Keeping it Real…

Former Bank of Canada governor and current candidate for the Liberal leadership, Mark Carney, is not a man of many public words … or, until recently, TV appearances.

Then suddenly, there he was: live on the Daily show in the US, being interviewed at length by late-night TV host Jon Stewart.

“I think in a situation like this you need change. You need to address the economy. We’ve got an economic crisis because of what Mr. Trump is about to do, or saying he is about to do. We also have challenges in housing, cost of living,” he said. “We need to get the economy moving.

“And truth be told, the government has been, not as focused on those issues as it could be,” he said. “We need to focus on them immediately; that can happen now, and that’s what this election is gonna be about,” Carney told Stewart.

Reactions from viewers were largely positive … very positive:

“How incredibly refreshing to hear an interview with a near-politician (of sorts) who can actually field a question without resorting to scripted attacks on some other political party / personality.”

“Man it’s been a while hearing intelligent and funny conversation instead of people just attacking each other!”

“As a Canadian it makes me proud to watch Mark Carney eloquently fence (explain points of interest), with one of the best rapier like minded interviewers in the Biz.”

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was speaking out as well … at appearances/press conferences in Canada … coining a new slogan: “Canada First”.

There it was, on the front of Poilievre’s podium, replacing the previously highlighted “Axe the Tax” , “Bring it Home” , “Build the Homes,” ,”Fix the Budget,” and “Stop the Crime”.

All of them clear, concise and compelling … but, just slogans … accompanied by lots of rhetoric:

“These tariffs are a wakeup call that it is time for us to meet our potential,” CTV News reported Poilievre as saying, after US President Donald Trump announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian goods.

“It is time for us to be a country that can trade for itself, that builds homes quickly for its youth, that allows entrepreneurs to succeed quickly and profitably so that success is once again rewarded.”

Contrast that with this from another statement by Carney, speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight program:

““President Trump probably thinks Canada will cave in,” he said. “But we are going to stand up to a bully, we’re not going to back down. We’re united and we will retaliate.”

The Liberal leadership candidate was also quoted in Canada as saying:

“I support dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs aimed where they will be felt the hardest in the United States but will have the least impact in Canada. At the same time, we need a coordinated strategy to boost investment and to support our Canadian workers through what will be a difficult moment.”

Canadians are starting to pay attention … and see a difference.

For months now, polls have predicted the Liberals will be almost wiped out in the next federal election … finishing not only behind the Conservatives, but also the NDP, and, in some cases, even the Bloc Quebecois.

But that may be changing.

A Nanos Research poll last week found “39.6 per cent of Canadians surveyed consider Mr. Carney, the front-runner for the Liberal leadership, as the most qualified leader to negotiate with Mr. Trump and his administration. Twenty-six per cent of Canadians consider Mr. Poilievre as best qualified,” the Globe and Mail reported.

Nanos still found more Canadians, 42% would prefer a Conservative government, but the Liberals were on the move Up, scoring 26% approval, passing the NDP at 17%.

That is not good news for Poilievre/Conservatives.

Carney is personally coming across as more experienced, more articulate, more able to defend Canada and deal with Trump.

He is still is bogged down by Canadians’ anger, hurt and desire for vengeance against the pains they feel they have suffered at the hands of Justin Trudeau and the current Liberal government’s actions and policies.

But it’s clear Poilievre is going to have to come up with more than slogans and rhetoric to convince Canadians he can take on Trump … and win!

Harv Oberfeld

(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” for FREE First Alerts to new postings on this Blog.)

Canadians may find it hard to believe, but there are countries in the world where “Greens” are actually a serious, credible political force … and not so much a collection of extremists, bigots and just plain wackos!

In 2004, Indulis Emsis became Prime Minister of Latvia, the world’s first Green head of government. Greens have also been official members of coalition governments in Scandinavia, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, France, Germany …and others.

And those achievements occurred despite the plethora of other left-wing, socially-conscious parties/movements competing for the environmentally-sensitive vote.

But not so in Canada!

Even in environmentally-conscious BC, the “oldest Green Party in North America”, founded in 1983, has never been government or part of a formal coalition government. In 2017, when the Greens elected three MLAs, the party propped up the NDP minority government under a “Confidence and Supply Agreement”, but were never actually part of government.

In Vancouver, when Greens won/played a significant, if minority role, at City Hall and the Park Board, the voters tossed most of them after one term.

Federally, the Greens’ have done even worse: their popular vote has languished mostly between 2.3% and 3.9% … its all-time-high (2019) reaching only 6.5%.

Why?

I put it to you Canada’s “Greens’ are too extreme, too wacko … to be taken seriously!

Canadians see too many of them as extremists, ideological radicals insensitive to realities faced by working citizens, families, businesses, and even a party harboring terrorism-supporting revolutionaries and anti-Semites.

In Vancouver, many voters still shudder at the “record’ of pain/road disruptions/closures/restrictions and the huge costs inflicted on the citizenry (including severe impacts on families, seniors and the handicapped) when even a few Greens held sway at City Hall and the Vancouver Parks Board.

And it doesn’t look like the Greens in Canada have learned yet that support for extremism does not sell!

At a press conference called by the federal Greens, party leader Elizabeth May last week called on the federal government to stop the deportation of convicted REPEAT criminal offender Zain Haq who, according to news reports “for a period of about 16 months starting in 2021 … was one of the central figures in a series of massively disruptive illegal road blockades targeting the Vancouver area”.

“In court proceedings, Crown prosecutors tallied up the damage: Tens of thousands of transit buses, delivery drivers and motorists snarled in traffic for hours on end. Emergency vehicles unable to access St. Paul’s Hospital. Travellers missing their flights out of Vancouver International, the country’s second-busiest airport,” the National Post reported.

“Haq wasn’t only violating the law, but the terms of the student visa on which he had entered the country in 2019. Haq wasn’t meeting academic requirements, according to the Canada Border Services Agency. And — like all international students — he had entered Canada pledging to abide by the law and to leave once the terms of his study were complete.

“His blockades violated court injunctions and — in some instances — Haq was violating his own release conditions. His August 2022 blockade of Vancouver’s Cambie Street Bridge managed to violate two separate release conditions at the same time: He’d been barred from being on the bridge following his arrest at an earlier blockade, and he’d been released from immigration detention just a few weeks prior on the condition that he not organize any more blockades,” reporter Tristin Hopper explained .

(You can read the entire report here: https://link.postmedia.com/view/5c80100795a7a13c2119b5c2mtd5d.913/0ff2d3de)

“Haq is not a violent criminal, and his mischievous convictions do not meet the legal threshold for serious criminality,” his lawyer, Randall Cohn, said in a statement. “He has made a lawful application for permanent residence as the spouse of a Canadian citizen, and he has properly applied to extend the temporary status that was granted to him in April. This deportation is entirely avoidable, resulting from IRCC’s inability to locate his application.” 

May said deporting the Pakistani-born student would unjustly separate him from his Canadian wife while his spousal sponsorship application is still being considered.

I say “To hell with his spousal application”!

Getting married to a Canadian should NEVER guarantee that a repeat, convicted foreign criminal disrupter of the lives of thousands of Canadians … not even a landed immigrant, but here on a student visa …. should get to stay here!

Throw him out!

And I believe May and the Greens once more show how out of touch they remain with the feelings and anger of most Canadians by trying to get him yet another “pass’ … and the Greens are ignoring and insulting more than just the thousands who suffered directly as a result of Haq’s deliberate actions.

If he wants to fight for the climate … let him do so in Pakistan.

According to Human Rights watch “Lahore, city of 14 million people, has – again – topped rankings of world’s most polluted air.”

Here’s something Haq can read on the plane home: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/19/pakistans-deadly-air-pollution-crisis?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-fzQo7mUiwMVrqNaBR20kQKyEAAYASAAEgLaJvD_BwE.

However, I don’t recommend Haq try the same disruptive tactics there that he did here.

Harv Oberfeld

(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” for FREE First Alerts to all new postings on this Blog.)