Ask Not What The PM Can Do For You. Ask What You Can Do For The PM.

Breaking: New Democratic Party MP Lori Idlout is crossing the floor to join the Liberals, setting up Prime Minister Mark Carney to secure a majority government if upcoming byelections go his way.

Canada’s Days of Dissonance are continuing into a second decade. The defection of a tainted NDP MP virtually guarantees the Liberals the majority that Canadians did not give them in last spring’s election. They think they can snub Donald Trump and still have it all.

The coercion/ bribing of Idlout underscores the real story of the election. While the purchased unimedia pummelled Pierre Poilievre’s CPC for blowing a huge lead in the polls, it was the eradication of the NDP— with their votes going to the Elbows Up Liberals— that elevated Mark Carney to this moment where floor crossings will give him absolute power in Ottawa.

Certainly the fawning press will be full of hosannas for the political acumen of Carney as he flies around the globe promising money Canada doesn’t have. Offering to import more than four times the number of Indian immigrants compared to U.K./ U.S. with a fraction of their combined populations. The outgoing spigot for Canadian billions going to Ukraine, India and Gaza is reported as Canada leading “middle-ranked powers”.

If what you want is grand policy announcements, lavish promises of aid and photo ops in every corner of the globe then Carney is your man. He’s certainly the man for the Elbows Up crowd who continue to see him as equal parts Lester Pearson/ Pierre Trudeau/ Paul Martin. The antidote to Orange Man Bad down south. 

But it’s an opinion that few outside Canada share. “He is very good at self-promotion, at collecting trophy jobs and of course negotiating fabulously generous salaries and expenses for himself along the way,” wrote Matthew Lynn in the U.K. Daily Telegraph. “He is just not very good at delivering.” Canadians? What, me worry?

Yes, he’s buddies with the PMs of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Chairman Xi sees him as a continuation of the Justin Trudeau Follies, a third-rate poseur out of his depth. One recent example of his acumen was his pledge to back the American/ Israeli offensive in Iran. Only to furiously backtrack when his globalist pals confronted him.

That attracted the scorn of Donald Trump. “Mark Carney is a Globalist Loser who is selling out Canada to China, and now he’s badmouthing our Great Military from Australia? He should be thanking us for protecting his weak country… Canada is being destroyed by a man who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.” While the international community scoffed, Carney’s approval ratings in daydreaming Canada went up.

On his latest sojourn away from Canada Carney charmed the Japanese by offering up  some phrases in their native tongue. But the message was unmistakable once the polite stuff ended. Japan made it clear that continued support for making their vehicles in Canada’s auto sector is contingent on a successful renegotiation USMCA. They want access to the American market if they’re to continue building their cars in Canada. Or else.

With the auto sector already hemorhaging jobs in anticipation of USMCA, news of Carney’s pledge to import 40,000 electric vehicles from China is a sign that Carney has lost touch with this file vital to central Canadians. While the major car makers write down their EV boondoggles, Carney forges blindly ahead. Even as the Governor of the Bank of Canada promises economic pain for decades. No worries. Polls indicate that Carney and the Liberals would score a large majority if an election were called.

Domestically Carney would rather talk about his latest fabulously expensive Net Zero pipe dream (in concert with his old pals at Brookfield Investments) than confront the growing disaster in BC over indigenous rights on Crown Lands and the title ownership of private homes. The recent Incremental Recognition Agreement provides that the Musqueam has Aboriginal rights and title in a vast area where 1.3 million British Columbians live and work, spanning Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, North Vancouver, West Vancouver and parts of Delta.

This comes after a B.C. Supreme Court decision involving the Cowichan Nation concluded that Aboriginal title can be a senior right to private property. Panicked B.C. voters are unsure if they still control the title on their own homes or if banks will extend them credit. (In Alberta indigenous tribes wanting the same are concerned how a republic of Alberta will affect their treaties with the Crown.) Again, Carney remains at stratospheric levels of approval in polls.

Speaking of home equity, the collapsing of the Canadian economy and the outflow of capital has revived the Liberal position paper on taxing the equity in private homes on an annual basis— a property tax on the increases value of homes. For many Canadians— even in the Elbows Up cult— the money accumulated on their homes the past decades is their security blanket. The promise of tax-free sales on primary residences is sacred to them. But the Liberals paper sees taxing that equity— even if the house is not being sold.

As an example, homes valued at $1M – $1.5M, would see a tax per year of $408– $1,021. Homes valued at $1.5M – $2M, the tax per year would be $2,118 – $3,618. On homes valued at $2M+, the tax per year would be $14,710 – $16,210. The government would rake in $4.5B – $5.8B per year. 

Carney’s polling in the wake of this trial balloon? Up, up and away with Canadians. 

While many consider taxing home equity political suicide, Carney has that covered with the burgeoning MAID program. His new majority will give him all the tools he needs to re-construct previous failed Green equity funds and climate investment schemes— those he ran after leaving the Bank of England. Using Canada’s public pension money he can prop up the nation’s economy even if it guts the housing market. After all, B.C. premier David Eby has said blowing off up to a trillion in real estate is a fair trade off for $50 billion in projects. 

Did we mention crime? The U.S. consulate in Toronto shot up. Synagogues targeted for gunfire. Huge fentanyl seizure suspects allowed to walk in Saskatchewan. A Vancouver area mayor pleading for outside help in there midst of gang wars. No, the Elbows Up slappies polled are koo-koo for his new majority.

The secret is no secret. Mention Donald Trump. There will come a time when Carney getting a bump in the polls from mentioning #TrumpTariffs will end. But it seems that Elbows Up is still infatuated with digging the hole deeper. So we will have to wait a while longer for the nervous collapse of Coyne of the realm.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his 2025 book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books at https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1069802700