Conservatives’ Flaherty Invocation A Sign Of Desperation

They Don’t Know What They’re Doing

10 days before I endorsed Mark Carney for leader, I published an article on how I’ve got some questions about Carney’s record as a Bank of Canada and Bank of England Governor. His record is not spotless, and the crux of the piece was essentially that I’d like anybody to properly look at the record before just handing him the highest office in the land on a silver platter. I don’t resile from that piece, and think it would be nice if Carney could use a longform interview - maybe, here’s an idea, with David Cochrane - to admit that with the benefit of the doubt he didn’t get everything right and would have acted differently. But the bulk of the criticisms were in the handling of the Canadian recovery post-2009, because his handling of the financial crisis was immaculate.

Yes, Carney had a very good hand to play, but he played his hand very well, and kept the economy stable and helped ensure no bank runs of the kind that decimated Britain and America happened in Canada. Obviously - obviously - Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty did significant work as well, as well as the general legacy of the budget repair of Jean Chretien. (I should say, Harper and Flaherty did significant work when they noticed they were in a recession - the late November 2008 Fiscal Update projected surpluses in every single one of the six years they projected forward. Glad they eventually noticed more than two months after Lehman went bust.)

The reason this is relevant is Anaida Poilievre - wife of Pierre and Harper-era staffer - decided to opine on the “appalling” and “beyond disgraceful” “misleading” of Canadians about Mark Carney’s role in the management of and recovery from the Global Financial Crisis. Then Dimitris Soudas decided to engage with one of my tweets that quoted Jim Flaherty calling Carney an “invaluable support” from Carney’s announcement of the Bank of England gig. Soudas’ tweet seems to either dismiss monetary policy as irrelevant or claim Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty should get credit for Carney’s actions. A keen observer of history would also point out Carney started stabilizing the economy through rate cuts in October, cutting rates two full points before the Canadian government even tabled the 2009 budget, let alone got any fiscal stimulus out the door. Seriously, watch the press conference, or read this 2014 Globe piece on their relationship, and tell me with a straight face that Carney was just another in a line of advisors. There was tension precisely because Carney had a huge arsenal at his disposal and the government was pissed they didn’t control him and it.

If I were being unkind about Poilievre and Soudas and Laureen Harper, who decided to drop her two cents in here, I would point out that if I were trying to honour my dead friend’s legacy I probably wouldn’t be doing so by implicitly calling him a liar. Flaherty clearly respected Carney, which is why their joint press conference was full of kind words, including the “invaluable support” that is now being dismissed as mere advice. Flaherty helped get Carney appointed chair of the Financial Stability Board, calling his appointment “a credit not only to him but also to the Canadian financial system and our regulatory and supervisory system, which is a model for the world. We have the best financial system in the world, and that's being recognized." Stephen Harper, that same week, said Carney’s appointment “is both a tribute to his personal qualities, and a reflection on Canada's superior performance in monetary, fiscal and financial sector policy areas.” Sounds to me like that’s an acknowledgement that Carney wasn’t merely an advisor. We also have Chisholm Pothier, Flaherty’s old Comms guy, calling out Poilievre’s version of history as “beyond disgraceful”. Either Flaherty lied about Carney when they served together and promoted someone of no particular talent or credibility to a job under false pretenses, or you’re full of shit and using Flaherty’s name and legacy to score partisan political points. Or at least that’s what I’d say if I were being unkind.

But beyond the absolutely bullshit revisionism some elements of the Tory Party are doing right now, this is about more than just 2008. This isn’t, at its core, about Carney’s record as a central banker, because they’d be going at the actually questionable bits of the legacy. They, of course, can’t, because they’d have to acknowledge the 2010-2012 economic performance wasn’t the masterpiece they claim but actually a mediocre performance, and they can’t do that because their whole argument for Poilievre goes up in smoke. So they do this crap, because they’re scared shitless.

The Conservatives are suffering from what is best described as Hamlet-itis. They are so loudly proclaiming they’re not scared of Mark Carney that they’re very obviously telegraphing to anyone with an IQ above 12 that they’re shitting bricks. The reason to try this Hail Mary nonsense about disgracing Jim Flaherty’s legacy when he can’t respond is because you’re seeing the same polling data as everyone else and you’re believing it at the very least could be real. Someone asked why Skippy and co don’t have ads running against Carney yet, and the answer seems to be they don’t know what to run against him with. This is pathetic nonsense, just like the Liberals pressing the big button marked “Call Conservatives A Threat To Abortion” is a surefire sign we’re fucked.

I’d like to say the specifics here don’t matter - Soudas et al are allowed to invoke their titles to say Carney was a bit player, and they’re allowed to do so in vaguely incoherent ways that are absolutely contrary to the historical record - but it’s too much crap to take. Again, Carney did 200 basis points of rate cuts before Flaherty even tabled the 2009 Budget, and the original 2008 Fall Fiscal Update intended no stimulus and had to get disavowed in days because it was a non-starter. Would anybody like to guess what would have happened if Carney hadn't reacted when he did and left the work to the politicians? Anybody? Bueller?

This is all just yet more proof that Conservatives have not been playing politics at a high level this whole time and their success has much more been about the failures of the Trudeau government and dislike of Trudeau personally than anything else. Any competent operation would be blasting out Poilievre’s Defence and Arctic security plan he released this week, not letting the Conservative message of the day be relitigating the 2008 GFC. It’s ludicrously useless, because nobody sane cares except for the fact that there are hundreds of quotes and photos of Flaherty, Carney, and Harper in various combinations, and “well actually he held a job that we’ve said is super important for the last three years and we want to fire the current incumbent of, but he was actually irrelevant and a nobody” isn’t a message anybody will hear. And there’s an obvious retort - if Carney was so irrelevant to the recovery, why did Flaherty push for him to get the FSB job and celebrate his appointment?

The best case that these polls are real, or at the very least that they might be real, is the way the Conservatives are acting. Discerning truth in politics is hard, but we know that the Conservatives wanted to run against Trudeau, I have reported that before and it’s exceedingly clear from their messaging that it’s true. It also seems true that Carney is more impressive than they expected. Given that I also find myself shocked by Carney, I get it. But they’re not acting like a well oiled machine that the Conservatives can be, they’re acting like idiots with their hair on fire.

I haven’t been in government before, as Soudas noted, but I’ve seen what good political campaigns look like, especially from the right. Kory Teneycke is currently running a strategic masterclass in Ontario that’s about to deliver a third straight majority government and a third straight increase in seats to the PCPO. This ain’t that. The Conservatives are fucking terrified of Mark Carney, and yesterday’s increasingly pathetic invocation of Flaherty tipped their hand.