Prime Minister Mark Carney may not be as obnoxiously progressive as Justin Trudeau, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t stubbornly left wing in his own right, though he has managed to convince many critics otherwise.
Over the past decade, the Liberals were particularly self-righteous over climate policy, so much so that the deviations made by Carney since assuming office have been met with praise — or, on the left, with scorn — that he is somehow pro-business and represents the return of the centre-right Liberals. Some even think he’s a conservative. Others have suggested that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is now entirely redundant.
This narrative is just more proof of how utterly captured the media is in this country by the Liberal party. It is true that Carney gives the appearance that he is abandoning many of the government’s environmental policies. He set the carbon tax rate to zero, paused the EV mandate and, on Thursday,
his government’s own carbon-emissions targets.
None of this, however, should be taken as evidence that Carney represents some sort of rightward or pro-business shift in the Liberal party. He is not proposing to let markets determine what infrastructure projects get built. Nor is he proposing to minimize regulations to attract investment.
Instead, Carney wants to command the economy by himself, laying bare the reality that what attracts left-wing politicians to climate policy is not saving the planet from carbon, but using environmental objectives to manage the economy. It was about control before green policy became popular, and it is about control now. For Carney specifically, before he entered politics, “decarbonizing” markets was quite remunerative in his various banking roles.
Noticeably absent from the
that the prime minister said on Thursday would be fast-tracked under the Major Projects Office was an oil and gas pipeline. Also noticeable was the fact that all five of the projects had already been approved, but the government tried to pass them off as something new anyway.
Even if the projects had been all brand new, the lack of a pipeline would still be of no surprise, as what private investor would be willing to back a pipeline when the Liberals’ Impact Assessment Act, tanker ban and emissions cap all exist to conspire against energy projects of any kind.
Carney did propose to address this omission, as he is at least aware that energy investment is necessary to keep Albertans from open revolt. But he doesn’t plan to repeal or modify existing legislation.
What he proposed Thursday was to
to regulations under the authority of the
passed in June, in order to expedite the approval of a pipeline. That law allows the government to deem infrastructure proposals in the national interest, which would exempt them from much of the regulatory process. For example, the public consultation phase under the Impact Assessment Act would not apply to a national interest project.
This isn’t about speeding up approval processes, so much as it is about giving Carney the authority to pick and choose what gets built. And approved projects would still have to meet the government’s climate goals and consult with Indigenous groups — not according to the guidelines already set out in law, but presumably under new guidelines.
One way Carney suggested the government’s climate goals could be met would be if a carbon capture project was built alongside a new pipeline.
Again, the prime minister isn’t stepping away from climate objectives, as some of his critics on the left worry. He wants to set the terms himself, altering them as he sees fit, or as becomes politically necessary. For example, the inclusion of an Indigenous advisory council only came after some First Nations objected to projects being fast-tracked without their consultation.
When Carney won the Liberal leadership race in March, he declared in his victory
that free markets could not be relied upon. Instead, Canada must rely on him, and apparently him alone.
“I know how the world works, and I know how it can be made to work better for all of us,” he said.
Remind me again how he is an improvement over Justin Trudeau?
National Post
