Carney says he's interested in 'doing something, not being something'

Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney says he'll be advising the Liberal party to flip some of the challenges posed by an increasingly divided and dangerous world into an economic opportunity for Canada.

But he won't say what his specific advice will be on economic issues that are politically divisive in this country, like the Liberals' carbon price policy.

He presented his vision for the party's economic policy at the Liberal caucus retreat in Nanaimo, B.C., on Tuesday. 

The retreat began with news that Carney has agreed to help the party prepare for the next election as chair of a task force on economic growth.

"There's a huge range of things that the federal government can do, many of which they are doing, a huge range of things that the provincial governments and other stakeholders need to do," Carney said when asked about the "carbon tax" after his private talks with Liberal MPs. 

"We need to be clear-eyed about not the challenge, but the scale of the opportunity."

Carney criticized the party's carbon-tax carve out for home heating oil last fall, pressing instead for consistent environmental policy. By the spring, he told a parliamentary committee that the policy had “served a purpose up until now," but should only be scrapped in favour of an even more effective plan.

His new role comes at a difficult time for the Liberals, which have floundered in the polls for more than a year as they struggle to resonate with Canadians on economic and affordability issues.

The main focus of the retreat is to somehow reverse that trend before Canadians head back to the polls at some point in the next year. 

Carney has been touted as a possible leadership contender to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has faced simmering calls to resign from within and outside the party. 

Trudeau has said he's tried to coax Carney into politics for years.

The economist and former investment banker spent five years as the governor of the Bank of Canada during the last Conservative government before hopping across the pond to head up the Bank of England for seven years.

Carney said if the prime minister asks him to do something he will do it to the best of his ability, but he would not elaborate on whether the new adviser role could lead him to add his name to a ballot in the next election. 

"'I'm interested in doing something, not being something," he said in response to questions about his political aspirations. 

The Conservatives accused Trudeau of flouting transparency rules by making Carney an adviser to the Liberal leader, instead of the prime minister.

Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett wrote to Trudeau, calling the appointment a "deceitful attempt to shield Mr. Carney, your new de facto finance minister, from any public disclosure of which multinational corporations are paying him, and what conflicts of interest might exist between his private financial interests and the advice he is giving you."

"It is clear that Mark Carney’s role is not limited to the Liberal party, but instead dictating the economic policy direction of the current sitting government," he said in a letter Tuesday.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has been taking advice from Carney for years, she said Tuesday, and denied his new position will infringe on her role. 

"He's someone who I talk to often and whom I've talked to often about economic policy since becoming finance minister," she told reporters Tuesday.

"It is a really good thing for our party and for Canada and Canadians that we are now able to draw even more on Mark's advice."

That advice does not appear to have yielded results for the party up to this point. Conservatives are soaring in the polls as their leader, Pierre Poilievre, accuses the Liberals of being responsible for high inflation, housing costs and crime rates. 

His most consistent message to voters is that he plans to "axe" the carbon tax if his party takes power.

Earlier this summer, several caucus members called for an emergency team meeting to discuss strategy after a devastating byelection loss of a Liberal stronghold riding in Toronto laid bare the party's plummeting popularity. 

The prime minister ultimately declined to convene his MPs at the time, though he did meet with them in smaller groups over the summer. 

"We've had a lot of good conversations on how we can move forward and really deal with the concern that all of us have, and that's Mr. Poilievre and the cuts he's going to bring forward," said Calgary MP George Chahal, who was among several Liberals who had called for an immediate early summer meeting after the byelection loss.

The caucus retreat happened to coincide with the second anniversary of Poilievre's election as Conservative leader. The Liberals called in veteran strategist Don Guy to give his insights on how to mount a comeback and go up against Poilievre as they prepare for the election year. 

"I think clearly we need to do a better job of explaining some of the things we've been doing, carbon pricing certainly being one of them," Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said on the sidelines of the meeting Tuesday. 

That will be a lot harder than simply promising to get rid of the policy altogether, as Poilievre has done, Guilbeault said. 

"It's the absence of vision, it's the absence of a plan," the minister said of Poilievre. "He has no measure to offer when it comes to fighting climate change."

As for what's ahead of the Liberal's carbon tax policy, Guilbeault says he agrees with Carney: the price on carbon should only be scrapped if there is something better and more effective.

"If someone in this country, on this planet, in this solar system, in this universe, can show me a measure that will give us 40 per cent of our 2030 emission reduction targets at no cost to Canadians, I'll take it right away," he said. 

"There is no such measure."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.