Mark Carney has been granted a generous, even unprecedented, honeymoon period as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and as Prime Minister of the country. This is partly - mainly - due to the singular circumstances he has inherited (basically, Donald Trump and the chaos that inevitably follows him around). But, either way, Carney is basking in an enviable 67% approval rate, something most other world leaders can only dream of right now, and a comfortable +8% approval of the direction he is taking the country in.
After a year in government, Mr. Carney is more popular than when he was elected, and his party now has a small majority, rather than the large minority it was elected with.
This all sounds exceptional, and certainly, compared to the likes of Donald Trump and Keir Starmer, it is. But, in fact, it's not dissimilar to Justin Trudeau's popularity rating a year into his tenure a decade ago, and look how he turned out! The big test often cones after about 15 months, sometimes called the "15 Month Itch".
After the events of the last few weeks, you have to wonder if the itch is starting to be felt. At the end of April, 14 (unspecified) members of the Liberal caucus published an open letter bemoaning the government's anti-environmental trajectory. Because it's undeniable the Carney has presided over a wholesale roll-back and deliberate weakening of the environmental initiatives of his predecessor. Among other things, he has repealed the consumer carbon tax, eliminated the EV sales mandate, ended the oil and gas emissions cap, and called a halt to plans to end fossil fuel subsidies. Improbably, Carney maintains he is still an ardent environmentalist and climate change cleader, and that he is just being practical and pragmatic, but his actions belie that. To call it a "pivot" hardly does it justice.
Then, just this week, after Mr. Carney followed though on his disastrous pipeline agreement with Alberta, the prominent MP, environmentalist and Liberal Quebec "lieutenant" Steven Guilbeault tendered his resignation, first from his position in the Cabinet and then as a Member of Parliament, on the grounds that he cannot in good conscience watch the Liberal Party abandon its environmental stance. As environment minister, Mr. Guilbealt was the architect of many of the Trudeau era environmental policies, which he has watched being comprehensively dismantled by Carney, and as a man of conscience and principle, it is all he can do to walk away.
Now, not everyone is as principled as Steven Guilbeault. Most of the 67% that still support Mark Carney (including a good proportion of Conservatives) clearly believe, as Carney himself does, that, at this particular moment in time, economic imperatives outweigh the nice-to-have option of environmental initiatives. Even though the consequences of climate change and other environmental deteriorations may be much more important in the long run, it's hard for people to see past the short-term challenges of inflation, job losses, housing shortages, etc. In times of economic fragility, it's always "the economy, stupid", and I get that.
But I wonder whether the growing schism in the Liberal Party between what you might call the Economy First and the Evironment First factions is an important one? 14 out of 174 Liberal MPs is not a huge number, after all, but I do wonder if it might be the start of a fissure, the start of a 15 Month Itch. My guess is not: pragmatism will win out over principle.
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