EDITORIAL: Someone tell Carney he’s a politician

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According to the federal Liberals, there are two Mark Carneys. 

One is the politically partisan leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the other is the prime minister of Canada, who represents all Canadians on a non-partisan basis. 

Using this logic, the Liberals keep making grandiose pronouncements — three times so far — that Carney is “suspending” his election campaign as Liberal leader to assume his role as prime minister in dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada. 

In the real world, Carney is always a partisan politician in this election and these so-called “suspensions” of his political campaign are motivated by politics. 

Carney and his political handlers use them to re-focus public attention on Trump’s tariffs because they know that when voters are focused on that, their polling numbers go up. 

As Postmedia columnist Brian Lilley observed, the latest “suspension” on Friday occurred after Carney had a rough few days on the campaign trail, facing questions about meeting with a pro-Beijing group he said he had never heard of, plus more revelations about Brookfield Asset Management’s use of tax havens in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands for multi-billion-dollar investment funds while he was chairman of the board. 

Carney’s decision to suspend his campaign on Friday was particularly suspect because nothing changed with regard to Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canada last week, as indicated by the fact that, emerging from an all-day meeting with his cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations, he had nothing new or of substance to say. 

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As for earlier pronouncements about meeting with Trump post-election, that may be his intention but he has to win the election first before committing the next government to anything, not simply assume it will be him because he’s ahead in the polls. 

If Carney wants to hold meetings with his cabinet ministers or political or economic advisers during the election campaign, he’s entitled to do so. 

But, he should stop pretending these decisions are apolitical and have nothing to do with political strategies to win the election, along with Carney’s absurd claim he’s not a politician. 

You don’t get to claim you’re not a politician when you’re running to be the prime minister of Canada.