The story behind the plot to replace the leader of a G7 nation and install Carney seems doomed to never be told
Canadian media don’t pursue UK report on Liberal leader’s decision, after a stroll with Tony Blair, to seize power
Now that an election has been called, we may never find out how Mark Carney and others plotted to take over leadership of the Liberal party and, through that, control of the country.
It is perplexing that no reporter has gone behind the curtain to find out who the players were who ousted Justin Trudeau and replaced him with Carney, who after a performative leadership vote, spent 10 days as prime minister and called an election yesterday (March 23.)
This is all the more puzzling because, according to a British report, Carney decided in October that it was time to make his move.
To recap. Trudeau’s polling as prime minister was dreadful throughout 2024 and he was facing increased pressure from within his caucus. According to news reports, Trudeau told his then Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, that, even though unelected, Carney would be replacing her. He offered her what he thought was a position that would lead the fight against US President Donald Trump and his desire to annex Canada by tariffing it into submission.
As we all know by now, Freeland - who was also deputy prime minister- was deeply hurt by being replaced, and, having fumed on it over the weekend, resigned Dec. 16 just hours before she was to deliver an economic update. Carney never did become finance minister and, a couple of weeks later, Trudeau announced he would be resigning.
But no one, in all the time since, has ever asked Carney whether he did or did not accept Trudeau’s offer to be his finance minister. Yes or no?
Nor has anyone asked if he and Freeland talked on the weekend before she quit. The pair of them, after all, were close enough for Carney to be godfather to one of Freeland’s children. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that she might have given him a call to confirm he had agreed to replace her. Hypothetically, he could have said yes, no or “yes, but only if you’re OK with it.”
Or, the two may never have spoken at all. We don’t know. And we don’t know because there’s no evidence to suggest anyone has asked, which seems extraordinary given that, one way or another, the story behind the ouster of a sitting prime minister and the installation of a chosen replacement is surely a ripping good yarn that everyone would want to read and about which the public has a right to know.
In Canada, however, it appears the nation’s leader can be subbed off without serious inquiry into who was involved and how.
Surely the nation’s newsrooms are not so naive as to believe this is all as simple as has been reported to date. Or could they possibly be too lazy to bother asking the questions required to confirm that it is indeed that uncomplicated?
All we know is that once Freeland quit, Carney was nowhere to be found until, four weeks later, he announced his leadership campaign and steamrolled the competition.
According to the UK-based The News Agents podcast - which involves reputable journalists formerly with the BBC - Carney decided after going for a walk with former UK prime minister Tony Blair in October that the time was nigh to seize leadership of the Liberal party and, with it, control of Canada. That decision was confirmed upon the election of Trump, according to Emily Maitlis, one of The News Agents, who sourced someone who shared a meal with Carney.
This poses an interesting question: if Carney had already decided to take Trudeau’s job, why was he discussing working as his finance minister?
Many scenarios are possible. He might have just thought that would be a reasonable move, assuming Trudeau would be departing in the months ahead. He could also have been orchestrating Trudeau’s takedown with others. It’s unlikely, after all, that his team was pulled together in just a couple of weeks. Or Trudeau may have been recruiting him as his successor, in which case the plot was against Freeland.
And what, if any, role does the Eurasia Group play in all this? Former Trudeau principal secretary Gerald Butts slid into a role there the year after he resigned during the SNC-Lavalin Affair. It also shows up on the resume of Carney’s wife, Diana Fox, and former CBC Power & Politics host Evan Solomon was working there (New York) until last week when he announced he was returning to Canada to run for a seat in a Carney government. (Solomon was fired by CBC for moonlighting selling art to subjects of his interviews. Carney, according to reports, was among them.)
I’m sure people would be curious to know more.
But they won’t. Even while the story would possibly be an award-winner with all the Machiavellian intrigue, heroes and villains needed to fill out the cast of a Shakespearian play or a tragic opera, it seems doomed to never be told.
Don’t forget to check out The Hub for my Full Press column tomorrow. During the election - the first in Canadian history in which media covering it have a direct financial stake in the outcome - I will only be monitoring media from here. Tell your friends to sign up. I’d like to expand the number of voices keeping an eye on media but we’re going to need a few more paid subscribers (it’s less than the cost of a beer or glass of wine) to make that happen. Please give it some thought.
(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald and a former vice chair of the CRTC)
Regardless of how Carney got to where he is, and anyone with a brain is raising eyebrows. There is just too much incestuousness between the Eurasia group and Liberal insiders and others forced out, that the play has been highly coordinated.
The bigger issue will be the lack of vigour covering him. So far, I am finding his affect and disposition in front of the media really poor. I’m actually quite surprised how weak he really is and it doesn’t take long for the mask to come off. He’s not charismatic and has zero authenticity. This matters right now a lot. This is a man used to getting his own way in a board room, not with voters. Going forward the Liberals will put the pedal to the floor on the emergency aspect, stoking a huge fear reaction, and keeping Carney far from the media. They are hoping the abbreviated election will outrun the inevitable realization Carney is hugely problematic as a candidate.
We are just out of the gate, the polls are akin to throwing dice at this stage.
Great questions. I'm told by an attendee of a launch of a restaurant in Toronto owned by liberal insiders, that the sea parts in the crowd when Butts showed up. Every who's who entered without anything more than casual notice. But Butt showed up and it was just shy of genuflection, nose to ground, and the sprinkling of rose petals.
My friend was told, "that's who runs the country. "
My friend had never seen anything like the control and obvious intimidation of Butts over the liberals.
That angle needs more exploration.
No questions about how two quasifamily members can be the top runners in the race. Karl Marx Carney is the God father to Freedland's son. Maybe it always was a charade.
Then why does no one ever touch the horrific swath of WEF through our Parliament, and whether the loyalty Singh showed to the liberals was an engineered loyalty of the wef. The goals of the wef make its way in our legislation (see also the list the oecd tracks of harmonizing all our draconian communist legislation)
Or the coincidence that now this gump also is a director of the wef.
How can he be the 2020 United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance;
2020 UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed Carney to the position of finance advisor for the UK presidency of the COP26 United Nations Climate Change conference in Glasgow;
And with that resume not face a barrage of skepticism that he won't continue to punish Canada with the climate radical objective of mandatory degrowth.
Meanwhile the data the whole thing is a scam (my undergraduate was environmental science. I don't say that lightly) never gets explored.
Only juno news as put forth that his daughter is transgender.
Then the oecd legislation list permits GOVERNANCE not government.
Through ai social credit and constant monitoring brocken into our carbon measurement. No media addresses this inversion of democracy, from a rights based existence into an access based existence with any curiosity whatsoever.
The whole thing is clinched together through CBDC. AS IN CENTRAL BANK. OH A CENTRAL BANKER.
DID HE DECLARE if he is still part of the Bank of International settlement. Did he effectively avoid stating his conflict of interests with an early election?
All we see moving at scale is part of ccp culture and how they govern their citizens. But no interest in the influence the ccp has on the liberals and the evidence of the blatant corruption there either, or how the legislation that passes fits with social credit.
He is a carbon copy of Trudeau on so many ideological points. But he is also part of a non happenstance project that utterly inverts our world. Media is the ultimate tits on a bull. Tell me their pronouns so i can accommodate.