment here or there).
This is the same government that once went more than two years without introducing a budget — the most important document in government. For them, accountability and democratic transparency are only important when they benefit the Liberal party and its electoral fortunes.
Most of the questions Carney would face at a rally or scrum would not favour him, in part because he’s lousy at answers and in part because a lot of the actual answers would damage him and the Liberal party.
“How come so many of the investments and funds you were in charge of at Brookfield Asset Management bought companies that now stand to benefit from Liberal election promises?”
Four years ago, for instance, Brookfield paid $5 billion for Modulaire Group, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of modular homes. Now he and his Liberals are promising to have the Canadian government build tens of thousands of modular homes to alleviate the housing crisis.
Hmm, if he weren’t — again — in prime ministerial seclusion, that would be worth asking Carney.
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