LILLEY: Carney tells another fib – the man can’t recognize the truth​on April 3, 2025 at 10:20 pm

Mark Carney’s sales pitch to Canadians is that he is an economist and the man who saved two economies in crisis.

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But his claims don’t really live up to scrutiny, including a claim that he made on Thursday while responding to Trump’s latest tariffs.

Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill, Carney laid out Canada’s response to the latest American moves and then made a claim that was not based in reality. He was asked whether the American tariffs, applied around the world, would send Canada into a recession.

“It is usually the case that when the United States has a recession, that is very difficult for Canada to avoid something similar,” Carney said. “There’s been exceptions to that, with the financial crisis 2008-09 when I was governor, we avoided a recession.”

Hold the phone!

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Did Mark Carney just claim that when he was Governor of the Bank of Canada, that under his leadership, we avoided a recession? That would be the clear meaning of the words that he spoke, and it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“While Canada’s economy evolved largely as expected during the summer and early autumn, it is now entering a recession as a result of the weakness in global economic activity,” the Bank said in December 2008. “The recent declines in terms of trade, real income growth, and confidence are prompting more cautious behaviour by households and businesses.”

So, when he was Governor of the Bank of Canada, he declared a recession in December 2008. But now that he is running to form the next government, Carney wants you to believe he is such an economic genius that due to his stewardship, Canada avoided a recession?

He’s already been taken to task by former prime minister Stephen Harper for taking credit for the work of the late Jim Flaherty during this time. Carney was in charge of the Bank of Canada, he was in charge of interest rates, monetary policy, an important component but far from the biggest.

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He didn’t make decisions about bailing out Chrysler and General Motors to keep auto jobs in Canada as the Obama administration tried to move them south. Carney didn’t devise policies like the home renovation tax credit to boost work for the trades, nor did he come up with work-sharing policies to keep as many people employed as possible – those were decisions of the Harper government.

Carney has a habit of taking credit for things he didn’t do like the big decisions of the 2008-09 financial crisis or claiming to have helped Paul Martin balance the budget. He’s also denied responsibility for things he has done, such as moving the headquarters of Brookfield Asset Management, the company he oversaw, from Toronto to New York City.

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He even tried to claim that he set up $25 billion USD worth of green funds in Bermuda on behalf of Brookfield to save Canadian seniors taxes. No, he was saving his company on taxes by using offshore tax havens, something not available to the average Canadian.

Back to the idea that Carney is an economist and therefore must know what he is talking about and should be listened to on these matters. The people around Donald Trump advocating for tariffs are economists as well, but it doesn’t mean they have good policies.

Peter Navarro has a PhD in economics from Harvard University, surely that is on par with Carney’s PhD from Oxford, but we don’t hear people claiming we must listen to Navarro because of his credentials. Kevin Hassett, another Trump advisor and tariff advocate, has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, a well-respected business school, but Canadians don’t say we should listen to him.

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There are two main problems with Carney at the moment.

He keeps lying about the past, like claiming we had no recession in 2008-09, and he has bad policies for going forward.

As Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the other day, a resume is not a plan, and Carney only has a resume – and bad ideas.

blilley@postmedia.com

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