The Ben Mulroney Show - Who exactly is Mark Carney and when will he finally face the media?

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Who exactly is Mark Carney and when will he stop ducking the media? with Guest: Warren Kinsella, Former Special Advisor to Jean Chretien and CEO of the Daisy Group 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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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Yesterday was the culmination of the least surprising political event of recent political history in the securing of the liberal leadership by Mark Carney. He won yesterday. I think the most surprising thing was the landslide that he won by. We knew he was going to win. We knew he was going to win big. But I don't think anybody expected that Mark Carney was going to win with 86% of the vote. And in his acceptance speech, he started out by taking shots at his opponent, Pierre Poliev.

Now, unlike Pierre Poliev, I've actually worked in the private sector. I know. I know. I know. I know how the world works. And I know how it can be made to work better for all of us. And that knowledge is especially useful now in the service of Canadians when we must build a new economy and create new trading relationships. Let me tell you something else that we know that Pierre Polyev doesn't. We know that markets don't have values, people do.

And look, that I think is going to be the dividing line, the real dividing line between these two men. One worked in quote unquote the private sector. His dealings are still exceptionally private. We don't know anything. He's refusing to disclose anything to do with his personal financial holdings. But that's a conversation for another time. But so, yes, you got the guy from the private sector and the man who has been in the political arena for his entire personal life, professional life. I don't know that one is intrinsically bad and one is intrinsically good.

They are different. They mean different things to different people. But those two that that difference is going to be central to the fight between these two men. And they are gonna bring it up often. They are gonna weaponize the other person's professional life against them or attempt to do so in an effort to curry favor with voters. He went on to talk about the world that we're living in, to curry favor with voters

went on to talk about the world that we're living in the world of tariffs that dominates our everyday life the canadian government has rightly retaliated and is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs that will have maximum impact in the united states and minimum impact here in Canada. My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.

And until they can join us in making credible and reliable commitments to free and fair trade. Yeah, that doesn't sound like anything Pierre Poliev would disagree with or most Canadians would disagree with. I mean there's broad consensus by and large on most of the things that every level of government is doing. You know, I took issue earlier this morning on another radio show with the fact that, you know, I compared Doug Ford's reaction to the tariffs and Danielle Smith's reaction to the tariffs, two completely different positions. And neither side ever accuses the other of being a traitor to Canada for having a different, taking a different route towards stopping these tariffs.

That moniker of being a traitor seems the exclusive domain of the left. The second that you are not with whoever is calling the shots in Ottawa, you're a traitor. I'm called a traitor every day because I might take issue with a policy or a position. And it is the stock and trade of the left to denigrate, to tar and feather, to isolate, marginalize, and separate and divide. And I'm hearing that in some of the words from Mark Carney, echoes of his predecessor. He continued and said, Canada didn't ask for the fight, but Canada is ready for the fight. America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever will be part of America in any way, shape, or form. We didn't ask for this fight.

We didn't ask for this fight. The Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So the Americans, they should make no mistake, in trade as in hockey, Canada will win. I mean, I'm getting sick and tired of these hockey, this hockey imagery. Okay, I get it. Sure, we win at hockey. You wanna compare getting into a fight with America

and hitting the ice against America? Go right ahead. The imagery doesn't get you very far. It really doesn't. But if it makes people in that moment feel good, sure, sure. Okay, that's what the speech is. It's as close to a barn burner as you're going to get with a guy like Mark Carney, who is not very emotional in his speeches.

That's part of his brand. He's not about the sizzle. He's all about the steak and the substance. That's who he is and so what you're hearing is probably as emotional as Mark Carney gets. But then he makes jokes. This is when I find it gets to be a little bit offensive because if there is a knock on Mark Carney that most people should be able to get behind is that he has not subscribed to the spirit of the rules of disclosure and disclosed his financial holdings.

He claims it's because he's not an elected official. That's not why those rules were put in place. Those rules were put in place so that people who want to be our leaders, let us know where they're coming from financially. And just because he doesn't have an elected office right now doesn't mean that the rules shouldn't apply to him. And he should be voluntarily disclosing.

That to me would be leadership. That being said, he makes a joke about it. Full disclosure. I know the leader of the opposition is in the full disclosure, so I'm going to full disclosure. Full disclosure. Just want to get this on the table. Yeah, see, that's not funny to me. That's not funny.

You owe, we already don't know anything about you, sir. You have not run the media gauntlet. You have limited the media who can attend your events. You have shunned the national media. When you have made a mistake with the words you've said, you've put other people out there to answer for them, or you have very, in a very limited and circumscribed way, tried to wordsmith your way out of them.

You have not fully introduced yourself to Canadians. And we know absolutely nothing about how much money you have in the market, where that money is, where your conflicts are, if there are any, and you will surely become our prime minister one day. So to joke about it, you can joke about it after you disclose, but until then,

if you're gonna keep your mouth shut on your financial holdings, then you should keep your mouth shut on any jokes that have to do with disclosure, because it is not a laughing matter. It is very serious. We take these things, we as a nation should take these things very seriously,

and you, as somebody who positions himself as an adult in the room should be leading on this. And so I don't think that that's funny. and 31,674 votes, resulting in 29,457 allocated points, representing 85.9% of the vote. Well, that was it. With that announcement, Mark Carney replaced Justin Trudeau as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and our Prime Minister Designate. Here with far more incisive opinion than I is Warren Kinsella, a former special adviser, to one of the speakers yesterday at the Liberal event, Jean Chrétien and CEO of the Daisy Group. Welcome to the show, my friend. Good morning, sir. Okay, so what number should we be paying attention to? The 85.9% of the vote on the first ballot

which is a crushing victory or the 131,674 votes which you know in given how many registered voters there are in Canada adds a small pond relative to the larger fight that is before him in a general election? I'm gonna be a contrarian as usual and say neither number matters. They're both in the rear view mirror at this point. The number that matters is the one we haven't seen yet, which is what kind of honeymoon bump is Mark Carney going to get out of that huge victory that he got last night? Like everybody gets a honeymoon bump. Even people like Michael Ignatiev and Stefan Diehl, everybody gets one.

The question I've got is how much, and it really matters because all the polling showing that Poliev and Kearney are largely tied or Poliev slightly ahead. That change is a consequence of last night. That's what I'm looking for. Now, I think we could all agree that Chris, your freelance campaign was not strong, but I didn't think it was 8%. I didn't think that by the end of this, that was what she was going to come home with. What does that speak to? Me neither. I was shocked, I think, with a lot

of other folks. I think the early indicator was that she wasn't traveling the country. I was shocked, I think, with a lot of other folks. You know, I think the early indicator was that she wasn't traveling the country. She was doing meetings by Zoom. And that would maybe make sense if you were still a cabinet minister, but she wasn't even a cabinet minister anymore. So I think that was an indication that they knew that they were in some trouble. But like you point out, like to get that is just a pounding. I felt badly for her, but it you know it fits with my traditional rule is that you know Brutus may have taken out Caesar, but Brutus was never rewarded for it. You know if you're the one who takes out

the leader, you rarely become the leader yourself and that's certainly the case with Kristofer Freeland. I think a lot of liberals were grateful that she bailed the cat and she was the one who mainly took out Justin Trudeau, but they didn't want to reward her for doing that. Interesting dynamic. You know, I think for a lot of people, the bloom was off the rose with Justin Trudeau. Last night was his farewell. And the style of Justin Trudeau has now left the building to make way for the Mark Carney of it all. And he is, as I've said many times, if Justin Trudeau was all about the sizzle, then Mark Carney is all about the steak.

He's about the substance. He's not a rousing speaker, but what did you make of his speech? It was boring! Oh my god, it was boring! You know, I joked. But for some people that might be a good thing. Yeah, well no, that's the point. You know, I said to my colleague at Post Media, Natasha Karen, and I was like, oh my god, it's like watching a bowl of tapioca with this guy, and she said, and she's right, you know, maybe that's what the country wants. Maybe that's what people are after. You know, Donald Trump is like this Tasmanian devil on Benzedrine and it just never stops. So maybe people are looking for somebody who's a little dull and plotting and a lot like a banker. So, you know, that

works to Carney's advantage. But I still think, and as you and I have talked about this before, I think Pauli-Ed and Blanchette are going to absolutely razor him in the leaders debates, which will be happening in, I suspect, the next few weeks. Well, that was going to be my next question, because you've got Jagmeet Singh and his NDP support cratering around the country. A lot of those votes up for grabs, most probably from the liberals. How soon do you think he needs to call an election or wants to call an election? He's got to go right now. He'd be crazy to wait.

You know, getting back to what I was saying a minute ago, he's got momentum from Trudeau leaving. He's got momentum from a leadership race that took place. And they got lots of uncritical coverage, you know, Poliev disappeared, and now he's going to get some momentum from his leadership bumps. They would be nuts not to go right away because, you know, Donald Trump may go off and chase some new chew toy and start focusing on Panama or Greenland or something like that, and then the panic, you know, the anxiety in the country diminishes

and that hurts the liberal party. So I think they've got to go right away. I suspect we're going to be looking at him walking over to see the governor general, Ben, sometime in the next few days. Really? But Warren Kinsella, what kind of campaign is he going to run? He says he wants to dump the carbon tax right away.

He wants to stop the increase in the capital gains tax, but he also mentions building off of dental care and pharma care. Is he going to run a centrist campaign or is he going to run a progressive campaign? I can't tell what he's going to do. If you look at some of the columnists this morning, they're saying, oh boy, he sounds like a conservative. And you look at other columnists, they're saying, oh boy, you know, he sounds like, you know,, Justin Trudeau style liberal. I guess they're trying to figure that out. But at the end of the day, the ballot question, the main point, the campaign that I think they're going to run, which is, um, I don't like Donald Trump.

I don't like his style. I'm going to fight Donald Trump and Pierre Poliev secretly loves, you know, has a picture inside his locker of Donald Trump. I think that's going to be the campaign that we're looking at. And Poliev, that means that he has got to do everything he possibly can to make sure that none of his staff or his caucus or his candidates get photographed in a mega hat or say anything that is remotely mega. They cannot provide evidence of the criticism that Carney is gonna be bringing to bear against them.

And look, it is a criticism that can, I mean, they can find traction with that. There are certain people who, I guess they're more predisposed to believing something like that, but you know as much as I, you know better than I, how important campaigns are. And given the fact that this liberal leadership campaign like that, but you know as much as I, you know better than I, how important campaigns are.

And given the fact that this liberal leadership campaign was, I believe, a campaign in name only, is Carney ready for the buzzsaw that he's going to encounter? Not just from the conservative party, but the fact that he is going to have a cortege of media following him wherever he goes demanding answers to every and all questions this there's going to be a level of scrutiny of demanded of him that he he has not lived up to yet I don't think he is ready you know Karina Gould who got 3% of the vote last night absolutely clobbered him you know this unknown MP absolutely clobbered him. You know, this unknown MP absolutely clobbered Carney in the French and the English debates. I think Bailis was better than him. So you know, having experience in politics, as you and I both know,

matters a lot. And I know Carney's trying to turn it into a pause and say I'm not a professional politician. And it's like,'s like yeah no kidding pal like you really don't sound like a politician and and sometimes we need that you know we want somebody to just show passion and and vigor and like this is why last night after my former boss Kretchen spoke I got hundreds of notes from people across the country including from conservatives saying man we need some of that yeah Yeah. He's 91 years old, he's still got it. And the same thing with your dad is, you know, there comes a time in politics where you got to bring the fire. Yeah. Right? You've got to bring it. And Mark Carney, I haven't seen him do that once. And I think, you know, it's going to be a challenge for him against a couple very accomplished performers like Pollyade and Blanchet.

He also hasn't been as full throated in sort of the building of pipelines as a lot of people would want him to be. I mean, he said some things, but he's also hedged a lot. Your former boss made quite a compelling case for exactly that yesterday. I don't think that was by accident. No, and it was wonderful that he did that, you know, in full disclosure, I'm a Calgarian and I've worked in the oil patch and I believe we are an energy country and we should not be leaving energy in the ground, right? And particularly now that we're facing this existential threat, we need to bring our energy, our resources to other markets other than the United States.

So, you know, Poliev's on the right track and Carney, I just can't figure out where he stands. So I thought, Krentzian, what he did, that's really important, what you've just brought up, Krentzian, without disclosing any of the conversations I've had with him, what he does, he always does it very deliberately. Hey, Warren, we're gonna have to leave it there. Thank you so much, my friend. We'll talk to you soon.