Crisis man Carney had sailed into the Canadian political void as a caretaker PM, which marked his entry into politics from the world of federal banking in which he had dealt with the trickiest of issues post-2008 subprime crisis, the resultant market crash and then the pandemic
Politics can make the unlikeliest of heroes and one has emerged now across the border in Donald Trump’s illusory 51st state of the US of A — Canada. And Europe is already celebrating him as the anti-Trump who has risen in the US President’s neighbourhood and who is determined to oppose the tariffs and strike an independent course with the economy.
Mark Carney may have come in like a temporary relief worker in a Canada driven to disaffection by the survival politics of Justin Trudeau whose Liberal Party was said to be 20 points behind the Conservatives. The Opposition seemed all set to regain power after a third successive term for the Liberals which Trudeau had spoiled by cavorting with extremist elements in the New Democratic Party.
And then came Trump, spouting his territorial ambitions, truth or of the Truth Social variety, first threatening to take over “our land, our waters, our resources” as Carney put it, and then unleashing Canada-specific tariffs to stifle their exports and make them kneel to his Make America Great Again agenda.
Crisis man Carney had sailed into the Canadian political void as a caretaker PM, which marked his entry into politics from the world of federal banking in which he had dealt with the trickiest of issues post-2008 subprime crisis, the resultant market crash and then the pandemic. They looked upon him as a doomed-to-fail liberal out of his depths in politics when the implausible scenario unfurled of his being elected as the Prime Minister with his party just three short of a parliamentary majority.
As Carney’s victory was celebrated just a day before Trump danced to mark his first 100 days in office, there were many happy to join in, like the EU with its own grouse against Trump and looking to diversify to save itself from an economic dependence on exports to the US. And India will be more than pleased, if not suffused over with schadenfreude after the hasty exit of Trudeau and all the damage he had caused by naming India on the floor of Parliament as a nation which hires killers to carry out assassinations on foreign soil.
Carney will have a lot more on his plate than a complete reset of ties with India. He has a meeting with the adversarial Trump as a priority and a push for Canadian people who are undergoing a cost-of-living index crisis. Even so, he cannot go wrong in taking India ties back to a traditional friendship that stretches back a century and more.
The New Democratic Party that had played a political crutch to Trudeau has been trounced in the polls, along with its leader Jagmeet Singh, whose espousal of a ludicrous homeland for the Sikhs in India that finds no resonance in their own fertile land had caused the problem that led to an impasse in India-Canada ties.
Carney in the Prime Minister’s chair in Ottawa with a mandate from his people represents a significant and important change in the driving of global geopolitics that has been rent asunder by Trump’s on-off tariffs even if his territorial ambitions seem to be more television-type rhetoric of a reality star. The Canadian PM can fit into a vital role as one unwilling to be bullied by Trump’s USA and is prepared to act to prove he is made of sterner stuff.
