The new government's Throne Speech included promises to forge a new relationship with the U.S., make Canada an energy superpower and become a hub for science and innovation.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney is not managing expectations.
That’s what most politicians do when leading a country, or a province, or any other jurisdiction where millions of people are watching for lofty promises to turn into results. You under-promise and over-deliver, you fudge the timelines, and you temper your language so that you’re not saying you will land a man on the moon before the decade is out, but rather, that your country should “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
It’s a slight difference but an important one, both for political reasons (no one wants to be the Prime Minister to proudly exclaim that an election would be the last decided by first-past-the-post voting, only to sheepishly walk that back a couple of years later) and for moral ones: some people will make real-life decisions based on quasi-realistic political promises. If they genuinely believe you will make housing prices affordable in the foreseeable future, they might shelve plans to relocate to a place where a house doesn’t cost 10 times the average annual income.
Mr. Carney, nevertheless, is promising the moon. He says his government will build “the strongest economy in the G7”: the greatest transformation of the Canadian economy “since the Second World War,” he says. He will “remove federal barriers to internal trade by July 1.” His government vows to approve major infrastructure projects within two years, and meet the current NATO defence spending target of 2 per cent of GDP by 2030. It will bring the growth of the government’s operating budget down to 2 per cent from 9 per cent. According to the Speech from the Throne, Canada will build a new “economic and security relationship” with the U.S., “become the world’s leading energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy” and develop into the “world’s leading hub for science and innovation.”
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It’s a bold, risky strategy, but one that’s in keeping with Mr. Carney’s campaign approach. Indeed, his confidence and perceived competence was in large part what won him the election, so he wasn’t going to shelve that ambition just because his party ended up three seats short of a majority, and especially not when the Bloc Quebecois has promised to lend the government its support for the next year. Canadians elected Mr. Carney‘s Liberals to do big things, and now they expect him to deliver.
And so far, he has done fairly well. He got King Charles to deliver the Speech from the Throne – the first time a member of the royal family has done so in nearly 50 years. He charmed U.S. President Donald Trump during his visit to the White House (though not enough to win Canada an exemption to Mr. Trump’s recent doubling of tariffs on aluminum and steel). Mr. Carney won over the Premiers during this week’s first ministers meeting, after which many of them – including Alberta Premier Danielle Smith – expressed optimism about the future of nation-building projects in Canada. And he’s already tabled legislation on specific promises, including tightening up border controls and giving CSIS new powers to try to stem the flow of illegal goods to and from the U.S.
But Mr. Carney inevitably will run into obstacles: the kind that central bankers who don’t have a duty to consult, a caucus to wrangle, and competing interests across provinces don’t have to contend with.
Already, Mr. Carney’s government experienced an embarrassing defeat in Parliament when opposition parties voted 166-164 for a Conservative amendment to the Throne Speech calling for a spring economic update, which essentially forces the Liberals to vote for an update they have said they have no intention to provide. It’s a mostly symbolic non-binding motion, but it’s an example of how a novice politician-Prime Minister can get ensnared by opposition tactics.
Even if Mr. Carney manages to get much of his legislation passed, the challenge for his government in achieving its moonshots is that the Prime Minister has promised outcomes, not just initiatives. The government can pass legislation to remove federal trade barriers and to cut income taxes; it can create a federal entity to accelerate housing construction, outline processes for expedited infrastructure projects and invest in innovative technologies and AI. But will that mean that Canada becomes the “world’s leading hub for science and innovation” and the “strongest economy in the G7” where housing is suddenly affordable? Maybe! Or maybe – and most optimistically – it will set Canada on that path, with the actual benefits to be recognized years or decades down the line.
That’s not a problem in and of itself, except when you’ve promised the moon. Most people don’t hear the implicit “eventually.”