The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Andrew Coyne: Is Carney’s momentum pointing to a spring election?

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Parliament opened yesterday with the PM determined to keep his momentum going: a labour reform bill and a major liberalization of project permitting, including for pipelines. What happened to the Trudeau-era Liberals now getting behind Carney’s more conservative agenda? Are we witnessing the beginnings of a broader Canadian realignment, with the Liberals making breakthroughs in Saskatchewan and Alberta? And what is the risk of a spring federal election designed to capitalize on Carney’s current momentum and secure a large majority?Trump’s threats and the trade war have rallied Canadians around the Prime Minister and narrowed the space for criticism of his government. How open are Canadians right now to criticism of Carney’s approach? Andrew argues that when a country is facing an external threat, voters are less interested in the usual cut-and-thrust of partisan politics. The problem for Pierre Poilievre is that this is the political style he knows best. For now, his best strategy may be to hunker down, weather the current environment and build a stronger position for the moment when—and if—the bloom comes off the rose for Carney and the Liberals.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It is hard to imagine Pierre Ployev cutting a figure in the international stage that Mark Carney is at this moment. And if you think that's just theatrics, I think that's foolish. This country needs allies at this moment. We are under threat and we need to be rethinking our trade alliances and our defensive alliances and everything else. And so international, you know, as to say, rallying support internationally is a huge part of the prime minister's job right now. Welcome to our regular monk dialogue with Globe Mail journalist Andrew Coyne. Andrew, great to be in conversation with you today. Good to be with you.

A lot to talk about, but let's begin with the opening of Parliament. That happened yesterday in Ottawa. Paint us a picture of what you think. The two protagonists, I mean, there's more, but let's face it, there's two big protagonists in our parliamentary drama this fall. Mark Carney, with a majority government now, rushing towards a consequential fall. budget. And then Pierre Pauliev, you know, facing off against the Carney juggernaut, fending off growing criticism inside his party, finding real challenges, Andrew, and getting kind of

traction on the issue set. So let's start with Mr. Carney first. Where is he going to take this Parliament, this autumn? What's your prediction? Well, I think he wants to keep the momentum up. You know, he had a very consequential week last week with, you know, the tax cut and the investor summit and going off to Europe. And the momentum is keeping up now with this new bill on a combination of labor law reforms and permitting reforms and all trying to generate both the impression and the reality of borough momentum, not just for his government, but for the country. trying to send the message both at home and abroad. This is very much a country that welcomes investment, wants to get things done to the extent that there's been a reality and a perception that it's hard to get things done here,

that that has really hurt investment. So that's very much the projection. He's also trying to keep one eye on both the referendum in Alberta and the election in Quebec and, of course, the upcoming election in the United States. So it's going to be a very packed political agenda. And I think it's important both for his sake and for the countries that there be a sense that this country has its act together, that it's a good place to be a part of,

that it's a place that deserves its standing in the world and deserves to be taken seriously and be treated as a sovereign nation and not as a 51st state. So all these things kind of fit together. And right now, he's got the wind in his sales. The approval ratings for him personally are astronomical or something like 70 percent, I think I lost. And his party leads the conservatives by 15, 16 points in the polls. So it's a good time to be Mark Carney right now.

Let's talk about these two big kind of legislative pieces that are following on the Investment Summit, a labor reform bill, and then this, again, increasing kind of liberalization of the permitting regime around major projects. And in this case, specifically pipelines. I guess two thoughts, Andrew, for you to react to. One, boy, Pierre Pauly, I guess, missed his lunch on Monday. He opened his lunchbox. So there are two long-standing conservative policy planks gone.

And I guess the second question falling out of that, Andrew, is this liberal caucus, and indeed the cabinet, still has a lot of Justin Trudeau's MPs and cabinet ministers in this party, people who were up until 18 to 24 months ago very serious about the environment, about Canada's responsibility to fight and mitigate the effects of climate change. You had very different views on things like pipelines, and generally we're courting labor also in a significant way, right from the very beginning of the first Trudeau government, an attempt by the Liberal Party to actively displace the NDP

as the preferred party of labor. It seems like everything that's solid melts into air right now in this parliament and in Mark Carney's hands. Yeah, and to be fair to Pierre Polly Ever, who we'll talk about in a minute, it's pretty hard to deal with a party that just basically turns 180 degrees on anything it ever previously believed, or at least in the last 10 years had believed, and takes all your policies. If you're prepared to do that, then sure, you can wrong foot your opponents. It happens to be, I think, the right thing to do for the country at this point, but it also has these practical political benefits of just utter shamelessness. It's very hard to counteract. You know, there are certainly, as you say, liberal MPs and liberal cabinet ministers

who were saying diametrically the opposed things to what they'll be saying. saying in the next weeks and months, they will, I'm prepared to predict, swallow themselves to do so. It takes a very rare person like a Stephen Giebeau to say, this is just so contrary to everything that I believe and stand for and went into politics to try to achieve that I'm going to resign both my cabinet seat and my seat in Parliament. Whatever you think about Stephen Giebeau or his policies and beliefs, he is a man of principle. Whereas that is in short supply in Canadian politics, whether they believed the things they said a year ago or two years ago

any more than the ones they're saying now is, of course, an open question to begin with. So it's not necessarily the case that these sincere believers are now having to swallow themselves because Mark Carney says they must. But that certainly will be true of some of them. But they're not in a position to do much about it. They're not in a position to do much about it at the best at times because, as we've discussed many times, party caucuses or whatever party are extremely weak compared to the leaders.

But when you're up against a guy who's at 70% approval, who is the sole reason that you were not sent packing from the seat that you possess, you're not going to say a great deal. That will wait until he's in a weaker position, which comes for them all at some point, but certainly not now. Yeah. We are seeing, despite very strong liberal poll numbers, some resurrection of the NDP without Abby Lewis's leader being in the House this week. Is that, Andrew, just the, you know, Newton's laws in action here for every action there's an equal but opposite reaction. And on issues of the environment, pipelines and on issues of labor, there are voters who really care about these things. Voters that were a significant part of Justin Trudeau's progressive, capital P, progressive coalition, is Avey Lewis, you know, because of Mark Carney mainly, in the same way that

Mark Carney has benefited from Donald Trump immeasurably in terms of his polling and popularity, is Abby Lewis about to experience a similar slipstream as this liberal government, lurches right, and as you say, endorses much of the conservative policy playbook, are they at risk of opening up a flank, a left flank and a resurgent NDP who has the bona fides on labor, on the environment, on again, issues that a lot of Canadians, especially Canadians in downtown ridings that are the liberal heartlands in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, elsewhere, care about it. Yeah, I mean, it's already happening to some extent.

I mean, maybe it'll go further, but they're already up from whatever less 6% to something like 12% now in the polls. So there's already been this kind of quiet surge for the NDP at the same time as the conservatives have been falling. So the liberals net of that is, you know, it's slightly up from where they were in the last election, but not a lot. They've mostly been trading, growing their support on their right and losing support on their left. If I were the conservatives, the liberals I should say, that's not necessarily a bad, trade. I'm not saying this is all calculated and this is all just a repositioning for politics. I think they also happen, or at least Carney and as people happen to believe this is the right thing to do for the country. But it certainly has inestimable political benefits to it that if you

can knock six points off the conservative at the expense of adding six points to the NDP, you might say that's worth it. I think they saw, and it's hard not to see. how vulnerable the conservatives were. The conservatives, you know, they have, let's say, a base of 30% that's pretty rock solid. But they also had a very low ceiling. And as we found, it was pretty easily peeled off as soon as you got rid of Justin Trudeau. And you're seeing support now for the liberals in places like Alberta and Saskatchewan that they have not seen a long time.

Now, I'm not saying they're going to win a whole lot of seats there yet. But if they keep up on this track that they're on, at some point, that's going to drive itself home in not just those places, but resource producing places generally, that this is a very different party. So there's the potential here for quite an interesting realignment in Canadian politics from the pattern that we've really been in for several decades. If the liberals were to make serious breakthroughs in Saskatchews in Saskatchew, Alberta, that would be a gang. changes, they say. So that is a perfect segue for me to ask you, Andrew, what is the risk of an election sooner or not later? I think we would agree that Mark Carney will call an election most likely while Donald Trump is in the White House. As I said before, he is the perfect foil for this prime minister. And a lot of this prime minister's political momentum has been a result of him being

the antipode, the antithesis of Donald Trump. in every possible imaginable way. So if there is the possibility here, Andrew, if the Liberal Party striking a real blow against the conservatives, not simply because I think this is a really smart analysis on your part, not simply in the context of reducing the conservative seat count back to something that might resemble Elsie Wayne and Jean Chorre in the post-Mourney blowup, I don't know if it would be that bad,

but it could be bad if poll numbers held today transposed to an election day. But as you say, maybe more importantly, giving the liberals for the first time real credibility as a national governing party if they can win seats in Saskatchewan, Alberta. And I would add, finally, Andrew, doesn't every prime minister hanker for that entry in the history books where they win an election, and a majority government at the ballot box, and they have that tick, that asterisk by their name. Surely that is an attraction to Mark Carney. You would think so. Now, it's interesting that, you know,

there's been a couple of times, I think, in recent days and weeks where he's been asked, or at least one time I can think of, where he was asked, are you going to lead the party into the next election? He gave a hundred-word answer that did not include the word yes. Now, don't read too much into that.

maybe he just didn't feel like he wanted to answer the question at this time. But so you can't be sure of that. But I think he's obviously very policy-focused, I think more so than most prime ministeries. He's a political animal, don't get me wrong. I think we've learned that he's not just some dry technocrat. He rather enjoys the political game. But I think he's mostly driven by policy concerns. But if he can also change.

the map in Canada. Look, the liberals have not won a majority of the seats in Western Canada since 1949. Wow. You know, this has been a longstanding drought. They've had better years than others in 68 and 93, but, but, you know, it's been a long time since they've really been a force in, certainly in the prairies. It would be a good thing for the country if both the major parties were competitive in all parts of the country. So it would be good if the conservatives could be more competitive in Quebec, for example. And we had contestable politics in every part of the country, rather than, as we've known,

one party or another just endlessly dominating one region or another. And it's just a matter of sort of usually kind of transitory gains at the margin. But if we had contestable politics across the country, that would be good. If people in the West could feel that the liberals actually had a stake in the West, that they actually would like to win seats there. Because in the past, you really couldn't say that. They didn't need to and they didn't make any effort to.

So this is potentially something new. I don't think you're going to see an election this year. But if and when we get through what could be quite a crisis in the United States around the midterms. And if we survive in this country, whatever happens in Quebec and Alberta, if we come through that in relatively intact shape. And the longer time goes on, the more that the odds will favor it. Yeah, spring election, I think, is possibly a high incident event.

Andrew, I see that book over your right shoulder, The Crisis of Canadian Democracy, a Canadian bestseller. Congratulations. I just want to have you talk a little bit about this parliament. and particularly this prime minister and government. It was noted that in the first year or so of his premiership, his attendance in the house was, how can we say, a little bit shabby, and you might excuse that again

because there's a lot of international travel. He's trying to build his coalition of the willing, so to speak. We've also, though, now seen this prime minister repeat, I think a bit of a bad habit from past governments, which is making major announcements completely outside of Parliament, announcements that are not reflected in any kind of throne speech. They are not reflected in any kind of budget or fiscal plan. I'm thinking here of the $35 billion five-year expenditure on the so-called mega-deduction on capital investment.

Again, it might be the right policy, could be a good thing to do. But are we a danger here with Mark Carney, despite all of his positives and the things that people love about him, that we have another prime minister in a history now of a series of prime ministers who have a singular disregard for this institution. And that the crisis of democracy that you've written about, in effect, only becomes worse. And maybe you can talk about, because I love your analysis on this, why that crisis isn't just about your MPs not reflecting you properly. It's actually about sovereignty. It's about our strength as a nation, the ability which we can project a sense of ourselves and to a certain sense project to folks like Donald Trump a little bit of deterrence about who we are as a country and what we want to accomplish together. Yeah, I mean, he's riding high in the polls and that gives him a sense.

certain credibility and legitimacy, but it's very fleeting. It really depends on where you're out in the polls. What you really want to see is a government that is truly accountable to an elected parliament full of MPs that people really feel are representing them. I know that sounds idealistic, but that's only because we've allowed things to slide for so long. So no, if anybody was thinking that Mark Carney was going to represent a break with that particular tradition, you may have broken with everything else the liberals have been doing. But it's the same old, same old, or even worse than in the past. I will say it's a little different than Justin Trudeau in that.

Carney's a bit more like Harper in this regard is he's a control freak, but it's control for him, whereas with Trudeau, it was people around him that cabinet ministers had to answer to, for example. So you get much more of a clear sign that it's Carney himself. who is running the show. Now, look, every prime minister in a Westminster system is very powerful. It's designed to be a powerful office. We've just taken it to such an extreme with the powers they have over their own caucus,

with the powers they have over the parliament to which they're supposed to be answerable, with the diminution of the cabinet to basically, as the famous saying, has it a focus group for the prime minister. It's very much more of the same in that regard. You look at the number of bills they brought in, for example, that are omnibus bills where you mush together a bunch of bills that have nothing to do with each other and force Parliament to vote up or down on the lot. And it's just basically a way to smuggle pieces into legislation that you think you'd have more trouble with as individual pieces. That's an evasion of accountability. It's an evasion of responsibility to Parliament.

But we see it happen time and time again. You mentioned his failure to show up in Parliament. It's not just because of international travel. I cut him a lot of slack. I don't hold it all with this nonsense of, why are you traveling around the country, around the world? That is a big part of his job, particularly at this moment in history,

is to rally international support for Canada. But he's not been attending parliament even when he's in town. Right. So that tells you there's something else is not just about the international travel. If there's an Achilles heel to Mark Carney, it is, I think, ego and control freakery.

He's always been, I think, safe to say the smartest guy in the room. And that can go to your head. And it can impair your judgment if you're not able to listen thoughtfully to contrary points of view and acknowledge and imbue yourself with the wisdom that other people might have. You're going to be limited in your capacity to really understand and shape events. So that's always been the concern that other people have had with them is he's a bit quick to dismiss criticism or alternative points of view.

He runs a tight meeting. I appreciate that, but you can run a tight meeting without basically, you know, squelching people and humiliating them. And it comes out in this kind of, in its high-handed approach to Parliament, and I may say to the rights of Canadians in some respects.

So he is, he's got a bit of an autocratic streak. As it happens, he's also, I think, very competent. And broadly speaking, I think, has the right idea is at this exact moment. moment. But if you don't understand that part of the game is bringing people along with you, then all of your good ideas are ultimately not going to come to fruition. If you can't carry the country, you can't carry people who are lying in wait to do you in. If you can't either win them over or find ways to neutralize them, if you just think all you have to do is issue a bunch

of edicts, sooner or later it will catch up with you. It doesn't catch up soon enough in our system. But eventually, you know, Justin Trudeau had a great run, but eventually he was forced out. Jean-Cretchen had a great run, but eventually he was forced out. Stephen Harper had a pretty good run, but then, you know, it caught up with him. So you think they'd learn, but the temptations of office, I guess. Well, I think it's also the personality type that that particular job attracts, I think of, again, it may be apocryphal, but the story in Roman history is that when emperors would return to Rome for their triumphs after their big battles or conquests, and the city would be opened up for them in celebration.

They would position a slave at the ear of the emperor to whisper over and over again as he was paraded through the streets with cheering, adoring crowds, you are but mortal. You are but mortal again and again and again. Yeah, if only they'd listen to them. Because it's amazing. You look through the list of Roman empires. How many of them died violently? Yeah.

It's absolutely like the mafia. And the equivalent, if I may say, sort of equivalent in Canadian prime ministers is I did a tally of this once. I think there's only two in our history who left office on their own terms and handed off to a successor who then was able to carry on with the, can keep the government in power. So they usually have either, you know, been forced from office or, you know, died in office or got sick. They always stay a little too long for one reason or another. And it's very hard to go out on your own terms. You really have to know, you have to have that sense of self-denial to say, I'm really enjoying this, but I better get out while they're going is good.

Yeah. Let's just end Andrew on Pierre Pollyov. what can he do? I mean, he is in a sense an impossible position. His, you know, his, his parliamentary duty is to, it's in the name of his job title to oppose. He is the leader of his majesty's official opposition. But I can see, Andrew, you know, in the public debate at this moment, understandably, because of the Trump threat, there is a narrowing of public discourse. There is at times, unfortunately, a kind of shrillness about perceived criticism of the government, which, again, is reflected through a kind of lens of the current crisis, if you want to call it that,

with the Trump administration and the trade war. It really seems like Pure Polly of, you know, obviously is not always his own best friend in terms of his kind of relentless attacks. But what is the extent to which, Andrew, that Canadians are really open to any criticism of this government at this point? If you look at the comments and the YouTube videos that you and I do or in a lot of the public discourse out there right now, Andrew, there is a, I guess, kind of primacy and importance that people are putting on loyalty. Maybe that's, you call it patriotism in its best form, and its worst form. It is a narrowing of public debate. It is a proclivity to react in a knee-jerk way to perceive criticisms and understandably, people are anxious.

They want solutions. They want a sense that there is a government and a prime minister in Mark Carney that has things in hand. And when you attack him or criticize him, I think a lot of people feel that you're attacking their peace of mind. They're the extent to which they feel they've outsourced to the prime minister a little bit of peace and calm that's otherwise missing in their in their lives, at least in the geopolitical reality that we face right now. Yeah, I wouldn't overstate that. That does exist. I wouldn't mistake online partisans, though, for the rest of the country. So, so, but I acknowledge there is some of that. There's also a lot of other things, though. And you see this from, I think, thoughtful conservatives who will say,

you know, some of the stuff that we're seeing from conservative influencers, quote, unquote, online is not criticism of the government per se, certainly not constructed criticism, it's just basically pro-Trump. And that exists, and I don't think, I think we'd be fools to deny it. And certainly when you see Jamil Giovanni's performance, that is not, I think, by common consent, that is not the kind of constructive criticism that is a loyal opposition. should be offering. So he's got a problem that Poyever has himself that some elements within his party are just really not willing to offer constructive criticism. I thought the behavior of some of them on when this Belarus gambit that Trump announced where he's going to buy the,

he'll buy the potash from Belarus, which was instantly debunked by the dictator of Belarus, but never mind. This was clearly a ploy by Trump to try to do damage this country. And as an exasperated, Jason Kenny said, you know, if you can't see this, then what are you doing? So there are criticism, criticism within the conservative movement, I think, and rightly so, that some of the people in the party are not really lining up in a very useful way. It's a very difficult time to be an opposition leader for a lot of reasons, but I think a lot of it just has to do with in this particular moment. moment, when you're facing external threat, people aren't terribly interested in the usual cut and

thrust of politics. No. Stuff that might pass on a normal day as, oh, that's part of the game, starts to look a little silly in the middle of a crisis. The trouble that Pueva has is that's the only style he knows. and there's a palpable stature gap. It is hard to imagine Pierre Ployev cutting a figure in the international stage that Mark Carney is at this moment. And if you think that's just theatrics, I think that's foolish.

This country needs allies at this moment. We are under threat and we need to be rethinking our trade alliances and our defensive alliances and everything else. And so international, you know, as I say, rallying support internationally is a huge, huge part of the prime minister's job right now. So I don't think there's a whole lot he can do at this point, frankly. I think a lot of this is baked in. I think he can help keep the party stable and keep it together on the road to whatever next decision they make about their leadership.

But I think the party should be thinking not what can we do right now to score a point today that probably won't get heard, but how do we position ourselves so that people, when people are ready to look for another party, they're looking to us. I think they should be banking political capital that they may not be able to draw on right now, but that will embed itself in people's minds that, oh, this is a pretty responsible bunch with some good people and some good policies. They've got to be playing the long game, in other words. The next little while is not going to be fun for them.

And they just, in my view, they just have to hunker down and survive this next little while, but position themselves to be in an advantageous position, if and when, as inevitably it will happen, the bloom starts to come off the rows for Mark Carney and the liberals. Just finally, Andrew, in that analysis is, in a sense, Pierre Paulyev partly through, as you say, aspects of his own kind of temperament and approach and style, but also just in the context of a so-called crisis and the Trump threat. is he effectively disqualified as conservative leader? I mean, in effect, is this an emperor with no close syndrome where we're all kind of playing along with the idea that, you know, he is a viable leader and we'll be taking this party into the next election and, you know, has

whatever sea room he needs to see himself and the party through this period. I think he is at this point a caretaker leader. I think the leadership race in some respects has already begun. Jamil Giovanni, that video he put out the other day in which he, in a 10 minutes, mentioned neither Donald Trump nor Pierre-Prol-Ev. No criticism for Trump and no praise for Pallév, but kind of not so, not so, so guarded or shielded insults of Pueyev's handling of things. I think that was, if he hadn't already announced, that was basically his announcement. And I think conservatives should be concerned

about this because there is a sizable chunk of the party that is attuned to that kind of messaging. And Giovanni is positioning himself to be the leader of that wing of the party. And people who, I think, rightly do not want that kind of conservative party, do not want that kind of leader. of the Conservative Party have got to be thinking seriously about who they're going to rally behind to defeat him. Because right now, frankly, you'd have to say he's the frontrunner. Yeah. Andrew, great analysis, great insights, as always, thank you for spending some time today with the Munk community. My pleasure.

That was Andrew Coyne, Goldmail journalist, regular contributor here at the Mug Dialogues, author of that bestselling book that we discussed today, a crisis in Canadian democracy. please check it out on amazon.ca wherever you get your books it's definitely worth a read i'm rudyard griffiths thanks for watching and listening to this monk dialogue head over to our website to find out more about the monk debates and all the terrific different membership plans that we have to help you engage and become informed and educated through and with our content triple w dot monk m unk debates with an s dot com Bye-bye. The Monk debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations.

Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.