Do I have this right? The guy who loses the election, having campaigned on plain speak and common sense, needs to have humility and go to the public media confessional to pay penance; and the guy who wins the election based on a resume, fear-mongering and mistruths can continue on with his own personal globalization advancement, continue with misrepresentations of history and present, and say “Who cares?” about the main plank in his election campaign. Got it.
Paul, with all due respect (as I do enjoy reading you a lot), denigrating (or worse) anyone who writes a comments you don't like will guarantee that you'll soon feel compelled to close the commenting option again.
It is quite hard to understand why you think that’s a denigrating comment. The point is quite plain: PP lost an election that was his to win, but he simply could not pivot to do anything but shadow box the ghost of Trudeau.
To the loser, the humility, which we hadn’t seen much of.
Let us set the record straight. Trudeau won one election by promising the Millennials to legalize dope. His next two elections were minority governments as the youth vote went to those who supported the vacuous Singh. Poilieve won 144 seats or 41.3% of the votes. Carney had 43.8% of the vote in the last election. At present, the Liberals hold a 3-point lead on the CPC. Despite Mr. Wells not so subtle cheerleading for the Liberals, it is still a bit of a horse race.
Well said, Penny. PP is flawed, but Carney is a phony who campaigned on ‘elbows up’ (while stealing most of the Cons’ policies), fooled aging boomers in Ontario, and in between fawning over Xi has managed to find time to apologize to Trump and to praise him. Team Canada!
Great article, well stocked with humour but anchored by the stripped down to the studs speech that Zelenskyy delivered in Davos. Poor guy, it must be very frustrating to see his neighbours dither and dither and dither.
Re: The Plains of Abraham Accord
Has Prime Minister Carney finally hit a trip wire, with a self inflicted GSW ending his incredible good luck streak?
As a Canadian who lives quite a bit west of Quebec City, even I understand the dangers of standing in Quebec and waving a red flag of British victory on the Plains of Abraham under the noses of separatists. What was he thinking?
The Prime Minister would have been better off to say with genuine pride that the game of curling was introduced to Canada by Scottish soldiers who were stationed at Quebec City.
As on father’s side a Scot and Brit and Abenaki…i laugh at Carney who does not know history..then I could talk of my maternal side french side since 1670. Whoever write his speech has to read a bit more…
PP is the only real hope conservative Canadians have the coming election. When I ask my Liberal friends why they oppose PP the answer usually is "because". And that is as far as it goes. I suspect they are so used to Liberal bafflegab that do not recognize PP's plain speaking.
Because his style of politics is grating. Because he tries too hard to appeal to the MAGA-north crowd, fearing that the People's Party will steal away votes. Because Carney liberals have moved to occupy the traditional political centre - away from the theatricals of the Trudeau liberals - a centre that appeals to the vast majority of Canadians - because the "axe the tax" slogan no longer resonates...
A contributor to X wrote thr following…”I watched Carney's speech at Davos and immediately thought of Seinfeld - the episode where Elaine sees The English Patient and cannot believe everyone thinks it's brilliant. It wasn't badly done. It just felt... hollow. Like Davos applause is sometimes more about signaling than substance.
Elaine nailed it in that episode: sometimes the emperor isn't just naked — he's boring, it's salads talk and everyone's afraid to say so.” I might add that in the Quebec speech a history professor would have failed him on “We built the transcontinental railway….and the St Lawrence Seaway.” There were quite a few Americans involved like. Van Horne, Onderdonk, Rogers, Hugh Allen’s donors. Ike Eisenhower, Robert Moses……
Brilliant writing Paul; we don’t have perfect leaders, we can only ask which one is less flawed and built for these times. My own thoughts today are straying into the human toll this heavy news cycle is taking, on writers, journalists, readers, citizens, etc., but most of all on our leaders. In the real battle that is unfolding, beyond the war of words between Canada and the US, one wonders about the reserves of stamina that are needed to keep going. But keep going Paul, please!
Carney's Québec City speech displayed an astounding thin understanding of Canadian history, such as one might have acquired in an Alberta high school history class in 1980. I am reminded that all of Carney's postsecondary education took place abroad, first at Havard, then at Oxford. In addition to his French tutor, he may want to seek out a history professor to help him upgrade his knowledge base.
Even when well taught, high school history class is unlikely to provide a sufficient knowledge base for the task of governing the country.i am sur Carney received an excellent education at Harvard and Oxford, but he unlikely to have been exposed to critical discussions of Canadian history.
CBC should basically just provide full video and transcripts of political speeches, plus really good indexing. They'd get no accusations of bias and actually be useful.
Je suis franco-ontarien. The Parti Québecois doth protest too much methinks.
Don't want Canada to turn into one of those Balkan nations, where memories of injustices carried out in the 12th century still fire up the passions of those with an axe to grind. Let bygones be bygones - and I think most Quebeckers (many who are close family members) - who tend to have few options when not wanting to vote for the outgoing political party - vote for the Parti Québecois not because they are fervent separatists, but because that's the only/best alternative.
The bit that always annoys me is...look, there is a lot to be mad about. But...what were the alternatives?
OK, let's say Quebec wins and stays French. So they get sold to the Americans by Napoleon and end up like Louisiana, where no one speaks French now? Or they get conquered by the British during the Napoleonic Wars? Or they somehow stay French and then end up a bunch of Nazi collaborators with Vichy (and presumably occupied by the Americans shortly thereafter)? Have they READ French history since 1759?
That said, Canada was founded by Scots (who hold grudges), the Irish (who hold grudges), United Empire Loyalists (who hold grudges), the Quebecois (who hold grudges), and the Indigenous (who don't hold grudges quite so much but do have VERY long memories). Really, it's amazing we ever talk about anything that happened recently.
1) The NDP were far better off under Mulcair, but chose to get rid of him after a single election where he did more poorly than Layton. For whatever reason, they took 2 more elections to get rid of Singh.
2) The only candidate remotely qualified to replace Poilievre (and I don’t mean necessarily to surpass him, just come close to his qualifications) is Jason Kenny, but I somehow doubt Kenny wants the job, and his Alberta premier baggage may work against him.
Thanks Paul I can tell by the writing this is the real Paul Wells.
I am incredibly naive, because I expect some day we might just get a politician or their party to just admit a simple mistake and say that while it was not intended that way, it was a mistake. Thinking of Mr Millar or listening to Bruce Anderson on Good Talk.
I hope Poilievre realizes that showing restraint and civility shows electors that you might do the same in public affairs.
Excellent article. It looks like there will be a federal election this year before summer begins. Poilievre will get a second chance, as Stephen Harper did in 2006, to win an election. He should realize the mistakes he made in the last campaign, such as not allowing the media on his plane & running as a 1 man show. He needs to showcase his caucus & tell Canadians he has a team ready to govern Canada.
Mark Carney's speech about the Plains of Abraham is giving the Parti Québécois more momentum. Carney should have his speeches relating to Quebec reviewed by someone who understands Quebec history. Carney will lose seats in Quebec if he calls an election this year.
As a French Canadian, I don`t think his speech will have much of an impact. People are tired of political drama queens - they see in Carney the exact opposite, both inside and outside Québec. The Parti Québecois is a provincial party - the majority of folks voting for it do so not because they want separation, but because they are tired of ten years of Legault and just want change.
All communication professionals and political operatives would have counselled against giving that speech in Quebec. We are not in the PM's head, but I suspect that he did not approach this like a boy scout. Perhaps he wants a referendum? Knowing that one is probably coming, as you point out Paul, and knowing that we have essentially swept the issue under the rug since '95, maybe it's better to let the people of La Belle Province have their moment to decide for themselves, sooner than later. Ditto for Albertans, perhaps. Perhaps the unity of Canada is another fiction that Carney would like to disabuse us of, until we either come to our senses and unite or go our separate ways. In the spirit of Paul's charming but sometimes tiring self denigration, I would say that I don't know what's best other than keeping the country together. To the extent that Carney is playing the long game, I'll put my money on him.
Right. Like Cameron’s Brexit strategy. First you poke the Trump bear, perhaps simultaneously the Alberta bear (all Davos hat, no Canadian cattle), then poke the Quebec bear.
No disrespect.. I don't actually know what you mean by "all davos hat no Canadian cattle". Maybe I am just dense. Also, I do acknowledge the risk of the strategy if that's what they were aiming for. It's also possible that they really were too stupid to know how that message would go over on the Plains of Abraham. I don't know if it's 4d whatever. I just think that Carney is at least thinking about what he's doing and... At least... Being open and honest about his intent. That's better than the drama shows we got from Trudeau. The jury is out on PP because he has never been in the PM's shoes. Let's see.
In Davos, he declares Canada is an energy superpower. We’re open for business. We need to trade with others. Good.
But we have not done anything of substance to address the regulatory quagmire that has stifled our resource development for the last 10 years.
Market economies don’t run on MOUs. The offending legislation must be revised and removed. Pipelines and ports as a matter of national emergency, on a scale and speed like we’ve not seen (and akin to Carneys election spin).
If he gives a self laudatory speech about energy in Davos, but changes nothing about the ‘no business case’ Trudeau policies?
That will poke a populist Alberta bear like nothing else.
Unfortunately for you, not everyone in our country agrees with you. And while it would be great if life were as simple as what you've described and how PP describes his solutions - it rarely is. My hope and belief is that Carney is working in good faith to get you the outcome you want. We have the right leader now but we need to give him time and capital to get things done. The Chinese think long game. We need to do so also.
If we had built the same number of lng plants as Australia in the last decade, we could be the expansion of our Arctic security, providing an alternative for Europe to Russian vs USA gas, leaving them more strategic options.
We did not. We enamoured ourselves with our green efforts to keep it all in the ground. We told ourselves that history was over. Alberta begged to differ.
We differ on the urgency with which that needs to be adressed. I see the threat to our sovereignty and solvency as imminent.
You see at as a reason for an MOU that does nothing, and more time (he did not campaign on patience).
In as much as the rest of the country fails to see the urgency, we risk the country’s unity.
Just because there was no urgency 10 years ago does not mean that our leadership is not acting with urgency now. Move forward. The federal government is currently pissing people off in its efforts to get the pipeline through. That's something it didn't do before, notwithstanding the pipeline that it actually bought and built. Let's give them some time to do their work.
The more I hear Mr Carney speak, the more he just sounds performative. And perhaps our Quebec brothers and sisters could take that 50 pound chip off their shoulders. It's 2026, and they have it very well. I get they might not like someone who is not "pur laine" commenting on their struggles, but the hair shirt stuff is getting mighty old folks. For anyone who might disagree, I suggest they read Ted Morton's recent article in the Hub (yes, I subscribe to more than one Canadian publication). BTW, Paul you are very fair and balanced commentator IMHO (which is why I'm still here).
Canadian politicians have never enjoyed playing second fiddle to the US.
They feel a constant compulsion to remove Canada from its influence - but not from its material and security benefits.
Canadian leaders have become habituated to trade with and protection by the United States but feel free to criticize the manner in which it exercises its role as defender of the democratic world.
Such criticism would have foundation if Canada was a major contributor to this defence but it is not.
Now that the American president is signalling the end of this free security lunch - in an albeit undiplomatic and bellicose manner - the current Canadian leader has decided he will establish his own table of ‘middle powers’ in a bid for independence and a solo role in global affairs.
The fact remains, however, that Canada is just another toothless entity looking to ally with other similar governments in a time when the need to defend democracy against totalitarian ambitions is growing.
The Americans have been asking the Europeans (and Canada) for 30 years to pull their weight within NATO. I guess we figured Uncle Sam would always be there to pull our chestnuts out of the fire for us. America has serious internal domestic issues to deal with, as well as a major threat from China. America can't concentrate its military resources in Europe any more. It needs them in the Pacific. I don't blame President Zelensky for being frustrated with a lack of support. Just my 2 cents....
Do I have this right? The guy who loses the election, having campaigned on plain speak and common sense, needs to have humility and go to the public media confessional to pay penance; and the guy who wins the election based on a resume, fear-mongering and mistruths can continue on with his own personal globalization advancement, continue with misrepresentations of history and present, and say “Who cares?” about the main plank in his election campaign. Got it.
The first six words of your second sentence seem significant.
Paul, with all due respect (as I do enjoy reading you a lot), denigrating (or worse) anyone who writes a comments you don't like will guarantee that you'll soon feel compelled to close the commenting option again.
Which would you say is the most denigrating part of that sentence?
Implying that the rest of the comment is insignificant.
It is quite hard to understand why you think that’s a denigrating comment. The point is quite plain: PP lost an election that was his to win, but he simply could not pivot to do anything but shadow box the ghost of Trudeau.
To the loser, the humility, which we hadn’t seen much of.
And may his supporters develop thicker
Let us set the record straight. Trudeau won one election by promising the Millennials to legalize dope. His next two elections were minority governments as the youth vote went to those who supported the vacuous Singh. Poilieve won 144 seats or 41.3% of the votes. Carney had 43.8% of the vote in the last election. At present, the Liberals hold a 3-point lead on the CPC. Despite Mr. Wells not so subtle cheerleading for the Liberals, it is still a bit of a horse race.
Not disputing your argument, my friend. My comment was directed at PW's reply to a reader's comment.
Well said, Penny. PP is flawed, but Carney is a phony who campaigned on ‘elbows up’ (while stealing most of the Cons’ policies), fooled aging boomers in Ontario, and in between fawning over Xi has managed to find time to apologize to Trump and to praise him. Team Canada!
Great article, well stocked with humour but anchored by the stripped down to the studs speech that Zelenskyy delivered in Davos. Poor guy, it must be very frustrating to see his neighbours dither and dither and dither.
Re: The Plains of Abraham Accord
Has Prime Minister Carney finally hit a trip wire, with a self inflicted GSW ending his incredible good luck streak?
As a Canadian who lives quite a bit west of Quebec City, even I understand the dangers of standing in Quebec and waving a red flag of British victory on the Plains of Abraham under the noses of separatists. What was he thinking?
The Prime Minister would have been better off to say with genuine pride that the game of curling was introduced to Canada by Scottish soldiers who were stationed at Quebec City.
As on father’s side a Scot and Brit and Abenaki…i laugh at Carney who does not know history..then I could talk of my maternal side french side since 1670. Whoever write his speech has to read a bit more…
The Liberal brain trust is too busy positioning themselves for a spring election.
We can expect an election soon.
Last year's winning strategy was "elbows UP".
After Davos, it is clear that the new strategy is "I'm Mad As Hell..(and I'm not gonna take it anymore".)
And then what ?
An Academy Award for Best Foreign Movie?
Agreed, if Mr Poilievre loses the vote or wins the vote........ No matter what
PP is the only real hope conservative Canadians have the coming election. When I ask my Liberal friends why they oppose PP the answer usually is "because". And that is as far as it goes. I suspect they are so used to Liberal bafflegab that do not recognize PP's plain speaking.
Because his style of politics is grating. Because he tries too hard to appeal to the MAGA-north crowd, fearing that the People's Party will steal away votes. Because Carney liberals have moved to occupy the traditional political centre - away from the theatricals of the Trudeau liberals - a centre that appeals to the vast majority of Canadians - because the "axe the tax" slogan no longer resonates...
Well said.
A contributor to X wrote thr following…”I watched Carney's speech at Davos and immediately thought of Seinfeld - the episode where Elaine sees The English Patient and cannot believe everyone thinks it's brilliant. It wasn't badly done. It just felt... hollow. Like Davos applause is sometimes more about signaling than substance.
Elaine nailed it in that episode: sometimes the emperor isn't just naked — he's boring, it's salads talk and everyone's afraid to say so.” I might add that in the Quebec speech a history professor would have failed him on “We built the transcontinental railway….and the St Lawrence Seaway.” There were quite a few Americans involved like. Van Horne, Onderdonk, Rogers, Hugh Allen’s donors. Ike Eisenhower, Robert Moses……
Brilliant writing Paul; we don’t have perfect leaders, we can only ask which one is less flawed and built for these times. My own thoughts today are straying into the human toll this heavy news cycle is taking, on writers, journalists, readers, citizens, etc., but most of all on our leaders. In the real battle that is unfolding, beyond the war of words between Canada and the US, one wonders about the reserves of stamina that are needed to keep going. But keep going Paul, please!
Carney's Québec City speech displayed an astounding thin understanding of Canadian history, such as one might have acquired in an Alberta high school history class in 1980. I am reminded that all of Carney's postsecondary education took place abroad, first at Havard, then at Oxford. In addition to his French tutor, he may want to seek out a history professor to help him upgrade his knowledge base.
I graduated from an AB high school in 1980, never had a history course ever. We had Social Studies, and it was useless.
Even when well taught, high school history class is unlikely to provide a sufficient knowledge base for the task of governing the country.i am sur Carney received an excellent education at Harvard and Oxford, but he unlikely to have been exposed to critical discussions of Canadian history.
I guess things changed a bit since I graduated in 1961. A lot of history but you need to stay awake in class.
CBC should basically just provide full video and transcripts of political speeches, plus really good indexing. They'd get no accusations of bias and actually be useful.
But that would pierce the firewall of ideological framing and permissioned narrative curation by the CBC. That cannot be allowed.
Je suis franco-ontarien. The Parti Québecois doth protest too much methinks.
Don't want Canada to turn into one of those Balkan nations, where memories of injustices carried out in the 12th century still fire up the passions of those with an axe to grind. Let bygones be bygones - and I think most Quebeckers (many who are close family members) - who tend to have few options when not wanting to vote for the outgoing political party - vote for the Parti Québecois not because they are fervent separatists, but because that's the only/best alternative.
The bit that always annoys me is...look, there is a lot to be mad about. But...what were the alternatives?
OK, let's say Quebec wins and stays French. So they get sold to the Americans by Napoleon and end up like Louisiana, where no one speaks French now? Or they get conquered by the British during the Napoleonic Wars? Or they somehow stay French and then end up a bunch of Nazi collaborators with Vichy (and presumably occupied by the Americans shortly thereafter)? Have they READ French history since 1759?
That said, Canada was founded by Scots (who hold grudges), the Irish (who hold grudges), United Empire Loyalists (who hold grudges), the Quebecois (who hold grudges), and the Indigenous (who don't hold grudges quite so much but do have VERY long memories). Really, it's amazing we ever talk about anything that happened recently.
Two thoughts:
1) The NDP were far better off under Mulcair, but chose to get rid of him after a single election where he did more poorly than Layton. For whatever reason, they took 2 more elections to get rid of Singh.
2) The only candidate remotely qualified to replace Poilievre (and I don’t mean necessarily to surpass him, just come close to his qualifications) is Jason Kenny, but I somehow doubt Kenny wants the job, and his Alberta premier baggage may work against him.
Thanks Paul I can tell by the writing this is the real Paul Wells.
I am incredibly naive, because I expect some day we might just get a politician or their party to just admit a simple mistake and say that while it was not intended that way, it was a mistake. Thinking of Mr Millar or listening to Bruce Anderson on Good Talk.
I hope Poilievre realizes that showing restraint and civility shows electors that you might do the same in public affairs.
Have a great weekend.
I love the following juxtaposition. Carney: We middle powers can do without the United States.
Zelenskyy: Do what? And when?
Excellent post.
A riff from the Gershwin boys to end our orthology lesson this morning…”you say Zelenskyy, I say Zelensky, let’s call the whole thing off…”
Excellent article. It looks like there will be a federal election this year before summer begins. Poilievre will get a second chance, as Stephen Harper did in 2006, to win an election. He should realize the mistakes he made in the last campaign, such as not allowing the media on his plane & running as a 1 man show. He needs to showcase his caucus & tell Canadians he has a team ready to govern Canada.
Mark Carney's speech about the Plains of Abraham is giving the Parti Québécois more momentum. Carney should have his speeches relating to Quebec reviewed by someone who understands Quebec history. Carney will lose seats in Quebec if he calls an election this year.
As a French Canadian, I don`t think his speech will have much of an impact. People are tired of political drama queens - they see in Carney the exact opposite, both inside and outside Québec. The Parti Québecois is a provincial party - the majority of folks voting for it do so not because they want separation, but because they are tired of ten years of Legault and just want change.
All communication professionals and political operatives would have counselled against giving that speech in Quebec. We are not in the PM's head, but I suspect that he did not approach this like a boy scout. Perhaps he wants a referendum? Knowing that one is probably coming, as you point out Paul, and knowing that we have essentially swept the issue under the rug since '95, maybe it's better to let the people of La Belle Province have their moment to decide for themselves, sooner than later. Ditto for Albertans, perhaps. Perhaps the unity of Canada is another fiction that Carney would like to disabuse us of, until we either come to our senses and unite or go our separate ways. In the spirit of Paul's charming but sometimes tiring self denigration, I would say that I don't know what's best other than keeping the country together. To the extent that Carney is playing the long game, I'll put my money on him.
I meant deprecation! Need more coffee...
Right. Like Cameron’s Brexit strategy. First you poke the Trump bear, perhaps simultaneously the Alberta bear (all Davos hat, no Canadian cattle), then poke the Quebec bear.
4d chess.
No disrespect.. I don't actually know what you mean by "all davos hat no Canadian cattle". Maybe I am just dense. Also, I do acknowledge the risk of the strategy if that's what they were aiming for. It's also possible that they really were too stupid to know how that message would go over on the Plains of Abraham. I don't know if it's 4d whatever. I just think that Carney is at least thinking about what he's doing and... At least... Being open and honest about his intent. That's better than the drama shows we got from Trudeau. The jury is out on PP because he has never been in the PM's shoes. Let's see.
Hat/cattle is indeed cryptic.
In Davos, he declares Canada is an energy superpower. We’re open for business. We need to trade with others. Good.
But we have not done anything of substance to address the regulatory quagmire that has stifled our resource development for the last 10 years.
Market economies don’t run on MOUs. The offending legislation must be revised and removed. Pipelines and ports as a matter of national emergency, on a scale and speed like we’ve not seen (and akin to Carneys election spin).
If he gives a self laudatory speech about energy in Davos, but changes nothing about the ‘no business case’ Trudeau policies?
That will poke a populist Alberta bear like nothing else.
Unfortunately for you, not everyone in our country agrees with you. And while it would be great if life were as simple as what you've described and how PP describes his solutions - it rarely is. My hope and belief is that Carney is working in good faith to get you the outcome you want. We have the right leader now but we need to give him time and capital to get things done. The Chinese think long game. We need to do so also.
If we had built the same number of lng plants as Australia in the last decade, we could be the expansion of our Arctic security, providing an alternative for Europe to Russian vs USA gas, leaving them more strategic options.
We did not. We enamoured ourselves with our green efforts to keep it all in the ground. We told ourselves that history was over. Alberta begged to differ.
We differ on the urgency with which that needs to be adressed. I see the threat to our sovereignty and solvency as imminent.
You see at as a reason for an MOU that does nothing, and more time (he did not campaign on patience).
In as much as the rest of the country fails to see the urgency, we risk the country’s unity.
Just because there was no urgency 10 years ago does not mean that our leadership is not acting with urgency now. Move forward. The federal government is currently pissing people off in its efforts to get the pipeline through. That's something it didn't do before, notwithstanding the pipeline that it actually bought and built. Let's give them some time to do their work.
The more I hear Mr Carney speak, the more he just sounds performative. And perhaps our Quebec brothers and sisters could take that 50 pound chip off their shoulders. It's 2026, and they have it very well. I get they might not like someone who is not "pur laine" commenting on their struggles, but the hair shirt stuff is getting mighty old folks. For anyone who might disagree, I suggest they read Ted Morton's recent article in the Hub (yes, I subscribe to more than one Canadian publication). BTW, Paul you are very fair and balanced commentator IMHO (which is why I'm still here).
Canadian politicians have never enjoyed playing second fiddle to the US.
They feel a constant compulsion to remove Canada from its influence - but not from its material and security benefits.
Canadian leaders have become habituated to trade with and protection by the United States but feel free to criticize the manner in which it exercises its role as defender of the democratic world.
Such criticism would have foundation if Canada was a major contributor to this defence but it is not.
Now that the American president is signalling the end of this free security lunch - in an albeit undiplomatic and bellicose manner - the current Canadian leader has decided he will establish his own table of ‘middle powers’ in a bid for independence and a solo role in global affairs.
The fact remains, however, that Canada is just another toothless entity looking to ally with other similar governments in a time when the need to defend democracy against totalitarian ambitions is growing.
The Americans have been asking the Europeans (and Canada) for 30 years to pull their weight within NATO. I guess we figured Uncle Sam would always be there to pull our chestnuts out of the fire for us. America has serious internal domestic issues to deal with, as well as a major threat from China. America can't concentrate its military resources in Europe any more. It needs them in the Pacific. I don't blame President Zelensky for being frustrated with a lack of support. Just my 2 cents....