The first week of November has always been about elections in the United States. This year, Canada’s new Prime Minister has decided to make it budget week. Interestingly, the budget news came with a variety of other developments that distracted from the financial information and reinforced the increasing narrative that Mark Carney overpromises and underdelivers but does it benignly. While insisting that he would get spending under control and take on some of the larger expenses weighing down our deficit, Carney continued the Trudeau profligacy, all the while trying to recruit new members to his caucus and secure the majority government he could not earn at the ballot box.
Conservative Chris d’Entremont, a member of parliament from the Nova Scotia riding of Acadie-Annapolis, crossed the floor to join the Liberals after spending six years in the Conservative caucus under three different leaders. It was not long ago that d’Entremont, as reported on Sun News, was very critical of the Liberal government. Speaking in parliament at the end of September, d’Entremont said, “Since I was first elected in 2019, the cost of living has skyrocketed. And families (in his riding have been) struggling. We warned the Liberals that out-of-control spending and massive deficits were irresponsible. But, of course, they didn’t listen. And now, after six months under a new prime minister who promised financial discipline, Canadians are still waiting…Well, Mr. Speaker, Canadians are judging him, and they are not impressed. Instead of delivering relief, this government delayed its budget.” Why would someone lacking enthusiasm for the Carney administration join it? Some believe that d’Entremont wanted to be Speaker, and when that failed, he was ready to flee for a good offer. There are reasons to think he did not get along with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, but even as a Red Tory, he served under Andrew Scheer, a notable social conservative. These decisions to switch do not always work out, but he was a lone Conservative in a very red area of the country. Nova Scotia now runs red from border to border. He probably believes he has a chance to win in the next election, a confidence he lacked as a Conservative member.
Turning to the budget, the news was not good if spending, deficits, debts, and fiscal discipline matter. Listening to different voices reporting on the budget news provides a spectrum of interpretations, but there are numbers hard to ignore. Yes, Carney did avoid some of the Trudeau efforts to start new programs or fund pet projects. But in moving from operational expenses to capital expenses, he cannot escape hard numbers that betray any sense of fiscal sanity, much less discipline. For example, the debt-to-deficit ratio is higher than the healthcare expense. The $55 billion service fee for the debt exceeds the federal cost of delivering the vaunted free medical care that Canadians brag about when an American healthcare horror story crosses a TV screen on CBC News. Are Canadians this phlegmatic that they see no danger in interest payments greater than what we set aside for hospitals, doctors, specialists, and specialized equipment? When former prime minister Justin Trudeau ran $20 billion deficits, Canadians were concerned. Last year, the deficit went from $38 billion in December to $42 billion in the spring to $78.3 billion in last week’s announcement. As Brian Lilley of Sun News suggested, Carney sounds like Wimpy in the old Popeye cartoon, promising to pay back next week for a double dose of hamburgers today. Carney’s threatened austerity lurks around the corner, but there always seems to be another corner ahead.
The question of our economic relationship with the United States remained a mystery. Carney claims Canada will diversify and work with many partners, including China. This sounds like a desperate attempt to cloud the reality that Carney knows Canada cannot evade its dependence on the United States. The “elbows up” crowd loves the talk. They think that poking the Americans, Trump specifically, will have no long-term effects. Or if they do, it will play to Canada’s favour. They may have something if they were also interested in getting our resources to market instead of delaying every initiative, demanding private investment, and supporting overly aggressive regulatory practices. In the past, Canadian Industrial Policy, dating back over a century, sought to undercut American investment costs. Since Trump’s first term, that has not been the case, and it disadvantages Canadians.
Finally, the Industrial Carbon Tax survived. Good luck to Algoma or Stelco. There was nothing for the oil industry. Not even emissions cap relief. As Andrew Coyne and Susan Delacourt, two of the most anodyne journalists in Canada, reported, this budget delivered nothing bold, no big moves. Coyne described the budget as non-transformative and full of previously announced expenditures. He criticized it for failing to include ideas that would attract American investment. If this government hoped to address economic growth, Coyne saw little reason to believe this budget would help. Overall, it was cautious and unlikely to draw the kind of opposition that would bring down the government.
Delacourt, for her part, wrote, “Once again, the delivery didn’t quite live up to the hype. Like many others, I pored through that budget looking for measures that would fundamentally change Canada, or even the government, and came up short.” No one seemed to think it rose to the moment, but Canadians are a contented lot. We find comfort in the dull, draw solace from those who seem boring, and prefer dithering to decisiveness and grey to shades of colour. In John Ibbitson’s The Duel, a book this author has referred to before, the Diefenbaker versus Pearson years are replayed. If we can learn anything from our past, it seems as if Liberals find a way to hold on to power. They use it to their advantage and assuage Canadians with the idea that the Liberal Party of Canada best represent the interests of everyday citizens. Like Diefenbaker, Mulroney, Harper, and now Poilievre, Canadians either must grow so weary of the Liberals that they turf them out, or a Conservative leader must build superior trust to earn their vote. The jury is out on Poilievre. As long as Carney remains bland, he will likely retain power. On that score, he passed with flying colours during budget week.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
