Today's News: "Mark Carney made his case"

 

Tonight was the last of the federal election debates. The overall media conclusion was that nobody "lost". 

While the CBC At Issue panel discussion above was interesting, I found the Toronto Star columnists live-blog to be a detailed yet thoughtful survey of the entire debate, well worth reading. 

Here are a couple of excerpts:

Susan Delacourt
Carney made his case, despite Poilievre’s strong showing at final debate
Three leaders walked on to a stage in Montreal on Thursday night with one mission — to take the front-runner shine off Liberal Leader Mark Carney.
If there was any doubt about Carney’s lead in this election, it was dispelled within minutes after the opening of the English-language leaders’ debate.
None of it seemed to rattle Carney...

Justin Ling
Carney won the debate, and it wasn't close, says Ling
...Mark Carney won, and it wasn’t even close. He was even-tempered, he sounded prime ministerial, he rattled off plans, promises, and numbers without hesitation. He managed to turn questions about his record at Brookfield, including its use of tax havens, into a point about his experience. I think that for Canadians who are anxious and nervous about what the future holds, his performance was pretty comforting — particularly for those who may have watched him struggle in the French debate last night. He even managed to get in his favourite line about Trump: “They want to break us so they can own us.”
He was helped enormously by Jagmeet Singh, who was in fine form. ...I doubt it won him any converts tonight. Still, it may have stopped the bleeding.
And then there’s Pierre Poilievre. I think he may have excited his core supporters, but I think he looked ideological, defensive, and without any new ideas. It’s been clear that his campaign refuses to pivot or change from the strategy that they drew up long before the political ground shifted underneath them. If affordability and desire for change overcomes anxieties around this trade war and the fate of the liberal world order, Poilievre could still win this election. But I think tonight’s performance was a tactical error for Poilievre.

This was the most Important statement of the debate.

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— Aaron YVR (@areynaldos.bsky.social) April 18, 2025 at 1:12 AM

Yes, I noticed this about Carney too:

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Overall, Carney took a friendly tone toward the other leaders - he set a standard of civility which made the other leaders rise to the occasion - though with the possible exception of this little exchange.

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I can't remember now exactly why Blanchet was so insulted by a random Carney remark, but what impressed me in this little exchange was how how Carney riposted so quickly with a French colloquialism -- it showed his quickness and that his French must be pretty good now.
Here's another interesting take on the debates:

Don Braid / Calgary Herald

Braid: Plenty of action and even some laughs in four hours of federal leaders' TV debates
Surprisingly absent from the debate was major focus on U.S. President Donald Trump. His offences were just one of many themes
...The debates demonstrated how little Alberta or the Prairies matter in a national election.
Alberta was only mentioned once on Thursday, when Blanchet said to Carney and Poilievre: “I’m sorry to crash your party guys, but clean oil and gas is a fairy tale.”
Carney and Poilievre both gave their versions of pipeline promises. Blanchet said Quebec would never accept “such monstrosities.”
....The main contest was between Carney and Poilievre. Their goals for the country are pretty much the same — prosperity, growth, independence from the U.S., support for Ukraine, new trading partnerships abroad.
But their plans for achieving these targets are vastly different.
Poilievre offers a conservative formula of tax cuts, abolishing laws that impede development, leaving industry to find solutions in a friendly environment.
Carney envisages an activist central government creating and driving vast projects on a wartime scale.
He mentions Canada’s great production feats in the Second World War. Maybe Carney sees a new Mackenzie King when he looks in the mirror.
One of the most interesting moments in four hours of debate came at the very end.
With the cameras still on them, Carney and Poilievre stepped out from behind their lecterns, shook hands, smiled, and chatted with a bit of jovial shoulder patting.
They looked . . . friendly?
It must have been an illusion.

Yes, I noticed that friendliness too. 

This was an odd moment:

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Moving on, a evaluation of Carney's handling of Trump:

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And finally, I thought this was appalling -- here's that blowhard Kevin O'Leary on CNN (again!) talking about how the new Canadian PM (whom he seems to think will be Poilievre) will be happy to help Trump make Canada into Guam North:

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Addendum: I just saw this and thought it was right on:

75 years ago the population of Canada was about a third of what it is today. Yet we are better off by every conceivable measure than we were then. Or rather, not "yet" -- we are better off, in part, because we have three times as many people: economies of scale, more…

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇬🇪🇲🇩 (@acoyne) April 18, 2025