Jamie Sarkonak: How Conservatives can better target Mark Carney

Prime Minister Mark Carney walks to the House of Commons to introduce new Members of Parliament on Parliament Hill in Ottawa April 27, 2026. Photo by Blair Gable/Postmedia

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Not all battles should be fought, and in recent weeks, the federal Conservatives haven’t always been strategic in those they take on. During the Trudeau years, Leader Pierre Poilievre truly revolutionized how Conservatives do comms. The party could benefit more from Poilievre’s talents if it understood Prime Minister Mark Carney is a less easy target.

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This would include, for example, keeping their powder dry over the Liberal conquest of House of Commons committees. It’s one thing to point out the fact that the Liberals are seizing control of committees by adding enough new Liberal seats to each to torpedo any Parliamentary investigation, something that they can now do as a majority government. And yes, that majority government was obtained in a less-than-honourable fashion, by luring opposing MPs to cross the floor. It’s entirely sensible for the Conservatives to talk about it, even though it’s within the rules of our democracy.

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But it’s another thing to go a step further and imply that what the Liberals are doing is illegitimate. Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer seemed to do that last week when he urged the Liberals not to “stack the deck.”

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“At the very least, they should preserve the power of the opposition to investigate Liberal corruption scandals and to litigate bad Liberal policy,” he told reporters two weeks ago. He later proposed that the Liberals, out of the kindness of their hearts, leave the ethics, government estimates and public accounts committees as they are.

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It’s a plea that, of course, went unheeded. The rules of the game are such that majority governments can hand themselves a majority on committees. Like it or not, the job of politicians is to skewer their opponents and deny them opportunity whenever the chance arises.

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The Conservatives have made a tripping hazard for their future selves. Imagine that, one day, the shoe is on the other foot: a future governing Conservative caucus grows from minority to majority overnight after finding some new common cause with a couple of centrists on the other side. When or if that time comes, they damn well should reconstitute their committees. Why open themselves up now to charges of hypocrisy?

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The better option? Use the opportunity to educate the public on the importance of committees and the coming lack of accountability.

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Sometimes acting strategically means not acting at all. When the prime minister took to YouTube in what was essentially a “Here’s what I’m doing; here’s where I’m going” video, it was well-received by all appearances. Mark Carney came across as measured and well-spoken; he referred back to his central banker past without being cringe about it; and he invoked the War of 1812 with a figurine of one of its Canadian heroes, Sir Isaac Brock.

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That doesn’t make Carney a good prime minister, but it does make him a more formidable opponent than Justin Trudeau, who struggled to compete with the Conservatives online after Pierre Poilievre became leader.

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If the Conservatives were to engage at all with Carney’s video, their focus should have been on the content. And granted, that’s what Poilievre did — but he distracted from this by also calling Carney a showboater. Politico’s headline? “Poilievre calls on Carney to stop ‘showboating’ and focus on fighting U.S. tariffs.”