Canada is awash in economic uncertainty. The challenges that existed in January 2025 have been accelerated by the actions of U.S. President Donald Trump. As Canada develops forward-looking strategies, it’s clear that Indigenous peoples must be fully engaged in our national economic revitalization.

All Canadians share concerns about tariffs and the cost of living. Indigenous economic reconciliation may well be the trump card — to waste an easy pun — in Canada’s pursuit of a stable and prosperous economy. Many national leaders talk about supercharging the natural resource economy, a sector where Indigenous people have moved from the sidelines to the boardrooms in a single generation.

For too long, Indigenous peoples have been excluded from national economic conversations, depriving Canada of a remarkable economic revolution. Indigenous energy, infrastructure and tourism businesses are

thriving

, contributing to economic independence and reduced reliance on government programs. They’re catalysts for social change, building stronger, self-sufficient communities. It’s time for Canada to recognize that Indigenous economic power is a cornerstone of its future.

The numbers don’t lie. Over 500 Indigenous

economic development corporations

in Canada collectively manage hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets. They generate hundreds of millions in annual revenue and employ thousands of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

Indigenous financial institutions

(IFIs) — long overlooked by mainstream banks — are now key players in financing Indigenous entrepreneurs. In turn, these business leaders foster economic independence and build wealth in their communities.

For the first time in their history, many communities are experiencing real prosperity. The

success stories

prove that economic reconciliation isn’t some fantasy. It’s happening, and it’s reshaping the Canadian economy.

At a time when Canada is looking for new economic paths forward, Indigenous businesses are prepared to participate. But the real potential hasn’t yet been tapped. The impact could be much greater if Indigenous businesses receive equitable access to capital, market opportunities and policy support.

Ottawa’s promise that at least

five per cent

of government contracts will eventually go to Indigenous businesses was a positive first step. But there’s a serious problem: weak enforcement and false claims of Indigeneity have undermined the effectiveness of Indigenous procurement within the federal government. The process for identifying authentic Indigenous businesses must be Indigenous-created and Indigenous-led.

Enter the

First Nations Procurement Authority

(FNPA). This Indigenous-led organization ensures procurement processes are transparent and that contracts go to legitimate businesses. The FNPA would not only prevent exploitation, but also direct economic growth to the communities where it’s most needed.

Investment in IFIs is also essential. These institutions have already demonstrated their ability to support Indigenous entrepreneurs where traditional financial institutions have failed. Strengthening these organizations with additional supports will provide them with greater access to capital, allowing them to contribute even more to Canada’s prosperity. Empowering Indigenous financial institutions means investing in a sector that has proven its worth.

Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, demonstrated bold leadership by

reaching out

to President Trump shortly after his inauguration. She appealed for special attention to the issues of Indigenous groups whose territories cross the Canada-U.S. border. Her message emphasized the need for Indigenous voices in policy discussions that affect both countries.

For generations, Indigenous peoples have fought for a seat at the table. This marginalization must end. Indigenous peoples are no longer passive players. Their economic interests are vital to the prosperity of Canada. The outdated narrative of Indigenous poverty has been replaced with a new reality where First Nations, Métis and Inuit wield significant economic and political power. Indigenous peoples must be fully included in discussions about Canada’s economic future.

Reconciliation cannot be shuffled to the sidelines during times of economic uncertainty. If Canada is serious about long-term stability and emerging stronger from the tariff wars, Indigenous entrepreneurs and financial leaders must be at the table. We are not afterthoughts. We are key partners in shaping Canada’s economic strategy.

The Indigenous business community and political leadership are ready. Yet it is not clear that the country’s politicians, business leaders and institutions fully understand the potential and the determination of Indigenous peoples to be key players in building Canada’s future.

National Post

Shannin Metatawabin is CEO of the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association and a contributor to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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The Manning Centre Networking Conference — now called the Canada Strong and Free Networking (CSFN) Conference — has never been a deep-thinkers’ event. That’s not a criticism; the words “networking conference” are right there in the title, and the words “graduate-level political-philosophy seminar” are not.

But at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump has basically obliterated any coherent vision of American conservatism, or classical liberalism if you prefer — and who on some days seems intent on terribly corrupting the institutions, checks and balances generally thought to underpin its principles — the question of what exactly conservatism means in 2025 in North America could not be more alive or kicking.

Bari Weiss, founder of The Free Press newsletter, and Patrick Deneen, a constitutional scholar at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, offered conference-goers two competing such visions this week.

Weiss, broadly speaking, seems to believe we had things basically right in Western society before “wokeism” (to use a reductive but undeniably descriptive term) corrupted classical liberalism’s basic ideals of freedom and meritocracy. Campus radicalism used to burn itself out in most Americans once graduates were jettisoned into the real world with a sack of debt on their backs, Weiss argued. But in more recent years, it has metastasized in society in general — not just in education, at every level, but in government and corporate America as well

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(Weiss, for those unfamiliar, is best thought of as a very traditional American classical liberal — a younger David Brooks, perhaps. She was a staff writer at The New York Times before

quite spectacularly resigning

in 2020,

claiming her centrism and support for Israel made her persona non grata in the newsroom

and on the august organ’s pages as well.)

“I think the broad story of how we allowed it to get so bad is the story of cowardice,” Weiss told the CSFN conference. “People (who) did see it was bad, to be very blunt about it, valued prestige more than they valued principle.”

Deneen’s 2018 book, Why Liberalism Failed,

became an improbable bestseller,

touted by no less an influencer than Barack Obama

. (I say “improbable” because Deneen is the sort of writer, speaker and lecturer who forces you to think

really hard

while reading or listening to him. If you don’t know your Plato, Tocqueville, Burke and Mill off by heart — and I’m a bit rusty, I’ll concede — you might struggle!)

His position is essentially that excesses like wokeism were an almost inevitable result of the Ayn Rand-ian individualist philosophy to which many Canadian conservatives at least theoretically subscribe — if not in public politics, then privately. (Deneen mentioned seeing Rand, the radical-capitalist author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, depicted “about six times in the hallway” at the conference.)

Rand “ought to be attractive to a young person because young people are rebellious and they want to break away,” Deneen argued. “(But her vision is) a terrible way to organize a society because a society is essentially organized around the continuity of institutions and practices.”

”Liberalism (has been) the operating system of the West that has informed the thinking of both the left and the right, at least since the Cold War,” Deneen said. “And the debates that we think of as … between the left and the right, in fact, are contending versions or understandings of how thoroughgoing liberty can be achieved.

“(The right believes liberalism) is achieved especially through the free market and the unleashing of, in many ways, the desires that we pursue in the free market. The left believes that liberty is achieved especially by tearing down all of those institutions, or remaking all those institutions, that were once in the job of teaching (classical) liberty. So that once we’ve remade the family, we’ve remade educational institutions, we’ve remade, of course, government, then we will have and enjoy perfect freedom.

“And indeed, we see this at the heart of the left’s project today — of liberating us even from our gender.”

When all of those anchors fall to the sea floor, Deneen argued, government is basically all that’s left to fill the gap, and the left wins. He compared Weiss’s pursuit of a new enlightenment to preventing the Titanic’s sinking by backing up five feet from the iceberg.

Deneen clearly understands Canada to some extent. He gave a gushing review to Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism, George Grant’s 1965 polemic about John Diefenbaker’s electoral fate, even producing a copy on stage. But I don’t buy his critique of liberalism, as we used to conceive of it, especially in Canada. If there’s anywhere that can combine solid political and social institutions, and a strong social safety net, with robust individual liberties, it’s Canada.

We have done remarkably well at it thus far, albeit with many hiccups along the way, especially over the past decade or so. And we can do remarkably well at it in future.

National Post

cselley@postmedia.com

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Donald Trump’s tariff crusade has frequently made Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter look like a paragon of sanity. While is it is tempting to mock and deride the United States at the moment, Canadians need to remember where our economic bread is buttered. Despite anything politicians or leaders may say, and like it or not, Canada’s economic future and success is tied to the United States for the foreseeable future.

While there is no question that our relationship with the U.S. has changed, the notion that “our old relationship of steadily deepening integration with the United States is over,” as Mark Carney

suggested,

is ridiculous. Seeking better access and optionality to world markets for many of our products is a path Canada should unquestionably pursue, but it’s integration with the United States that is essential to our future economic prosperity.

Ever since Trump stood, like a used car salesman, with his

billboard of tariff

offerings for the world ready to “make a deal,” countries have scrambled to respond appropriately as markets roiled like no time since the

Great Financial Crisis of 2008

. But let us remember who was not on Trump’s bizarre chart outlining tariff rates: Canada and Mexico. Why? Because our economies are too important to the United States to be treated like other countries in the world. That is due to our level of integration. Trump may not like Canada, but he can’t get rid of us. Despite not completely avoiding tariffs — notably on automobiles, steel and aluminum — it is important to remember that it is almost certainly Canada’s level of US integration which avoided a far worse outcome.

This is, of course, is not an argument against Canada seeking better international access for our products, most notably our oil, gas and mineral reserves. We have been poorly served by sending too large a percentage of our natural resources at discount prices to the U.S. because we refused, or were incapable of, building out export capacity to other nations.

But let’s get real for a second. Whether it’s the Liberals’ proposed “

Trade Diversification Corridor

” which would invest $5 billion to build infrastructure to “…help diversify our trade partners…” or the “

National Energy Corridor

” Pierre Poilievre has suggested which would “…fast-track approvals […] for critical infrastructure across Canada in a pre-approved transport corridor…” Does anyone seriously believe either of these will happen at speed?

I’d sure like to. However, even if you support Canadian economic diversification and believe in Canada’s potential (as I very strongly do) our track record for rapid, decisive delivery of large-scale infrastructure in the last 20 years is at best poor and, more realistically, pathetically embarrassing. The Northern Gateway, Energy East are long consigned to the graveyard of “should have been built” and mining projects like Rook I has been stuck in federal permitting hell for six years despite provincial project approval, indigenous consent and full project financing being completed, with no further hearings scheduled until November.

Is Canada capable of the large-scale infrastructure projects now being trumpeted by all and sundry? Yes. Should any sane person bet our actually building them in a timely manner that would replace our U.S. dependency? No.

We are exceptionally fortunate that by an accident of geography we sit right next to the largest economy on Earth and have, despite the recent tensions, an overall good relationship with the U.S. Having a friendly, rich consumer market of more than 350 million people right next to you is a privilege most other countries can only dream of.

Donald Trump will be gone in 4 years. Despite his grand performances, the U.S. will remain our number one ally and trading partner no matter what we do. The smart money is that even in 40 years this will still be the case. Integration with the United States has been and will continue to be the key to Canada’s economic success. We should not want that to end.

National Post

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Those who recognize his name today likely know he was assassinated in downtown Ottawa in April 1868. Those who knew Thomas D’Arcy McGee when he was alive — friend and foe alike — would have been familiar with the bold vision he had for Canada. Those who don’t know about McGee should take a moment to discover the words of the man born 200 years ago this day (April 13).

Thomas D’Arcy McGee came from a Catholic family based in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland. He lost his mother when he was eight years old and sailed for the United States when he was only 17, desperate to find a firm footing in a rapidly changing world. Smart and energetic, young McGee found work as a budding journalist in Boston, where an Irish community thrived. McGee revealed himself as an Irish patriot, eager to see Great Britain’s grip on Ireland weakened. He even wrote that the United States should absorb Canada.

By his early 20s, McGee had found a voice. He discovered his identity as an Irish nationalist after less than three years in Boston and in 1845 returned to the Emerald Isle. He wrote for Young Ireland’s The Nation and seemed to impress audiences with his eloquent voice and his tireless dedication to the nationalist cause at a time when the potato crop — a food source on which more than a third of the population absolutely depended on for sustenance — was failing. He joined the Irish Confederation in 1848 and was on the organizing committee of the failed rebellion.

McGee, under threat of arrest, shuttled back to the United States and settled in New York, home of another vibrant Irish community. He was exposed to a wide variety of opinions in that intellectual hub and soon caught himself having doubts about Ireland, the United States and Great Britain. The potato famine had exposed grave socio-economic realities and the easy solutions of his youth no longer cottoned to reality. He turned to ultramontanism, a Rome-centred Catholicism, as a shield to the harshness of American life. It was a sturdy protection against the unforgiving anti-Irish sentiment that dominated the American metropolises.

He also turned to Great Britain with a kinder predisposition and reconsidered Canada — a land he increasingly appreciated for its tolerance. He moved his family to Montreal in 1857, started a new paper, the New Era, and threw himself into politics. He caught the imagination of his new countrymen and within a year the 32-year-old was elected to Parliament. The man who had once condemned Canada as a country destined to join the United States now advocated protective tariffs against the Americans, an accelerated program of infrastructure building, and enhanced immigration. John A. Macdonald fell for him and soon included McGee in his cabinet as minister of agriculture, immigration and statistics.

McGee’s economic policies were not tools merely to build wealth. Instead, they were instruments to bring about a new culture, perhaps even a new country. He called it a “New Nationality” — a union of progressive forces that would temper ardent ethno-religious identities in order to foster a strong country where both law and order could thrive. He raged against the Protestant extremists as much as he railed against the Fenian Catholics who still lived to weaken Great Britain by way of harming Canada.

McGee was now a man whose political views featured a patchwork of the emotions he felt, the battles he experienced and the ideas he championed with a head-turning eloquence. “This is a new land,” he reasoned, arguing that Canada — a Canada that would extend from coast-to-coast — was a place where virtue and talent could thrive. In a landmark speech he gave in early 1865 — months after he had participated in the pro-Confederation meetings at Charlottetown and Quebec City — he argued that Canada had to protect itself from the American threat. “We are in the rapids and must go on,” he declared. “Our neighbours will not, on their side, let us rest supinely.” Canada had to strengthen its ties to its enduring friends, even Great Britain.

His words still hold a prescribing strength to us, eight generations later. “We should strengthen the faith of our people in their own future, the faith of every Canadian in Canada,” he declared. “This faith wrongs no one; burdens no one; menaces no one; dishonours no one; and, as it was said of old, faith moves mountains.” The salvation of this country, in his eyes, lay in “the pure patriotic faith of a united people … we cannot stand still; we cannot stave off some great change; we cannot stand alone.”

McGee called for change. He knew that while Britain remained a friend, there were strong pressures for Canada to assume its own direction. He also recognized that as the American Civil War came to an end and Washington was eyeing northern territories such as Alaska, the threats from the United States required a strong response. McGee offered a solution, his “New Nationality,” a country with a renewed sense of purpose built on economic strength but also one of conviction that mankind could be bettered by bold new ideas of unity, civility and purpose. His undying words ring true today as clear as the church bells that had inspired his ideas in his earlier days.

National Post

Patrice Dutil is a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the author of Ballots and Brawls: The 1867 Canadian General Election.

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The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are not isolated regional conflicts. They are existential battles that will determine the future of the world order.

In both cases, authoritarian forces — Russia in Ukraine, Iran and its proxies in the Middle East — are testing the resolve of western democracies. Yet, instead of responding with a unified strategy, the United States and Canada have taken diverging approaches: Washington prioritizing Israel while retreating from Ukraine, while Ottawa does the reverse.

This inconsistency reflects a broader strategic paralysis in the West that emboldens adversaries and weakens the democratic world. Despite strained relations between Canada and the U.S., the two countries should unite and start treating Ukraine and Israel as two fronts in the same war against authoritarian aggression. Doing so would not only send a strong signal to our enemies, it would pave the way for greater cohesion between western nations.

It’s no secret that U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to power has reshaped America’s foreign-policy priorities. While staunchly pro-Israel, the administration has significantly scaled back support for Ukraine. Aid packages for Kyiv have stalled, and Trump’s rhetoric suggests a willingness to force Ukraine into an unfavourable peace, freezing the conflict in a way that benefits Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s skepticism toward NATO further complicates the situation. His statements questioning the alliance’s relevance have emboldened Russia, which now sees an opportunity to exploit the West’s dysfunction. European countries, recognizing this risk, have stepped up support for Ukraine, but without sustained U.S. backing, Kyiv faces an uphill battle.

Meanwhile, Trump has strengthened U.S. support for Israel. Washington has continued military aid, backed Israeli operations against Hamas and signalled strong opposition to Iran’s regional ambitions. This approach reflects Trump’s worldview: prioritize strong bilateral relationships while disengaging from multilateral commitments.

But selective engagement creates vulnerabilities. If Ukraine collapses or is forced into a settlement that rewards Russian aggression, it will embolden Moscow to push further into eastern Europe. At the same time, Iran and its proxies — keenly aware of Trump’s unwavering support for Israel — may escalate their attacks elsewhere, knowing that the U.S. lacks the same commitment to Ukraine.

Canada has taken the opposite approach. Liberal Leader

Mark Carney

has reaffirmed his intention to provide assistance to Ukraine and continue putting pressure on Russia. Yet Carney’s government, much like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s before it, maintains a cautious stance toward Israel.

While Canada has condemned Hamas’s actions, it typically does so in statements that also condemn Israel — creating a moral equivalence between terrorist organizations that have murdered Canadians and a sovereign member state of the United Nations.

Canada has also stopped short of offering full-throated support for Israel’s military response. Carney has even

suggested he agrees

with the dangerous and outlandish claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. In addition, Ottawa has been hesitant to align with Washington’s more aggressive stance toward Iran, preferring a diplomatic approach.

Domestic politics play a role in this positioning. Canada’s large Ukrainian diaspora — one of the biggest in the world — ensures that support for Kyiv is a near-universal political consensus. By contrast, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is deeply polarizing, with large segments of the Liberal electorate critical of Israeli policy. To avoid alienating key voter blocs, Carney has opted for a middle ground that lacks strategic coherence or vision.

But if Israel faces another escalation from Iran or Hezbollah, or if Washington pressures allies to align more closely with its pro-Israel position, Canada may be forced to choose between diplomatic neutrality and its alliance with the U.S. A failure to support Israel could deepen divisions within the western alliance.

Ultimately, the U.S. and Canada’s opposing priorities are self-defeating. The same adversaries are behind both conflicts. Tehran supplies Moscow with drones and other advanced military equipment to sustain its war against Ukraine, while Russia has provided Iran with military aircraft, intelligence and assistance in bypassing sanctions.

In addition, both countries seek to undermine the West by draining its resources, eroding its unity and proving that democracies lack the will to fight. If the West cannot recognize this interconnected challenge, it will remain a step behind its adversaries.

This division also fuels cynicism among allies. In eastern Europe, there is growing frustration that the U.S. prioritizes Israel over Ukraine. In the Middle East, there is anger that western countries that rush to defend Ukraine show hesitation when Israel is attacked. These perceptions matter. They shape alliances and determine how willing nations will be to stand with the West in future crises.

Moreover, failing to support both Ukraine and Israel weakens deterrence elsewhere. Nowhere is this clearer than in Taiwan. China watches how the U.S. and its allies handle these conflicts. A western failure to sustain Ukraine would reinforce Beijing’s belief that the U.S. will not intervene forcefully if Taiwan is attacked. Taiwan is now more vulnerable than ever.

All told, the West does not have the luxury of picking its battles. The U.S. should not allow domestic politics to weaken Ukraine’s war effort, and Canada must overcome its reluctance to fully support Israel — its strongest and oldest regional ally.

Instead of reacting to crises as they arise, the West must proactively strengthen deterrence against authoritarian actors. This means permanent military aid for Ukraine and Israel, enhanced NATO co-ordination in eastern Europe and a clearer containment strategy for Iran.

If the West cannot muster the will to defend Ukraine and Israel simultaneously, it will lose more than two wars — it will lose its credibility, its deterrence and, ultimately, its global leadership.

National Post

Alan Kessel is a former legal adviser to the Government of Canada and deputy high commissioner of Canada to the United Kingdom. Casey Babb is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Center for North American Prosperity and Security, a fellow with the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and and advisor to Secure Canada in Toronto.

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When British Columbia’s newest political party, CentreBC, launched on Thursday, NDP Premier David Eby

wished

it “the best of luck.” Eby’s well-wishes were no doubt genuine, as B.C.’s political history shows that any significant vote split on the right has resulted in an NDP government every time.

The B.C. NDP’s first ever win in 1972, with 40 per cent of the vote, was due to the right’s three-way split between the previously governing Social Credit party (31 per cent), the Liberals (16 per cent) and the Progressive Conservatives (13 per cent).

When the right united in 1975, the NDP lost 20 seats and the election itself, but maintained its share of the popular vote. The Socreds formed a majority government with 49 per cent of the vote, and the Liberals and PCs got just 11 per cent between them. The Socreds went on to win three more elections in 1979, 1983 and 1986 as the right remained united and the Liberals and Conservatives failed to surpass seven per cent of the vote combined.

The NDP’s second win in 1991 was due to a split between the re-emerging Liberal party and the tired Socreds whose scandal-plagued leader, Bill Vander Zalm, had been replaced by Rita Johnson. The split between the Liberals (who went from zero to 17 seats and 33 per cent of the vote) and the Socreds (who declined to just seven seats and 24 per cent) allowed the NDP to win a majority of seats with 41 per cent of the vote.

The NDP’s first ever re-election in 1996 was due to yet another split, this time between the BC Liberals under Gordon Campbell (who won the popular vote at 42 per cent but not the most seats), the Reform Party (nine per cent) and another upstart party, the Progressive Democratic Alliance (six per cent).

By 2001, the BC Liberals had reunited the right under Campbell, winning 77 of 79 seats in the legislature. The party governed under Campbell and then Christy Clark until 2017. In the three intervening elections between 2001 and 2017, the right was unified; alternative parties never achieved more than five per cent of the vote.

When the NDP formed government in 2017, it was not due to an electoral “win” per se (the BC Liberals won the popular vote and 43 seats to the NDP’s 41), but because they reached an agreement with the BC Greens to topple Clark’s short-lived minority government.

While the Conservatives received less than one per cent of the overall vote in 2017, vote-splitting still played a consequential role on a riding-by-riding basis given the close seat count. The NDP narrowly won two seats over the BC Liberals due to the votes that Conservative candidates received in those ridings. Without those splits, the BC Liberals would very likely have formed another majority government.

In 2020, the NDP called a snap election to benefit from the pandemic advantage that saw many incumbent governments re-elected. For the first time, it won a decisive majority of seats without a significant split on the right (the Conservatives got just two per cent of the vote).

Uniting the right has thus never been more important. The NDP can win a majority without a split on the right, and is even more likely to do so when the right is divided. It was this reality that drove BC United (the renamed BC Liberal party) to withdraw from the 2024 election to prevent an NDP supermajority as the newly revived Conservatives surged past them in the polls.

Despite decades of evidence to the contrary, CentreBC leader Karin Kirkpatrick, a former BC United MLA, recently

said:

“If (BC United) hadn’t pulled out … the Conservatives and BC United could be government now working together. And I think that there would have been more seats won … they could actually be forming a coalition government right now.”

This flawed assessment is belied by B.C.’s electoral past and the outcome of the 2024 election itself. The NDP won a slim majority with 47 seats, to the Conservatives’ 44. Some former BC United candidates ran as Independents, resulting in a substantial divide in the centre-right vote in two key ridings. Had these splits not occurred, the Conservatives would likely have achieved 46 seats to the NDP’s 45, resulting in a tenuous balance of power in the legislature for whichever party formed government, and a strong likelihood of another election in the near term. (The Conservatives have been

criticized

for not inviting those independent candidates to run with their own party to avoid splitting the vote).

What happens next, particularly when it comes to the viability of any centrist alternative, will depend most on how the Conservatives themselves choose to address the realities of B.C.’s political history. Uniting the right should be a priority. This doesn’t mean giving up on the conservative principles that have driven much of their success, but it does mean making space for a broad range of views, welcoming a wide swath of members from B.C.’s last successful right-of-centre coalition, and, most importantly, setting out a vision so compelling that the right is drawn together in its pursuit.

The leaders who built B.C. — W.A.C. Bennett, Bill Bennett and Gordon Campbell — knew the unifying power of a bold ambition for British Columbia, and saw great success for their parties and for the province as a result.

More political parties fighting for votes on the right aren’t the answer. Unity is. The evidence is there for those who care to look.

National Post

Caroline Elliott is a North Vancouver-based political commentator and former vice-president of BC United. She has a PhD in political science and teaches B.C. politics at Simon Fraser University. Follow her @NVanCaroline.

All the scrutiny and questions may be getting a bit too much for Mark Carney as he suspends his campaign for a third time.

Carney has clearly been irritated and put his “elbows up” after being questioned about a number of controversies swirling around him. Among the recent issues that have put Carney under a glaring spotlight have been: why Brookfield Asset Management used a Bermuda

bike shop

as a tax haven while he was an executive at the firm; whether his previous jobs

create

a conflict-of-interest for him and whether he met a pro-Beijing lobbying group in Toronto, as

reported

in the Globe and Mail on Thursday.

Carney said he had never heard of the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada (JCCC) but the Globe pointedly revealed that there were photographs on the organization’s website showing the prime minister with two of its senior members.

All that heat must have left Carney in a flop sweat.

On Thursday, Carney said he was suspending his campaign to return to Ottawa to convene a meeting Friday of the cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations. The reason was to respond to the continuing fallout from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, according to the Liberals.

Except, that on Wednesday Trump reversed course. He paused his decision about reciprocal tariffs on some countries and took no additional action on Canada. What was there to urgently respond to?

The immediate need for Carney to flee to the safety of an Ottawa committee room may have had more to do with taking a breather from all those troublesome questions.

But it also has another benefit: it plays into the Liberals’ attempts to mythologize Carney as the only saviour of Canada from the enemy that is Trump. Carney must be portrayed as the chosen one, the hero of the hour, the slayer of beasts and the scourge of the evildoer.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the Liberals installed a Bat Signal on top of Parliament with his face on it.

But it has to be this way because the Liberals have no other plank on which to stand.

The housing crisis, the food crisis, the immigration crisis, the lack of infrastructure/investment crisis, the health-care crisis, the crime and drug crisis — all caused or exacerbated by nine years of Liberal misrule.

Who would vote for Carney if his platform was: Vote for Liberals because this time — pinky promise — we are going to get it right?

And so Carney versus Trump is the only platform.

A week ago, pundits were saying that the only “ballot question” was Trump’s tariffs and that Pierre Poilievre was wrong to concentrate on “domestic issues” – as if they don’t matter to Canadians.

Now the tariff threat has receded somewhat. It may come back, only to recede again and then come back again. Trump will be the rogue factor for the next four years.

However, all those crises that screwed Canada for the last nine years aren’t going away and they need to be dealt with.

Which is why Poilievre has been so adamant about raising them time and again.

On Friday, he was asked whether he had committed “campaign malpractice” by squandering a 25 point lead in the polls, the implication being that he should have spent his firepower on Trump.

But Poilievre refused to back down.

“The Liberals and lobbyists want me to stop talking about the food prices,” he

said

. “Well, I’m not going to do that because single mothers should not be going to bed hungry worrying about how they are going to feed their kids in the morning.

“And they want me to stop talking about the doubling of housing costs during the lost Liberal decade. I’m not going to stop talking about that.

“They want me to stop talking about the rampaging crime that’s overtaking our streets and the overdose crisis that the Liberals caused that has taken the lives of 50,000 people. I will not stop talking about that either.

“We can’t afford a fourth Liberal term.”

Th Liberals can’t run on their record — who runs on a record of failure? Which is why we are witnessing the bizarre spectacle of Carney and his entourage of Trudeau ministers acting as if the last nine years had never happened.

Carney’s only hope of electoral success rests on him being portrayed as prime ministerial.

This means that he may have to stretch the limits of the caretaker convention that call for a government to act “with restraint” during an election period. The Privy Council

guidelines

do allow governments to deal with matters which are “urgent and in the public interest.” But who makes that call? Carney.

And so we have an unelected prime minister and novice politician making profound and significant decisions with regard to tariffs and retaliatory measures that may well hamstring a future government.

Critics might argue that the business of government must continue. And so it must. But the appalling timing of all this is down to the Liberals, and if Carney wanted to govern on behalf of all Canadians and in a time of dire emergency, he could well have convened a wartime cabinet, and sought the confidence of the House instead of calling an election.

In Britain, Carney was called the “high priest of Project

Fear

” because of his political attempts to dissuade people from leaving the European Union.

He has now revived those odious tactics and is playing on the anxieties of a nation, a new Project Fear, to scare Canadians and get himself elected.

But as Franklin D. Roosevelt might have said, we have nothing to fear but Project Fear itself.

National Post