Memo To Mark Carney: Embrace Parliament’s Options

Recall Parliament Before An Election

The next Canadian election should be on May 5th.

There’s a lot of talk about what should be the day of the next election, and there’s this idea that Mark Carney might call a snap election as soon as March 10th, the first full day he is Liberal leader. It’s a somewhat compelling answer made by the polls, and it’s directionally correct, but it strikes me as a mistake. But, because I’m trying to be less critical for the sake of it, let’s sketch out in public the conversation I’ve had in private a dozen times this week, and why I think Carney can get an election broadly when he wants it and make his chances of winning it go way up.

If Carney went to an election on the 10th, it would be a polling day of April 14th or April 21st. Of course, April 1st sees a Carbon Tax hike come into effect, which would have the impact of turning the last two or three weeks of the campaign into a referendum on the Conservatives’ preferred terrain. Promising to get rid of the Carbon Tax is fine, but it’s not a solution to the political problem of the Carbon Tax, because Poilievre will rightly or wrongly claim the promise was bullshit if we don’t try to do it before the election, and before the April 1st rise. So let’s repeal it.

Carney will win the leadership on Sunday the 9th. Swear him in as the PM on the 14th with a small but meaningful Cabinet Shuffle, recall Parliament for the 17th, and have the Governor General deliver a Throne Speech that enumerates in clear language that the elimination of the carbon tax is priority one of this government, and will be the first bill brought to the House. Schedule a quick and dirty vote on the Throne Speech for Wednesday of that week and dare the Conservatives, Bloc, and NDP to vote for an election instead of a tax cut. If they bring down the government, you get the election you want 9 days into your leadership. If they don’t, get the bill to repeal the Carbon Tax and extend another four rebate cheques as scheduled down immediately, and rush that thing through the House and Senate.

If Poilievre votes against a Carbon Tax repeal or stalls it, then he’s a massive hypocrite whose whole political approach - that he’s an authentic, and Different Kind Of, Conservative who cares about the poor and working class - goes up in flames. He’d expose himself as just another crass, in it for himself sleazebag of a politician right before a campaign. If he votes for it, there’s no carbon tax, whatever element of one-off price reduction that will occur happens a month before the election, and the Conservatives lose their best policy wedge and they lose the ability to call Carney Trudeau in a different suit or whatever nonsense.

The other advantage of two weeks of Parliamentary sittings would be to give Carney time to tour the country and do a ton of fundraisers. The Liberals will presumably raise a ton of money from the reinvigoration of the party, but Carney won’t be needed in Parliament for these two weeks so he can be hitting the phones and the dinner circuit for cash to shore up the campaign war chest, so he’s not hitting up Rosedale elites during the campaign itself.

A lot of the arguments for going early make sense, especially the idea you don’t want the Tories to have months to tee off on Carney with pre-writ dollars. That’s a very real concern, which is why I’m increasingly convinced October is a horrible idea. Other concerns about being seen as clinging on or avoiding the electorate, which October would (in my view, unfairly) exacerbate, also don’t apply if there’s an election during Round 2 of the NHL Playoffs. But most of all, the reason to do this is that the Liberals have completely ignored their biggest ace in the hole, and they should stop.

In 2014, Stephen Harper decided to use the Ottawa shooting as a chance to lay a political trap for the Liberals and the NDP with overly draconian anti-terror laws that didn’t help solve problems and just made things worse. The NDP bit on the bait, opposing the bill and making them look unserious. The Liberals saw the trap for what it was, took the damage on their left flank, and won the election in large part because they made specific moves to show Trudeau wasn’t some hippy kid with pie in the sky ideas, but a serious person ready to govern.

The Conservatives’ instinct was smart, but they miscalculated how much the public would give them credit for the anti-terror laws. The Tories got no credit for passing those laws, but the Liberals got huge amounts of credibility for voting for it. It was a hell of a raw deal, but the instinct was correct. The Liberals just need to be smarter about the trap they lay. And the Carbon Tax is that trap.

If the Conservatives vote against Carbon Tax repeal, they’re hypocrites who don’t care about Canadians and will just say whatever it takes to get votes even if they have no intention of passing it. You can use this bit of Parliamentary gamesmanship to cast doubt on every promise the Tories make, from security and defence to whatever promises not to cut services the Tories make. “If they voted against repealing the Carbon Tax, why should Canadians trust another word out of Poilievre’s mouth?” would be devastating.

If the Conservatives vote for repeal? Great, the anchor around your neck is gone and the Tories aren’t able to say Carney is Trudeau. “My government delivered real tax relief, while extending the rebates a year, so that Canadians struggling with this economic uncertainty and the challenges we face breathe a little easier” writes itself. It would also be immediate differentiation from Justin Trudeau, which is a smart thing to build in. When Poilievre tries to call Carney a Trudeau respawn, it’s laughable if the Carbon Tax is already gone.

If Parliament drags on too long, you give a fiery speech on national TV declaring that you’ll dissolve the House if they don’t give Canadian voters the tax relief they deserve by April 1st. No matter what, you command the news cycles, you elevate yourself, and you drag Poilievre into a corner from which all of his options are different kinds of terrible.

I just plainly don’t see a universe where the April 1st date doesn’t come back to fuck us if we willing go early without solving the Carbon Tax. It would allow Poilievre to paint Carney as more interested in political advantage than policy or people, it would anchor the back stretch of the campaign on Poilievre friendly messaging, and it would stop us making climate action a dividing line because we’d be anchored to a bad policy. Once we get rid of the Carbon Tax, we can go to voters and say “we know you didn’t see how a Carbon Tax reduced emissions, this will and they still don’t care”.

Carney needs to bring Parliament back, if only for a couple weeks, and do his damndest to repeal the carbon tax before the election. If it fails, Poilievre’s a discredited hypocrite. If it succeeds, the Liberals are free of a policy anchor. It’s the only choice.