Less forward guidance, Mr. Carney, and more accountability

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“Thank you for your time,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said at the close of his recent direct-to-you vlog, titled Forward Guidance. “I know it’s precious.”

That’s nice. He told Canadians he is going to want to talk with them again, but promised to do so sparingly. “I know you have busy lives and you don’t need busy lives from me,” he said.

If that’s the case, the Prime Minister could do with less “forward guidance” and more accountability for results.

Mr. Carney has spent most of the past 14 months telling us about ambitious plans for the future – launching major projects, building homes, developing a defence industry and so on.

Now he is in the second year of his mandate. He heads a majority government that shields him from a snap election. It’s time for implementation. What busy Canadians need is transparent reporting on progress.

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The title for Mr. Carney’s video, Forward Guidance, comes from a central banker’s term for previewing monetary policy plans for the future. As Governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008-09 financial crisis, Mr. Carney made it known the bank would not raise rates until the economy saw specific improvements, helping to stabilize markets and the economy.

But being Prime Minister is not the same as being a central banker. A PM doesn’t just set policy. They have to move the complex machinery of government to accomplish results.

Mr. Carney’s “forward guidance” video was almost exclusively material cut and pasted from speeches he has delivered before.

He argued the close ties to the U.S. that were once considered strengths are now “weaknesses,” just as he had done in at least three speeches in 2025 and more in 2026, although then he called them “vulnerabilities.” Apart from a nationalistic bit about a General Isaac Brock figurine, this was a collection of stock Carney-isms.

All of the “forward guidance” was repetition of past promises.

To be fair, that’s not unusual in politics. Nor is it wrong for a prime minister to expound on the narrative for the government’s mission. But busy Canadians need info on results.

Perhaps Mr. Carney should borrow from an idea that his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, once embraced but never delivered: Deliverology.

That was a buzzword in early 2016, when the Liberal government brought in former British official Michael Barber to advise them on tracking implementation of all their initiatives.

At its core, deliverology was simple stuff. It started with setting clear goals – not broad objectives, but specifics. It called for interim yardsticks and regular measurement and reporting on progress, for all to see.

Mr. Trudeau’s government didn’t stick with it. It’s hard to translate political promises into clear goals and can be embarrassing to measure your government against them with actual data.

Remember Mr. Carney’s plan to turn Canada’s 13 economies into one? It was mentioned in his weekend video and on the first page of the Liberal election platform – the latter of which indicated it would expand the economy by “up to $200-billion.”

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But what was the actual goal? The government reduced federal trade barriers, but that hasn’t made one economy. Mr. Carney’s government hasn’t specified markers of progress – and perhaps it doesn’t want to admit the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow will never be worth $200-billion a year.

Yet, Mr. Carney’s political agenda does include many quantifiable promises. Let’s see some numbers.

It’s not surprising that the pace of home-building in Canada has not yet doubled to 500,000 a year, as the Liberals promised. In his video Mr. Carney touted the fact that his new housing agency is “already up and running.”

But if the goal is still to build homes at speeds not seen since the Second World War, and foster a more productive housing industry using Canadian timber and steel, the government will need some interim goals and steps to get there – and reporting on progress in the meantime.

Implementation is what matters now. Central bankers use forward guidance to reassure markets there is a stable path ahead. As Prime Minister, Mr. Carney is reaching the point where reassurance will depend on demonstrating progress.

If he doesn’t want to waste Canadians’ precious time he might offer fewer repeats of his campaign promises and more information about what his government is getting done.