Carney’s Alternative Asset Answers

How To Clean Up Monday’s Mess

There’s Leger and Angus Reid polling out Monday showing the Liberals comfortably in majority territory and in the popular vote lead, which tipped my model over 180 seats for the LPC. To the extent I want to take a victory lap, Leger blowing out to a 16 point lead the day after I wrote about how Carney is positioned well to break through in Quebec is pretty nice. But it’s easy to take victory laps before they’re earned, because as much as Carney is positioned well to break through (either in Quebec or nationally), that is not a guarantee of fuck all.

Yesterday also saw an exchange with the press on the issue of Carney’s assets and the blind trust he’s created, which is now leading to a round of stories about this. So, let’s walk through this, and see if we can figure out the right way through it for him.

On the question of his assets, Carney has a good story to tell - there’s a 120 day window for Carney to get his assets disclosed, and he’s done it on Day 1. Whatever assets he owned, as a matter of standard practice, would have been liquidated. Meaning, if Carney had (this is a hypothetical) $20k of WestJet stock, he doesn’t own that today. There’s a potential complication around Brookfield stock, given the usually complicated nature of stock options and equity, but Carney should deem himself conflicted out of any regulatory process or decision around a Brookfield-funded project (if any cross his desk) whether he owns stock or not.

So, the question is not whether Carney is actually conflicted out. It’s pretty clear he isn’t, and to the extent he is (anything Brookfield related) it’s politically smart and frankly good governance for Carney not to be involved in any decisions that involve his old colleagues anyways. The fact that the vast majority of his previous assets would have been liquidated has to be the start of an answer on this.

“Standard practice says that my assets would have been liquidated upon entering into the blind trust. Canadians can be assured I have no idea what I own, as my decision to comply with the ethics rules at the beginning of the 120 day window makes clear” would be my preferred answer, because it leads by reiterating that his assets should have been liquidated - a fact that is getting missed in this story - and therefore that the stocks he owned last week are irrelevant because he doesn’t own them now. I’d make clear that if any Brookfield-funded project needs federal regulatory approval in his time in office he won’t be involved, but I think leading with the liquidation takes a lot of the sting out of this.

But I also think this is an opportunity for the Liberals, played correctly. Carney has a plethora of public and private sector experience, and turning this into an opportunity to highlight his private sector record isn’t a bad thing. And frankly, it’s not the worst thing in the world to point out that running for public office is something he doesn’t have to do.

One of the things that worked for Donald Trump, despite the legitimate questions about how rich he actually is, was the idea that he was sincere about wanting to do good in office because he didn’t need to run. Trump could have stayed in New York and Florida and been a TV personality and general rich guy, but the fact that he wanted to run was effectively spun as a result of his love of country and wanting to give back to it. It’s not the worst thing in the world to draw from that.

Mark Carney doesn’t need to be PM right now. He’s not doing it for himself, and if we’re being honest his life would probably be a lot easier right now if he was doing his Generic Rich Guy life right now - sitting on some boards and answering Mike Bloomberg’s calls. He chose to come back to public life. If he was still just Generic Rich Guy, I highly doubt we’d have people who got an interview with Poilievre trying to run hit pieces about his daughter. That's the price of coming back to public life.

Owning that he has been wildly successful in the private sector isn’t a bad strategy here. “Obviously, I’ve been working in both the public and private sectors for nearly 4 decades now, and in that time I’ve amassed a considerable amount of wealth and success. I make no apologies for that, but Canadians also deserve to know that their leader cares about their best interests. It’s why I came back into public life. It’s why I decided to put my name forward. It’s because of my immense belief in this country that I decided to leave an easier, and more financially lucrative, life to serve. We have such potential to build a better Canada and I want to achieve that with every Canadian. That’s where my interests lay, and that’s the only interest I’ll ever concern myself with as Prime Minister.”

I don’t think his assets should be a hard question for Carney to answer. He’s complied with the law months before he had to, his assets will have been liquidated, and he can use questions to pivot answers to how his business experience is helpful for this job. It shouldn’t be an issue, and I don’t think it will be - at least, not if his people do their jobs.

Bonus - Model Wonkery!

With the polls that dropped last night and some timely announcements, we have representative, updated at the same time seat totals from me, Bryan Breguet, and Fournier. Spoiler - we’re all (basically) in agreement. There’s a 6 seat spread in the Liberal seat numbers between Fournier and me - 177 for him, 183 for me, with Bryan at 181 - and similarly narrow numbers across the board.

I say all of this to make one simple point - this isn’t about the personal biases of the people involved. I understand why people can look at my math and wonder, and I’d be lying if I said I’ve never worried as I’m making borderline model decisions that I’m only making them aid my side. I think my recent track record - basically bang on in Alberta, and being high on the PCs in Ontario - alleviates that concern, but I’d be worse as a forecaster and as a commentator if I wasn’t making sure to look over my shoulder. That basically everyone is on the same side makes me a lot less worried.

Obviously in a week or 3 it could easily be a different story, but right now Mark Carney has the Liberals in majority territory. It’s inarguable. The best Conservatives partisans is some vague idea things will change. It might.

It also might not, and as much as Conservatives might want to pretend that it’s the left who is overconfident, I’d be more terrified if the last time my leader had a good day was 2024.

Also, Darrell Bricker, don’t think we haven’t noticed you stopping putting up regionals the minute Ipsos’ data starting swinging left, you fucking hack.