Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidate Mark Carney delivers a speech as he’s introduced during the Liberal leadership announcement in Ottawa on Sunday, March 9, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
OTTAWA – With a whopping 85.9 per cent of the popular vote by Liberal members, Mark Carney was chosen Liberal Leader and will be the next prime minister of Canada.
And in one of his first acts, he promised to eliminate the consumer carbon tax.
“I am a pragmatist above all. So when I see that something’s not working, I will change it. So my government will immediately eliminate the divisive consumer carbon tax on families of farmers and small and medium sized businesses.
“And we will stop the hike in the capital gains tax, because we think builders should be incentivized for taking risks and be rewarded when they succeed.”
The reversal on a consumer carbon tax is a major change for Carney, as he has long been a vocal supporter of the carbon tax as a method to combat anthropogenic (manmade) climate change.
It also addresses one of the Conservatives sharpest criticism of him, referring to him frequently as “Carbon Tax Carney.”
But that didn’t mean Carney would be walking away from climate change politics. He said, “Pierre Poilievre would let our planet burn. This is not leadership. It’s ideology. It’s ideology that betrays what we as Canadians value each other. It’s an ideology that also represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works.
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Beyond the carbon tax, the speech had little about energy, although there may have been a few allusions to possible major energy projects.
“We’re facing the greatest crisis of our lifetime, we have to do extraordinary things, and together, we have to build things that we’ve never imagined. We would have to do at a pace we would have never believed possible,” he said.
However, former Prime Minister Jean Chretien did say a natural gas pipeline needed to be built from Alberta to Quebec. Carney did not mention pipelines once.
In Canadian politics, it is common for provincial politicians to “run against Ottawa.” That was evident in Carney’s speech, but on an international scale. Carney painted President Donald Trump as a larger threat than his Conservative rival, Pierre Poilievre, leader of that party.
Carney mentioned Pierre Poilievre by name seven times, but President Donald Trump 12 times.
And in nearly every reference to Trump, he referred to the U.S. president acting in a threatening manner towards Canada.
“The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country. Think about it. If they if they succeeded, they would destroy our way of life. In America, health care is a big business. In Canada, it is a right.”
He noted, “the Canadian government has rightly retaliated, and is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact here in Canada. My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.”
He promised all proceeds from Canadian tariffs will be used be used to support workers.
Carney painted a narrative of being the strongest defence against Trump in his economic war against Canada, pointing out he is an economist himself, whereas Poilievre is a career politician.
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