Canada and the rise of Mark Carney

Mark Carney should be able to provide strong leadership to Canada. With his accomplishments, essentially in economics (he has served well as governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England and indeed in every other position he has been in), he ought to be able to restore his country to a perch that Justin Trudeau was unable to hold on to in his final days in office.

But, of course, the degree to which Carney, now the leader of Canada's Liberal Party and by default its prime minister, will be able to exert his leadership depends on whether he can lead his party to victory at the forthcoming general election in a few weeks or months. The Liberals, despite slowly closing the gap in the opinion polls with the Conservatives, yet have reasons for worry. If Carney loses, Canada's difficulties will acquire a new dimension, especially in its dealings with Donald Trump's United States (US).

 The new Canadian leader certainly sounded a strong message to Washington within moments of his triumph at the party leadership election. In the run-up to the general election, there is a sense of urgency Carney will be compelled to handle. The imposition of tariffs on Canadian goods by President Trump, with retaliatory tariffs clamped on Washington by outgoing Prime Minister Trudeau, give Carney a plateful of issues he has to handle. Add to that Trump's growing, unabashed insistence on referring to Canada as the 51st state of the US, a nuisance that Carney will not let pass without a strong response. Carney has never been one to regard issues in a flippant manner. His approach, throughout his career, has been one of a rejection of nonsense.

The state of politics as it persists in Canada is a good reason to go back to a brief survey of how the country has fared in recent decades. In the early 1960s, led by John Diefenbaker, the country appeared to be claiming its place in global politics at a time when the Cold War was at its height. The tug of war between Nikita Khrushchev's Soviet Union and John F. Kennedy's America defined international politics in that era, one where Diefenbaker wished Canada, an important member of the Commonwealth, to remain in the loop vis-à-vis world affairs. Prior to Diefenbaker, Canada's voice was not much heard. But it was in the times of his successor Lester B. Pearson that Ottawa went miles forward in shaping foreign policy consonant with its global aspirations.

Pearson, much like Carney --- though in a different field --- brought Canada into the international limelight through his remarkable career as a leading diplomat for his country. Among his diplomatic experiences was a good stint as Ottawa's envoy to the United Nations --- and this was at a time when the redoubtable V. Krishna Menon spoke for India in the world body --- a position in which he certainly excelled. As a Nobel laureate for peace (in 1957) and as a candidate touted to succeed Trygve Lie as UN secretary general, Pearson had a reputation not many could match. As prime minister, Pearson guided Canada through the rough and tumble of politics which threatened to overturn diplomacy in very many regions around the world. Vietnam burned, to a point where US President Lyndon Johnson was unsure of how to roll back conditions and ensure an American victory against the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese. Pearson, much like Britain's Harold Wilson, studiously kept his country away from any alliance with America over Vietnam.

A difficult moment for Pearson came when French President Charles de Gaulle, on a visit to Quebec, publicly raised his voice in support of independence for Quebec. In Canada's French-speaking province, Quebec's separatist political classes, represented by Rene Levesque, had been calling for referenda that would lead to Quebec's separation from the rest of the country. Levesque's Parti Quebecois in the end did not succeed. Two referenda were held, both of which resulted in a rejection of separation from Canada. But when in July 1967 De Gaulle spoke in Montreal in favour of Quebec's independence, he had a diplomatic row erupt between Ottawa and Paris. Prime Minister Lester Pearson found himself in an awkward position, given the long-standing friendship between Canada and France that had now been strained by President Charles de Gaulle's statement.

On the fork of the political road, Canadians made a new choice in 1968 when Pierre Elliot Trudeau took charge as their new prime minister. The young Trudeau was instantly celebrated as a Kennedy-like figure in his country's politics, which was a reference to America's Kennedys. By the time Trudeau was elected, John Kennedy had been assassinated while Robert Kennedy was conducting his doomed presidential campaign. But that did not matter. Trudeau's charm, indeed his charisma, was regarded as a fresh beginning for his country. Trudeau's two terms in office in 1968-1979 and 1980-1984 (between these two stints he served as leader of the opposition) were marked by a sense of dynamism in Canadian politics. Relations with the United States, initially with the Johnson administration and then with the administration of Richard Nixon, elected president in November 1968, continued to be based on good trade and mutual respect. He repaired Ottawa's ties with Paris, where De Gaulle yet held power but would quit office in April 1969.

Trudeau, Canada's 15th prime minister, succumbed to cancer in 2000. His son Justin Trudeau assumed office as the country's 23rd prime minister in 2015. However, from 2019 till the announcement of his resignation earlier this year, the young Trudeau was forced, owing to unhappy electoral performance, to lead a minority government. Growing unpopularity created dissension in the government, along with a sharp decline in the Liberal Party's popularity. Justin Trudeau had little choice but to say farewell to power.

It will now be Mark Carney's Canada, assuming he first manages to keep the Liberals in office. The enthusiasm with which his party elected him to succeed Trudeau --- he was backed by 85 per cent of the party membership --- ought to translate into a nationwide victory at the general election. Canada needs a robust response to Trump's America and clearly at this point the man to do that job is Carney. In the precarious conditions thrown up by Washington's reversal of policy on Ukraine, Carney will be called upon to lead an assertive Canada in such areas as NATO in order to strengthen its defence structure. Carney will also be expected to reorder priorities in ties with India, given that the presence of Khalistani rebels in Canada have lately contributed to a deterioration in ties between Ottawa and Delhi.

An assertive, confident and intellectually agile Mark Carney will be a powerful check on the chaos emanating in these times from the Trump-Vance team in Washington.

ahsan.syedbadrul@gmail.com