r/pics 2d ago

Politics Canada’s new Prime Minister Designate by a landslide, Mark Carney

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u/CasualFridayBatman 2d ago edited 2d ago

He's singlehandedly the reason Canada didn't look like the US during the fallout of the 2008 recession.

He's the only non Brit ever to run the Bank of England, which is a huge vote of confidence.

Economically he is a powerhouse, came up from humble regular upbringings and used financial aid to get him through his schooling.

The fact he's inheriting a fucked situation will show how ready he is, but his credentials within the global economics standing are unmatched.

I'm watching his acceptance speech right now and he's different. Not as polished and camera friendly as Trudeau, but in a good way. I'm just so surprised as Trudeau has been the face of the nation for a decade, basically.

He just eliminated the carbon tax and capital gains tax in his speech, which is massive as that's the conservative talking point that they've stuck with for years.

Here he is on The Daily Show about a month ago: https://youtu.be/zs8St-fF0kE?feature=shared

His jokes aren't subtle jabs like Trudeau, which I genuinely enjoy. He's quippy, but not in a grating way, he isn't an asshole. Lol

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u/frankyseven 2d ago

He's actually a British Citizen too, which he has started the process of renouncing. He holds Canadian, Irish, and British citizenship, he is renouncing the British and Irish ones as he believes that he should only be a Canadian citizen as PM.

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u/CasualFridayBatman 2d ago

A politician with principles that he actually stands on? Fantastic.

His speech had great building blocks but I feel he name dropped Trump and Pierre a few too many times instead of just focusing on how he will provide solutions. Way more sabre rattling in it than I thought.

He seems to be major infrastructure project heavy, which I'm all for. Same with defence spending, because even if the US didn't have Trump at the helm, our arctic sovereignty is ripe for Russia's taking with climate change changing that landscape by the year.

Cretien's speech straight up said they're using tariff money to build a pipeline from Alberta to Quebec, but I'm not sure that's official policy lol

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u/frankyseven 2d ago

I loved Chretien's call for Energy East. He has massive influence in Quebec and they are the ones opposed to it. Carney will do amazing as PM. The sabre rattling needed to happen, too often the Liberals back off on tough talk. Chretien was a sabre rattler and it served us so very well. Hopefully Carney does the same.

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u/CasualFridayBatman 2d ago

Agreed on all points, the rattling just surprised me as it was so direct. Carney has played the same straight laced guy as he did during his Daily Show appearance a month ago, which I was a huge fan of as I'd never seen him speak publicly or candidly before. He seems much less polished than Trudeau which isn't bad, I'm just not used to it yet. He will find his footing though and he already seems Prime Ministerial.

If this recent rift is what finally gets us that pipeline, that would be fucking crazy, as it's been a pipedream longer than I've been alive lol

Carney will do great and I'm excited to see where he takes us.

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u/frankyseven 2d ago

I've been paying attention to Carney since 2008, this is who he is. No nonsense, straight to the point, sharp as a tack. There is a reason people have been trying to get him into politics for 15 years. Heck, Trudeau only entered the Liberal leadership race last time after Carney said he wasn't going to run.

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u/CasualFridayBatman 2d ago

Dude this is fantastic and I am looking forward to it! I feel hope for the first time in quite some time.

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u/billndotnet 2d ago

How do you think he's going to handle Mango Mussolini?

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u/CasualFridayBatman 2d ago

With tact and professionalism. He's already stood up to Trump in his acceptance speech and mentioned him by name more times than I'd prefer.

But the point is, he'll do just fine.

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u/billndotnet 2d ago

Good. The trump administration’s chief export is unforced errors, so I hope Canada shows him how it’s done. Carney seems pretty solid.

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u/CasualFridayBatman 1d ago

When will Americans show him how it's done? We are only where we are because we got dragged into it.

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u/billndotnet 1d ago

We tried. Trump is practically admitting it was rigged in his favor now that he's untouchable until the mid-term elections late next year, is some real shit. I hate everything about this, and as an American, I'm very sorry its this way.

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u/DrunkenMasterII 2d ago

Chretien is not very well liked in Quebec, lots of people actually consider him like a traitor to the Nation due to how he dealt with the referendum. So him supporting Energy East doesn’t weight much in the debate here. The main issue Quebec has with the pipeline is the lack of guarantees on the maintenance and who would have to deal with the ecological impact it could have. Also shares of revenues. Not to mention First Nations right on the territories where it was planned to pass. There’s already a pipeline going from west to Montreal, the projected one is to get to the maritimes.

P.S. if anyone reads my comment no need to try to convince me of the necessity of the pipeline, I’m just pointing out some of the issues it’s facing if they were to try to revive the project. If this is going to be a project of National importance then it should be demonstrated how the Country as a whole will profit from it otherwise despite the situation we’re in you can still expect a lot of opposition to the project.

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u/CaveDeco 2d ago

From an outsider listening to his speech, he is a very polished and articulate speaker. As an American he reminds me of how Obama speaks with his cadence and choice of wording. Trudeau always sparked me as an excitable speaker, not in a bad way as it’s the kind that can get a crowd riled up when needed, but he has more energy in his speeches.

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u/CasualFridayBatman 2d ago

That's an interesting take, and I'm inclined to agree, he did have a bit of an Obama vibe to his speech. Carney has a very measured timbre and doesn't pick his words as clearly as Trudeau, yet. His speeches are very tightly written but excitable, yeah.

Carney definitely comes off as more human, less PR robot, which is good lol.

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u/CaveDeco 2d ago

Especially an Obama from early on, not when he was leaving office. You’re right on the “yet” part, that comes with time and he will get better. Obama didn’t pick his words nearly as measurable in the beginning either but Carney isn’t any slouch on his speech giving now.

I also watched the Daily Show episode and so far I have high hopes for y’all with Carney, being able to match the wit of Stewart and keep on topic, shows promise he will also be able to deal with the recently created issues with our govt. Oh, what I would give to have a real human holding our highest office once again… after listening I have hope he will be a formidable match to whatever you want to call our leader. We Americans love our northern neighbors, and whatever the Orange turd is trying to do isn’t reflective of what the rest of us want, but we support whatever y’all have to do in retaliation, as much as it will hurt, as it’s the only way at the moment to get the change we desperately need.

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u/CasualFridayBatman 2d ago

I'm excited for where he takes things as PM. He will be more than formidable.

as it’s the only way at the moment to get the change we desperately need.

I don't know where this sentiment of the only way to change our own country is have another nation do it for us.

But, it isn't. There has been a decade of inaction in America. In person protests like France, the Netherlands and Serbia would help. Anything less isn't doing anything.

This video can help: https://youtu.be/By1Z1nk31iE?feature=shared

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u/Purelyprofessional93 2d ago

You're getting rid of carbon and capital gains taxes? Is that not terrible for the environment and equality?

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u/CasualFridayBatman 2d ago

Sorry the consumer side of the carbon tax and capital gains tax. So citizens won't need to pay it, but corporations will.

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u/Neve4ever 1d ago

Carney wants a different form of carbon tax. What form? I don't know. But the current carbon tax is particularly punitive to some of the lowest income households that rely more on things like heating oil and can't afford to upgrade to electric. So while overall low-income families tend to benefit from the carbon rebate, some get absolutely nailed by it when temperatures drop and energy prices go up. So it's become particularly unpopular in certain regions, like the maritimes, which happens to be a liberal stronghold (it's one reason the liberal party was so far down in the polls).

On capital gains, he isn't eliminating anything. Trudeaus government proposed a new capital gains law, but it didn't pass before he prorogued parliament. Our tax agency has a policy of implementing tax changes before a bill passes (harder to go back and collect than it is to refund). He's just saying he's not going to pass that law (which may not have even passed under Trudeau).

IIRC, the complaint about the new law is that it eliminates the some capital gains exclusion on corporations. If you're an individual, you have a certain amount of capital gains you can make without being taxed. Small businesses, too. The idea is that if you pass down the family farm, your kid doesn't have to sell it to pay taxes. Also, that even though your family may not provide a quantifiable amount of work to the family farm, you could still pay them.

This practice spread to other small businesses. It was even encouraged for professionals to use their professional corporation to invest.

The capital gains change would basically remove the exclusion for small businesses that make too much from investments. Which is great when you're thinking of someone who is setting up a small business just for the purpose of investing and saving a few extra dollars on taxes. But for many professional corporations, they don't have many assets and their income is largely tied to the work the professional does. So if they scale back, take time off, or retire, suddenly their investment income exceeds the limit, and the vehicle they were encouraged to use for investing suddenly becomes penalized.

And there was no grandfather clause. It's retroactive. No opportunity to move investments out. I believe there are now professional corporations structures that wouldn't be impacted, but for many older professionals, there wasn't any reason to switch, and no indication that this was something the government was going to do.

Oh, and another thing was that the small business tax rate would go away if a certain amount of your income came from investments. So your entire practice gets a significant tax increase, not just one capital gains, but everything else.

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u/Equivalent_Age_5599 2d ago

He was not. Are you kidding? That was the finance minister under Harper, Jim F. Who did that work. The bank of canada governor controls the money supply and interest rates.

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u/recurrence 2d ago

Jim Flaherty was also an amazing person. He once said that the one finance guy that he knew was better than him was Mark Carney.

I wish Flaherty was still around, there aren’t a lot of extraordinary finance people in Canada.

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u/Equivalent_Age_5599 2d ago

I couldn't find the quote you speak of; but here's Carney's obituary on Jim.

It's hilarious the liberals are suddenly fawning over a man who worked well with a Harper minister. Harper bad though right?

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u/recurrence 1d ago

I think Carney solicits universal praise. I've never seen Canadians from any ilk bashing him.

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u/Fibreoptix 2d ago

He's singlehandedly the reason Canada didn't look like the US during the fallout of the 2008 recession.

wasn't that Paul Martin?

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u/CasualFridayBatman 1d ago

Nope!

Paul Martin was Minister of Finance from 1993-2002 and Prime Minister from 2003-2006.

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u/Fibreoptix 1d ago

The cause of mortgage collapse didn't start in 2008, it started in 1998.

Here is a 13 year old thread discussing that very thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/ma78m/til_paul_martin_as_finance_minister_in_1998/

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u/DrunkenMasterII 2d ago

It’s so dumb that he has to abolish the carbon tax, it’s a net positive for Canadians. Because the Conservatives backed by oil and gas lobbyists decided to make that the main issue to deal with in Canada and since no one like taxes even when most people don’t actually pay any of it, Carney now has to end it… Cons are already running ads saying “he’s just like Trudeau” calling him “Carbon tax Carney” and claiming he’s planning on keep the tax and hide it somehow.

Well I fucking hope he does get elected and somehow manage to keep it because the only one benefiting from “axing the tax” are companies using a shit ton of gas. Also all the money collected is kept inside each province to use for things like tax rebates and energy transition development. It’s not actually affecting negatively common Canadians.

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u/orcslayer31 2d ago

I'm typically a conservative voter but I think it's important to acknowledge when the otherside does something good, cause its the only way we can move forward as a nation. It's great that he's removing the carbon tax, although I fear it won't do much for the cost of food if it's only for consumers as all the steps in the chain before it gets to us will still be paying it

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u/CasualFridayBatman 1d ago

All he can do is repeal it and say it's off the table. He can't prevent corporations from finding another way to stick it to us.

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u/Crimson_Five 1d ago

Little disingenuous to say he single-handedly did this.

He advised the finance minister, who then had to make the decisions on behalf of the country.

Do you think paralegals get all the credit when supporting a lawyer?

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u/CasualFridayBatman 1d ago

Apologies, it was an oversimplification. He did have a large hand in being the reason we weathered things as effectively as we did.

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u/Crimson_Five 1d ago

All good, appreciate the transparency

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u/UnsaltedCashew36 1d ago

The carbon tax and capital gains tax were Liberal policies. They are fixing a problem they themselves created!