There’s a new story making the rounds in Ottawa, and it picks up neatly where an older one left off: apparently, Mark Carney likes to yell at annoying, incompetent politicians.
He must be going hoarse on the Liberal benches...
...The more progressive Liberals complain that he’s too managerial, too pro-growth, too friendly to energy, too dismissive of caucus feeling, the more he looks like someone separate from the very Liberal brand Canadians had grown sick of. The more MPs leak that he’s harsh behind closed doors, the more he looks like a man trying to drag an entitled caucus back to work. The more they warn that he isn’t a real Liberal, the more many voters may think: good.
That’s the irony. Carney’s distance from the Liberal Party may be one of his strongest political assets.
The Liberal brand was badly damaged before he took over. Canadians were tired of the lectures, the scandals, the identity games, the broken systems, and the sense that the country was being governed by people who were always performing virtue while avoiding accountability. Carney gives voters a way to keep the Conservatives out without having to pretend they still admire Trudeau-era Liberalism. He’s a permission structure for exhausted Liberal voters, soft Conservatives, centrists, and institutional Canadians who wanted a change without wanting Pierre Poilievre.
So when Liberal MPs complain that Carney doesn’t treat them with enough deference, they’re misunderstanding the transaction. Carney’s appeal isn’t that he restores the Liberal Party to its old self. His appeal is that he appears willing to discipline, ignore, or override that old self.
That leaves the caucus trapped.
They can’t easily remove him, because he saved them. They can’t easily defy him, because he has numbers. They can’t easily embarrass him, because their own public reputation is worse than his. They can’t credibly present themselves as guardians of democratic accountability after years of swallowing every Trudeau excess. And they can’t appeal to voters by saying, in effect, “please help, the prime minister we backed for power now has too much of it.”
No one is coming to help them.
Carney owns them. Not emotionally, maybe not even ideologically, but structurally. He has the office. He has the majority. He has the polling. He has the floor-crossers. He has the ability to replace troublemakers with new loyalists. Most importantly, he has the one thing caucus MPs usually respect more than principle: the appearance of being able to win.
That’s why the leaks are a bluff. They’re not a rebellion. They’re a flare shot into the sky by people who’ve realized the ship captain isn’t taking orders from them.
And if they keep pushing it, they may find the public reaction colder than they expect...
....Over the next five years, this strategy will introduce new legislation, investments, and programs that ensure AI is adopted responsibly, in a way that truly serves all Canadians – building trust, expanding opportunities, and reinforcing control of our sovereignty.The CBC Power and Politics panel talked about it on Thursday:
The AI for All Strategy targets an additional $200 billion of economic growth to create 250,000 new AI-related jobs over the next five years and to increase AI adoption from just over 12% to 60% by 2034. The strategy will provide up to 90,000 AI-related jobs and work placement opportunities for young Canadians and make our industries more competitive in the global economy.
Canadians must have confidence that AI is being developed and deployed safely, transparently, and in ways that reflect our values....
...Over the course of several caucus meetings now, [gift link] Grit MPs report Carney lashing out at certain members when he doesn’t like the message they deliver. They include Nova Scotia MP Jaime Battiste, a Mi’kmaw from Cape Breton, raising concerns over negative perceptions of the government’s changes to the Indian Act and receiving a stunning rebuke; Winnipeg MP Doug Eyolfson, a physician, being told not to come to the prime minister with his concerns over the lack of federal response to Alberta’s two-tiered health care Bill 11; and Laval MP Angelo Iacono, who wanted the prime minister to visit his riding and was met with Carney insisting he’d been to Laval recently, though he had not. The experiences have left a lasting imprint on several MPs.IDK, but it wasn't surprising to me that Carney would be impatient if he hears complaints instead of solutions.
“He yells,” said one MP who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution from the Prime Minister’s Office. “He punches down at caucus all the time.”
Carney has told his caucus members he doesn’t want to hear their concerns, he wants solutions. While it’s a message that resonates with some, hearing complaints can be useful....
Last week, some MPs felt the prime minister’s message was that he’s not interested in what they have to say.
Carney was making the case that the government is focused on national unity, on the CUSMA talks, on growing the economy; it has a plan, and message discipline is key. “If you don’t agree with our agenda, I don’t want to hear it. If you have criticism, keep them for yourself,” was the way another MP portrayed it....
....prime minister Mark Carney has been wholly silent on it since the data were released on Friday morning. He made two separate media appearances yesterday but took no questions at either one, and he has avoided Question Period yesterday and he’s avoiding it today, and it really starts to look like he’s ceding the ground to Poilievre, who keeps bellowing his ridiculous narratives while Carney, who is supposed to have the economic gravitas as a former central bank governor, remains absent. And there are important things we should probably be talking about with this data, such as the fact that in periods of slow growth, these indicators dipping below zero are less important than the overall picture, and that overreacting and panicking can lead to greater problems or damage in the longer term. But we’re not having this conversation because, again, Carney is ceding the field, and given that Poilievre seems to enjoy this unearned economic credibility, it’s frankly arrogant to think that his bogus narratives can’t gain traction because they absolutely can, and that will spell trouble overall.
View on Threads
Posthaste: Recession, what recession? Canada's economy is doing better than it has in years by this measureSo naturally, Poilievre is in a panic. And I guess he thinks Canadians are stupid and easily bamboozled, doesn't he.
GDP per person is once again on the rise
Canadian economic data made international news Friday as the latest reading of gross domestic product earned mentions from everyone from investing guru Mohamed El-Erian to the Wall Street Journal.
Canada’s GDP doesn’t often attract such attention, but this time a second quarter of contraction raised the red flag of “technical recession.”
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre seized on the data, accusing Prime Minister Mark Carney of being the only G7 leader to send his country’s economy into recession and calling for an emergency debate.
The numbers were certainly a surprise. The 0.1 per cent decline in GDP in the first quarter shocked observers who had been expecting growth closer to 2 per cent. ‘Historically unusual,” is how Nathan Janzen, assistant chief economist at the Royal Bank of Canada, described it.
Luckily, economists say there is more to a recession than just two quarters of negative growth — namely the 3 Ds — depth, duration and dispersion.
This decline is not even close on depth — amounting to just 0.6 per cent annualized over the two quarters, “barely a scratch in GDP terms,” said Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in a note.
In the past three Canadians recessions, outside the pandemic, the average decline at the weakest point was 5.3 per cent.
Nor is weakness widespread across the economy. The trade war has hit manufacturing, trade and real estate hard, but other sectors like finance, resources and health care are growing, said Kavcic.
Though exports are down, domestic demand has been climbing, and consumer spending has continued to rise.
Duration, he concedes, is getting close. The Canadian economy has been soft since the start of the trade war in early 2025, posting three negative quarters out of four.
However, there is one key variable in this equation that should not be overlooked and when viewed through its lens paints a very different picture of Canada’s economy, say economists — population.
Since the federal government cracked down on immigration after the post-pandemic boom, population has actually declined in Canada over the past two quarters.
So while the overall GDP reading is slipping, GDP per person is on the rise, a welcome change from a few years back when the per capita measure was nose-diving....
View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
#Habs Lane Hutson: "it seemed like the only guy who showed up was Doby [Jakub Dobeš]. We were just not good enough, didn't answer the bell. The good news is we get another chance to answer the bell."
— Priyanta Emrith (@habsinhighheels.bsky.social) May 27, 2026 at 9:09 PM
View on Threads
Outside Alberta, a political consensus is emerging — not just on how the Alberta referendum should turn out, but on whether it should be held at all....
Premiers like Doug Ford and B.C.’s David Eby have been crystal clear in recent days that they think this referendum — asking Albertans whether there should be another referendum on independence — is a bad idea....
But it was Mark Carney who went all the way out there on Monday, calling it a “dangerous bluff.” This third and most powerful voice meant that Smith’s referendum is getting blowback from a Liberal, a Conservative and a New Democrat.
Carney occasionally reminds us he’s new to the political game and — I mean this in a good way — his comments on the Alberta referendum were not standard political fare. Last Friday, his initial remarks on the subject were more guarded. Clearly, after a weekend of reflection, the prime minister decided to say what was on his mind.
“Is it helpful to ask this fundamental question? No. It’s not helpful, of course it’s not. Is it the democratic will of Albertans? Did they vote for this in the last provincial election? No, they didn’t. It wasn’t on the ballot paper. It wasn’t in the mandates of, or platforms, of any of the governing party and the official opposition,” Carney told reporters.
Many of us have been wondering whether Carney sees parallels to the Brexit vote, which took place in the U.K. while he was governor of the Bank of England.
Yes, as a matter of fact he does, and on Monday he put that right on the line, too.
“I saw firsthand what happened in the United Kingdom when the view was, ‘Vote for this. It will be soft and then we’ll negotiate, etc.’
“They’re still, 10 years later, trying to undo what people didn’t think they were voting for but what they ended up having.”
I applauded this answer as refreshing and considered candour...
The most persuasive arguments for the cause of unity may come not from politicians, but from the private sector, which can lay out the case for why Alberta separatism is a bad business proposition.
You hear some of this already from the corporate sector, pointedly noting that Alberta shouldn’t be risking the instability that drives away investment precisely when this province needs it, in the midst of Donald Trump’s ongoing trade war with Canada....
#Habs 2 - 3 #Hurricanes (F/OT) MTL stats 🚨Goals: Anderson (4,5) 🏒PP: 0-for-2 🏒Guhle: 3-game point streak (3A) 🏒Danault: 3-game point streak (2G 3A) 🏒Carrier: 3-game point streak (3A) Shots MTL: 12 CAR: 26 Series tied 1-1 Game 3: CAR vs MTL on Monday @ 8pm ET #GoHabsGo youtu.be/g9wHq0uFxS0
— ChrisHabs360 (@chrishabs360.bsky.social) May 23, 2026 at 9:14 PM
[image or embed]
#Habs Martin St. Louis following 3-2 OT loss "I thought they had really good sticks. I thought our execution was not as good, but it wasn't terrible. Overall, I thought it was a battle out there, and I thought we competed. It's a close game—it's a fine line between winning and losing." #GoHabsGo
— ChrisHabs360 (@chrishabs360.bsky.social) May 23, 2026 at 9:38 PM
[image or embed]
View on Threads
