There were far fewer hugs than in 2015.
The 23rd prime minister was a hugger — possibly the huggiest in Canadian history. The 24th prefers a firm handshake, with his left hand on the other person’s elbow. Each of Mark Carney’s 23 ministers received some version of that greeting after they had sworn their oaths.
Carney is very apparently a different sort of person. In the limited space of his first day as prime minister — and with an election maybe just more than a week away — he could at least try to signal change.
“Canada’s new government is changing how we work so we can deliver better results faster to all Canadians,” Carney said. “We have new ministers with new ideas ready to respond to new threats and to seize new opportunities.”
There was no parade down the driveway of Rideau Hall and there were merely two dozen ministers to swear in — seven fewer than Justin Trudeau’s first cabinet in 2015 and 15 fewer than Trudeau’s last cabinet. Eighteen Liberal MPs who woke up as ministers on Friday morning were not included in the ministry that Carney recommended to the Governor General.
“Canada’s new government will be action-oriented, driven by a smaller but highly experienced team, made to meet the moment we are in,” Carney boasted.
Chrystia Freeland, the quintessential Trudeau Liberal who was deputy prime minister and finance minister before she quit spectacularly in December, is back in cabinet — but only as transport minister. Steven Guilbeault, the celebrated environmentalist who became the face of Trudeau’s climate agenda, is now the minister for heritage, restyled as “Canadian culture and identity” (perhaps to convey that such things are currently in need of protection).
The move to a smaller cabinet — if Carney sticks with it — could have ramifications for the way the government operates. And if this cabinet — or some version of it — actually gets a chance to truly govern after the next election, there will be more to discuss. But on Friday there were mostly surface-level details to debate.
Speaking to reporters, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh noted that the words “women,” “youth” and “diversity” do not appear in the job titles of any of Carney’s ministers — and the minister of labour is now the minister of “jobs.” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet questioned why “official languages” are not mentioned either.
Such changes might say something about the Carney government’s priorities — but that might only become clear when the Liberals release an election platform.
It will also be noted that Alberta, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island are without representation in cabinet. Such are the challenges of building a cabinet in a representative democracy.
Poilievre’s larger argument was that Carney’s arrival changes nothing. The Conservative leader has taken to emphasizing that the Liberals are running for a fourth term — sometimes holding up four fingers to accentuate the point.
“It’s the same Liberal gang with the same Liberal agenda, the same Liberal results and the same Liberal promise of the last 10 years,” Poilievre said in his response to the new cabinet.
With the stroke of a pen, the carbon tax is axed
But the most substantive point of disagreement on Day 1 of the Carney government concerned the carbon tax — one of the defining policies of Canada’s second Trudeau era and the target of so much Conservative criticism over the last three years.
Shortly after the swearing-in at Rideau Hall, Carney convened his ministers inside the cabinet room on Parliament Hill and signed an order to remove the federal fuel charge, the policy otherwise known as the consumer carbon tax. Television cameras were even invited into the meeting to witness the signing.
“We’ve already taken a big decision as this cabinet because this is a cabinet that’s focused on action,” Carney said.
With that, the federal cabinet effectively killed the carbon tax.
Prime Minister Mark Carney signed his first piece of government business, saying he is eliminating the consumer fuel charge immediately. Carney said that Canadians who have been receiving rebates will continue to get them until the end of April.
But speaking shortly before Carney affixed his signature to the order-in-council, Poilievre argued that it was all a bluff. Holding aloft a copy of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, Poilievre pointed out that the tax’s enabling legislation was still on the books. As a result, Poilievre suggested, a Carney government could simply bring the carbon tax back after the next election.
The act will indeed continue to exist unless or until Parliament repeals it. But the act doesn’t include just the consumer carbon tax — it also includes the carbon pricing system for industrial emissions. And it’s unclear whether any party believes the legislation should be repealed in its entirety. While Poilievre has criticized Carney’s stated intention to “improve and tighten” the system for industry, Poilievre himself has stopped short of saying that he would repeal the industrial price.
Carney may believe he has turned the page on a divisive issue. And Poilievre may insist that the spectre of the carbon tax still hangs over Canadians. But what really remains to be answered is the question of what each leader would do to reduce Canada’s emissions.
The new prime minister may soon return to Rideau Hall to launch an election campaign in which that will be one of many questions to debate.