John Ivison: Reflections on Mark Carney’s ambitions on the Titanic’s anniversary

Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on April 14, 2026. Photo by Blair Gable/Postmedia

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In a late-night social media post, Pierre Poilievre said Carney achieved his majority through “backroom deals,” a “cynical power grab” that saw Conservative MPs cross the floor, “betraying the people who voted for them.”

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You could imagine his eye starting to twitch with the pressure, as he vowed to continue to lead the fight against the Liberals “every day and in every way” across the country and into the next election, “when Canadians will reclaim the country we know and love.”

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Carney celebrated his victories the following morning, by announcing a promise to suspend the federal fuel excise tax until Labour Day, cutting the cost of gas by 10 cents a litre, a move that Poilievre proposed earlier this month at a news conference at an Ottawa gas station. It was a twist of the dagger that will have compounded the Conservative leader’s distress.

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Poilievre knows that, potentially, he has three more years before the next election.

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He knows that politics is often governed by the old Spanish proverb: If you wait by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will float by.

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But he also knows that in this fast-moving digital age, voters (and by extension their elected representatives) have the patience of snapping turtles. It is hard to see his caucus giving him three more months, far less three years, if it keeps hemorrhaging members and votes.

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For Carney, this is as good as it gets: the sweet spot where he is getting credit for his rhetoric and posturing, but before the inevitable disappointment that greets all governments when results don’t meet expectations.

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Rather than tempering those expectations, he again talked about the half-million new jobs and $100 billion in new investment that will be created by the 15 nation-building initiatives in the pipeline (no pun intended).

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Carney may be storing up his own cortisol issues but they remain far in the future. For now, he can reflect on a job well done, even if the manner in which it was achieved is likely to cause him grief, especially in the West.

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The byelection news gave me pause to reflect on a phone call I received in February of last year while walking the dog. It was the man who is now Canada’s prime minister, offering his thoughts on his political fortunes. Much of the conversation is lost to posterity but I do recall him saying at one stage that he thought he would be able to hold Poilievre to a minority in a general election.

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Prior to that, I remember a conversation with Carney in the Clocktower Brew Pub in Ottawa’s New Edinburgh, where we talked about our mutual frustration over the decline of western classical liberalism — characterized by individual dignity, open markets and limited government — at the hands of the populist right and the illiberal, progressive left (a direction in which we agreed, the Trudeau government was trending). We debated whether the Liberal Party of Canada could be brought back to the political centre as a force for national and political unity, or whether a new vehicle should be created for the purpose. Carney believed it would take too long to build a new party and, as a man in a hurry, he was probably right.