At Issue - What the King’s speech says about Carney’s priorities

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

King Charles delivers a historic speech from the throne in Parliament. The National’s At Issue panel breaks down the message and what it tells Canadians about the federal government's priorities under Prime Minister Mark Carney. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton, this week on At Issue, the podcast edition for Tuesday, May 27th. Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear and ones which the government is determined to protect. I think the President is recognizing, as others are, just how strong and free Canada is. And so if you look at the speech from the throne today, as you did, this is about investing in Canada.

This week we're asking whether the King's speech met the moment Canadians are facing right now. Chantelle Baer, Andrew Coyne and Althea Raj join me to talk about this special day. So what's to be made of the government's message on this day, and did the presence of the King do what the government hoped? I'm Rosemary Barton here to break it all down on this Tuesday edition. Chantal Hebert, Andrew Coyne, Althea Raj. What did you make Chantal both of the presence of the King and the substance of the speech in terms of what it was intended to do? Okay the

presence of the King I think focused, helped focus minds on the speech, including Donald Trump's mind, apparently, which is always useful because strong speeches are not made to do, you know, great news. But I also thought that what was more important, what actually spoke to Canada more, was the presence in that room of people who have just fought an election. People who were prime ministers and who were adversaries, Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau. No one sitting there is saying the result is unfair.

It was a competitive election. No one sitting there is saying someone cheated. It was, we had an election and everyone who was a player showed up. And I thought that was just as important as having the king there. We should say Donald Trump obviously has responded, well I don't know if he's responded to this, but he has mentioned the 51st state in a social media post for the first time since the prime minister was in the Oval Office. So if this speech was intended to get the President to stop talking, it didn't do

that, but it did it deliver on the other things that it was supposed to do, Andrew? Yeah, I mean, just to build on Sean Talies point, no one who's there wants to be one of the 51st state either. Yeah, that's right. So it showed unity in the face of this ridiculous nonsense coming from south of the border. But bringing the king into it, I thought, brought a certain gravitas as well. If you're going to assert your sovereignty, it's more than just, as Donald Trump likes to call it, a line on the map.

It's several centuries of history. It's all of the constitutional development that goes with that. It's a tradition of democracy and civil liberties, etc., all of which are embodied in and symbolized by the crown, by the monarchy. So bringing the king in just gave it an extra heft and gave substance to our claims of sovereignty rather than just being, as I say, a place on the map. Yeah, I mean, I was struck by that too, Althea. Whether you like the monarchy or not, it did remind you of the differences between Canada and the United States. Of course. I think there was more symbolism than just giving a sense of pride, especially to English Canadians, when they see the king and our history and our shared history and kind of all this new patriotism that Canadians have felt since February.

To build on, I'm not sure who it was, we just said it, Andrew O'Shauntel, but even the Bloc Québécois actually came out and responded to the speech saying that there wasn't enough against Donald Trump in this speech. Like, they expected it to be tougher. They don't want to be part of the 51st state either. I do think, though, the part of the reset that this speech from the throne is intended to do is a clean break from the Trudeau era. Mark Carney wants to think of the Liberal Party

starting a new Liberal term, not a fourth Liberal term. And so having the King read the speech from the throne and not having the Governor General that Mr. Trudeau's appointed read the speech from the throne, I think is also part of that. So let's talk about the sort of substantive part of the speech that the King had to read

in terms of the government agenda. Was there anything notable there, Chantal, in terms of the ambition, level of ambition, that this government continues to put forward? It did mirror the mandate letters to ministers that we saw last week, and if you followed the election campaign, I don't think you had major surprises, but the devil is going to be in the details. I think we will know a lot more about the ambitions of this government when we see the fine print of legislation on, for instance, so-called national projects of national interest and how that works.

The words, though, they jived with, I think, with Canadians and heard over the course of the election campaign, which is always good. It's always good also. There was a grocery list that went on forever with every single little item that the government may one day pay attention to. So I'm still wondering, what did these, how many many Secretary of States read into it, this mission statement? Andrew?

It's sober, it's minimalist, it's just the priorities. It's also directed at two things. One is protecting Canada from Trump, so there's the things about trade and defense, et cetera, but also protecting liberals from the conservatives. So a good part of this thing, it's all, as you say, it was all laid out during the election campaign, but it's all based on covering off the weaknesses that the liberals have that the conservatives have been exploiting on immigration, on housing, on border security, on affordability, etc.

And you know, you could very well see a moderate conservative government having brought in this throne speech. Gail Thea? I agree. We just spoke about this a little bit earlier today, but this speech from the throne could easily have been brought in by Aaron O'Toole, possibly even Stephen Harper. I don't think it's about protecting the Liberals' voter base from the Conservatives. I think it's frankly about courting the conservatives in this speech. In fact, I wonder if New Democrats and Bloc supporters who voted for Mr. Carney this time

felt like they saw themselves reflected in this speech. Because what happens in an election campaign, especially when you have leaders that's speaking kind of vague terms, is people project what they think that candidate is going to do. And when you see it all laid out like that, you realize what the priorities are. And I thought, you know, aside from building Canada, which frankly is not a Donald Trump response, that is something Mr. Carney has been running on basically for the last year when he was a candidate at 2020, all the defense spending, the energy, that was a huge focus. You kind of wonder what's, where are the other priorities fitting in that? I think that's a conversation that we're going to kind of, the seeds have been

planted and we may see some sprouts in the few weeks. Yes, but many NDP and block voters voted not only because of Trump, but because they didn't want Pierre Poilier. Right, yes. A statement, for instance, on Radio-Canada and CBC wouldn't have seen in a conservative Trump speech the statements about pursuing child care, pharma care, dental care, not expanding it, but pursuing it.

You might not have seen. So I think there was enough there for the, I don't believe NDP voters or black voters were voted for Mark Carney because they suddenly saw him as the new leftist leader. No, but I think they voted for him because they thought this is a guy who believes in climate change and believes that this is an existential threat and there is nothing in the speech from the throne that makes you believe that that old Mark Carney is this new version of Mark Carney. That's not totally accurate.

There are allusions to the necessity. There's two mentions. It's nowhere close to the way he was speaking two years ago. It's not a green Trump speech. He didn't promise that. Okay, I gotta go. But we'll have more to talk about on Thursday. There's a question period tomorrow.

The Prime Minister will make his debut there. Thank you. That is a special edition of At Issue for this Tuesday. What did you think of the speech from the throne and the King's presence here in Canada? Let us know what you think. You can send us an email at ask at cbc.ca. We will be back in your feeds on Thursday.

Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc. Thanks for listening.