JOHNSON – Carney shows flexible elbows in polarized political landscape

CANADA IS AT an interesting political crossroads at the moment.

Prime Minister Mark Carney currently enjoys the advantage of ideological plasticity.

Depending on the issue, and the public facing political hay that can be made from it, Carney has the option to swing towards the Conservative ideological right, or if he wants, he can move into NDP left leaning territory, to decide on a direction for any given issue.

And he can do this not just by mitigating political damage but by forcing limitations on his Liberals opponents, by doing what they would have done, therefore stealing their election or Question Period thunder.

One of the Liberal party’s historic abilities in recent decades, is how it can change its ideological masks to match the political needs of the day.

Jean Chrétien, when faced with the growing popularity of the Reform Party, shifted to the right, and with Paul Martin at the finance wheel balanced the budget by cutting taxes and axing spending.  This approach likely played a role in two later elections where they successfully countered the growing Reform party and won majority governments, albeit the splintering of conservatism at the time also playing a major role in these wins.

Looking at another timeline in a completely flipped perspective, when it benefits them Liberals will happily be far more socialistic in nature. This was shown more recently when the NDP held the balance of power in the House, and forced the Trudeau government to institute NDP dental and pharmacare programs.

No problem, said Trudeau … better teeth for everyone.

What these two examples show is the fluidity that Liberal governments will employ to garner or stay in power.  No other party in Canada has this flexibility; the Conservatives, the NDP and even the Green Party by their very names and definition are stuck in their lanes … yet the Liberals don’t have this problem.

This can and does redefine political opportunism on the idealism scale. Centrism can be a very wide space, and there do not seem to be limits.

Fast forward to today, what’s interesting is how we see Carney playing this partisan line shifting game to not just get stuff done, but inhibit his political rivals, and might be able to do this in both directions at once.

And remember … he’s a rookie. Impressive.

Unlike past Liberal leaders, Carney doesn’t have to shift one way or another due to power imbalance or potential votes in the House or the polls, because in 2025 these same rivals are a mess in their own worlds.

The Conservative Party, after the election headed by Poilievre, doesn’t have much leverage to play with.  Poilievre himself not even earning a seat, has left the Conservatives detouring onto a longer timeline due to the need for a byelection to slide him into a seat.  Although he tries to stay current and in the headlines with various comments on policies, Canadians know that without a seat … he doesn’t really have a job, so his comments today seem more like desperation and attention seeking.

Interestingly, recently he has been in contact with Conservative candidates that did not win in their ridings … to gain some info on ground level support for himself and gather opinions of what went wrong in the election.  Not the actions of an opposition gearing up to do battle with government in the House on an issue-by-issue basis.

It seems the Conservative Party may be uncertain as to its self definition, in a world that’s much different than it was just a year ago. Years of careful curation as to how to defeat the Liberal party under Trudeau … vanished when the Liberal Party quickly transitioned to a Carney led drive.

Not only does this show that it’s not such a good idea to frame your entire election rhetoric around a single person instead of government policies … as all ya have to do is get rid of the person therefore kneecapping the entire platform … in this case post election, the Conservatives show that they suddenly lack what it takes to successfully appose from any established right leaning station, when the Liberals simply adopted your policies anyway.

On the other side of the House, the NDP is in even shoddier form, losing its leader, AND its formal party status in the House. They were literally disposed of by Canadians unwilling to splinter left to center votes in the Trump pit-bull attack world that we find ourselves in.

It’s clear that the NDP will, for a long time to come, be more fixated on the internal quagmire the election left them in, than forcing themselves on government as they did, as per the confidence-supply agreement with the Trudeau government.

So, where are we today?  What does this shift mean?

Carney will not need to adjust his government’s ideological definition for defensive reasons as a way to maintain power as shown by Trudeau and Chretien, but instead can use this right-left swing ability as a potential offense if he needs it to further hobble his already shambled opponents.

If he were to move on certain key issues like immigration, government spending, and defense in ways a Conservative government would, Conservatives would have little voice and Poilievre, assuming he survives any leadership review and shows up as opposition leader, would have difficulty designing his preferred media soundbites of “what’s wrong with this government” … possibly handing even more Conservative votes to the Liberals.

Carney cancelled the consumer carbon tax … the main Conservative pre-election action point … and has pledged pipelines, talked about resource project decision making, military expenditure expansion and threw out a middle-class tax cut. These and other announcements show that Carney is jamming conservative as well as progressive ideologies into Liberal governing policies.

He can do this as the NDP is too weak to attack the Liberals from the left,
and the Conservatives are temporarily absent on the right.

A situation that won’t last forever … or even for a long time as Canada’s political fortunes can spin on a loonie and quickly become as dull brown as the coins in our pockets … but for right now this rookie seems to have cornered the puck, and has elbowed up in more ways than one.

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.