EDITORIAL: Mark Carney has a credibility problem

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For someone who claims he’s not a politician, Liberal leadership frontrunner and prime minister in waiting Mark Carney has a problem many politicians have — questions about his credibility because of allegations he’s not telling the truth. 

Indeed, Carney by his own actions, has opened a floodgate of questions that speak to his character. 

What set it off was his attempt to dodge any involvement as chairman of the board of Brookfield Asset Management for moving its headquarters from Toronto to New York last year, while he was chairman of the board. 

Asked after last week’s Liberal leadership debate whether he supported the move, he said he was no longer chair when the formal decision was made, despite documents showing the relocation, which he supported and encouraged shareholders to support in a letter, was done during his time as chair. 

His argument is that the formal decision was made after he left, which sounds like a distinction without a difference and which the opposition Conservatives described as lying, which Carney disputes. 

Carney has since told the Globe and Mail he should have been more precise in his answer, but a reasonable person could conclude he fudged on his role in the decision because he didn’t want to have to say he supported transferring Brookfield’s HQ from Canada to the U.S. at a time when Carney and the Liberals are urging Canadians to support Canadian businesses in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to launch a tariff war against us March 4. 

If Carney had simply said that he supported the decision because company executives thought it was in the best interests of shareholders — the story would have been a one-day wonder. 

The problem he faces now is that you only get one chance to make a good first impression. 

So now the Conservatives and some media are going through his various public claims about his career, including what appears to be a misleading one that he helped former Liberal finance minister and prime minister Paul Martin tame the federal deficit in the 1990s when Carney wasn’t working for him. 

The National Post reported Friday that despite Carney’s claims to have resigned all of his directorships, he hasn’t completed that yet