The Ben Mulroney Show - Stephen Carney says Mark Carney is full of it, and should stop taking credit for other people's work

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Guests and Topics: Guest: Regan Watts, Founder Fratton Park Inc., former Senior aide to minister of finance Jim Flaherty If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We've been talking and listen until Mark Carney is anointed. The leader of the Liberal Party and eventually our prime minister. We're going to follow this campaign. We were forced to follow it. So we're going to follow it. And I'm noticing a little bit of frustration building up in some of the journalists who for whom this is their beat for whom this is You know people come to them for For thoughts on this and one of those people is Bob Fife of the Globe and Mail and

He laid out on a television show recently how Mark Carney has not been upfront about his financial disclosures He still hasn't told us what he's going to do and we've been trying to get this information and what you're going to do about putting your conflict of interest disclosures to the public. They have ducked that over and over again. And there's a reason for this is that it takes 60 days to declare once you become Prime Minister, 60 days to declare your conflict and 120 days to declare it to the public. If he bides by that, then the election will be over before we even know what his financial

interests are. So he's been ducking us a lot. He'll take two or questions, maybe three and then they run away from us. All right. So that you can hear the frustration in Bob Fife's voice. To talk more about that and a few more topics, we're joined by my friend Regan Watts, founder of Fratton Park, Inc.

and former senior aide to the Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty. Regan, happy Monday to you. Happy Monday to you too, Ben. So I think Carney has enjoyed living in this world where he hasn't been quite political. So he's not subject to the disclosure rules. And I remember he was on Vashi Kapilos' show a few weeks ago

where she said, are you going to subject yourself to these disclosure rules? And she says, well, he said, well, I've had no power. And my pushback to that is you may not have had official power, but you've had influence. And therefore, I think you owe it to people to let them know, you know, who's wet in your whistle. So I don't know if that's a question or not, Ben. It was more a trial off into sort of a and your thoughts, Regan.

Well, look, I think Mr. Carney and I've said on your show before, he's a smart man who has had considerable success both in the public and private sector. However, this is a new arena for him in politics. And I think he is, at least what I interpret from his comments, is he views that the rules don't necessarily apply to him in the same way that they apply to others. I mean, look, that long national nightmare that is Justin Trudeau is over in just over a week. And it's

wonderful. But Mr. Carney, who is going to win leadership next weekend for the Liberal Party, this coming weekend, pardon me, will be the prime minister and we will have no idea what his financial interests are. He has not made any effort to disclose these. And I'll remind your listeners that prior to seeking the leadership of the Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau to his credit, disclosed his assets, there was some questions about whether he had a trust fund and how much he was worth. And to his credit, Mr. Trudeau disclosed his personal financial interests prior to the

leadership. And I think that was a he didn't have to do that then. But that was a very wise move politically. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why Mr. Carney is running away from these attempts for transparency and disclosure, because there ought not to be anything to hide. That is one of the worrisome fronts in the get to know Mark Carney journey that we're all on. The other one is he seems to play fast and loose

with the facts and with timelines. And people who make memes for a living were having a field day over the past week after he sort of played fast and loose with the timeline on the Brookfield Asset Management, of which he was the chairman, moving their head office to New York. He said he had nothing to do with it, and of course he did.

And so all of a sudden the memes were coming up about all the other things that he could claim responsibility for, including landing on the moon and being the fifth beetle and you name it. And you had some choice words on Twitter for him on that front, didn't you? I did.

And look, I know Mr. Carney. I worked with him and Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Flaherty during some time that I spent working for the Government of Canada. And so my comments this weekend were very, I thought, relevant. And that is Mr. Carney, as a central banker, as well as a public servant, as well as being an investment banker, has had to be very precise with his language. When you're the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, things you say can

and do move markets. And so you have to be very, very careful about what you're saying. And by the way, that's, that's also the brand he has been settled. He's been peddling out there. I'm, when I speak, I'm, I'm a serious person, unlike my predecessor. So I don't speak in the adult. Yeah, I don't. I'm not theatrical. I don't speak for the sake of speaking when I speak. I mean what I say. Yeah, exactly. And Mr. Carney said he was he should have been

more precise. But it is simply not in some of his comments. It is simply not credible to believe Mark Carney was imprecise in language that he used. He tried to lie. And he got caught. And he's had to backpedal and is doing all kinds of backpedaling. I thought the memes were hysterical. They were. If there's one thing, that's for sure is the internet remains undefeated when it comes to memes and making fun of somebody. But it also leads to a reasonable question is what else has he not been precise about? I think Mr. Carney, like he claimed he was not chair of the board when the board meeting took place. And that is simply untrue. And so he

was being very precise in his language. And he was he's been especially clear about what his plan is for Canada should he become Prime Minister, which is more of the same policies, if not doubling down on the same policies that Mr. Trudeau and his team that he has been advising, yeah, for the last 10 years, give or take, we're the same policies that got us in the mess where we are now.

And that's the thing, he's underplaying his role in the mess we're in, but he's overplaying or overstating his role in all sorts of other things, including taking credit for the financial crisis response that your boss was the primary driver of. And Stephen Harper took, actually voiced his displeasure with that recently. Yeah, look, I, Mr. Carney certainly would have been providing advice to decision makers during the economic crisis. And Mr. Carney would have worked very closely with Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Harper during that time. But make no mistake, Mr. Carney was not making decisions

or the tough calls on economic policy or fiscal policy during that period. It was Minister Flaherty and Prime Minister Harper who were making those tough calls and so I have uh, found it a bit egregious that mr. Carney, uh is uh over indexing or maybe influencing or Exaggerating his influence during that period was he at the table or was he in the room? Sure But he wasn't making decisions, uh, certainly not on economic and fiscal policy And it is uh for me unconscionable that Mr. Carney would make such claims, especially when Mr. Flaherty, God rest his soul, is no longer with us and is not here

to correct the record. Mark Carney is also making claims that he is the guy to lead us through a crisis. Let's hear him in his own words. He still hasn't told us what he's going to do. That's not it. That's not it. He was in the pub and what he's going to do. No, that's not it. That's not it. Anyway, he was in the pub and he essentially compared himself to Churchill. And he called himself a wartime leader. I wouldn't be here if we were in peacetime. That is a perplexing statement, if I've ever heard one.

Like, I don't know what to make with that. So are you saying that if the tariffs weren't around, you wouldn't have presented yourself? I don't understand what he's pitching. Well, he's, I think he's being again, very precise in his language. He's communicating to Canadians that the only reason he's doing this is for himself,

which is the same type of language that former liberal leader Mike Lugnati have also used when he came back to Canada to seek the leadership of the Liberal Party and to run for prime minister. Mr. Carney doesn't make mistakes with language. I think it displays an incredible sense of arrogance that Mark Carney, who while a fine public servant, and I have no idea, but let's assume he was a pretty good investment banker would compare himself to perhaps the greatest leader of the 20th century at a time like this.

It's just crazy. Regan, I want to thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Love having you on the show. Have a great day, Ben. See you. Hi, I'm Donna Friesen from Global National. Life moves fast these days and we want to make it even easier for you to get the news

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