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Liberal Party of Canada Leadership

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Given the young Trudeau's heated ridicule on those 'who spun stories' like that of his own future Privy Council which will surely spin stories to cover up for his mother's deep attachment to the communist terrorist Fidell Castro when he becomes PrimeMinister is a already a sign  of compromised spies and cops based on the fact that one will wonder what story will he spin if asked about his mother's attachment to communist Cuba. Everybody abhorred the Soviet Union, why not Cuba? While Harper bears the brunt of his defense of literal democratic capitalism, the young Trudeau chose them to be a non-issue just like other liberals when tagged by Harper as 'socialists". Young fellow is still not yet PrimeMinister and now his pangs are showing. My 2 cent opinion and with due respect. :salute:
 
Whew! That was close...I thought the Mods were going to have to invoke Godwin's Law.
 
Oh...please meds....hurry up and come.......
 
Here's another one on the young Trudeau. Remember when he had a rigged boxing match with his "fellow Conservative"? He was taunting me for my "alleged cowardice" for not accepting a challenge to a fistfight made by a South Korean CSE colleague in front of an alleged Cuban spy. I did not accept the challenge because I was really an "a**h*** in the workplace.If I accepted the challenge only I wouuld be fired. I deliberately made myself one by way of dumping workload on him to push South Korean guy to the 'extreme Left' to 'gather info on suspected Russian, Cuban, Chinese and French moles in the workplace. Korean guy misrepresented himself to be a "North Korean spy". It was a show. Besides it was Harper who campaigned for non-violence in the workplace. It was also tantamount to 'challenging someone to a duel' given that Korean guy knows taekwondo and I practice jiu-jitsu. We should had either broke each others' arms or had killed each other. So the young Trudeau can be indirectly liable for violence in the workplace and directly liable for challenging someone to a duel, a crime punishable by 5-7 years under the Criminal Code of Canada.
 
You really are an idiot.
 
How do you know? After taking up a battery of tests, I was really diagnosed by my psychiatrist to be an idiot. You must be omniscient.
 
busconductor said:
How do you know? After taking up a battery of tests, I was really diagnosed by my psychiatrist to be an idiot. You must be omniscient.

No.  We just know a little more of which you talk about than you do.  You are taking tidbits of openly known facts and claiming to have knowledge of that which you do not.  You are a delusional fraud.  Please go away, or we will have the manager of that bookstore throw you out.




Chapters - Square One
189 Rathburn Road West,
Mississauga, Ontario
L5B 4C1
Canada
 
The site rules state:
• You will not troll the boards or feed the trolls. A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages.1


It's obvious that busconductor cannot be salvaged nor will he contribute anything of value; he's an admin burden. Ban him and be done with it.



[size=8pt]1.  Mike Bobbitt, Conduct Guidelines.
 
Journeyman said:
The site rules state:
• You will not troll the boards or feed the trolls. A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages.1


It's obvious that busconductor cannot be salvaged nor will he contribute anything of value; he's an admin burden. Ban him and be done with it.



[size=8pt]1.  Mike Bobbitt, Conduct Guidelines.

:goodpost:
 
There is a fairly long and chart filled article at ThreeHundredEight.com that suggests that Justin Trudeau is well ahead in the polls but that the shine might be wearing off.

The key charts are:

Findlay.PNG


Garneau.PNG


Trudeau.PNG


So, despite the obviously high risks in running a lightweight celebrity, the potential rewards tell the Liberals to go with M. Trudeau because:

Leader+Seats.PNG


In a 338 seat House of Commons the current polls suggest the Conservative get a majority against Ms Hall Findlay, a very strong minority against M. Garneau and a weak minority against M Trudeau. My guess is that, after the fact of massive advertising, the results in 2015 are more likely to be: a strong Conservative majority against Ms Hall Findlay (say 180+ seats), a modest Conservative majority against M. Garneau, but with the NDP remaining in opposition in both cases, and a weak Conservative majority (say 170+ seats) against M. Trudeau but, in that case, the Liberals displacing the NDP as the official opposition party. 
 
A critique of Marc Garneau's policy planks as presumptive leader of the LPC. To tell the truth, there is very little here that is different from previous Liberal ideas. The Who nailed it pretty well: "meet the new boss - same as the old boss"

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/12/12/william-watson-liberal-weightlessness/

William Watson: Liberal weightlessness

William Watson | Dec 12, 2012 7:32 PM ET | Last Updated: Dec 12, 2012 7:34 PM ET
More from William Watson

Marc Garneau claims to be pro-market, but his policies are not

Forgive a poor columnist. When an astronaut runs for prime minister it’s impossible not to make references to spinning, gravity, weightlessness and the like. Marc Garneau, who is running for Liberal leader, which is a light year or two farther from 24 Sussex than it used to be, was the country’s first astronaut. You’d think this alone would give him ample, er, star power, but in fact real-life astronauts tend to be the understated, unflappable, team-focused sort whose heart rate rates rise, oh, maybe two or three beats a minute when things threaten, literally, to blow up. When the mission is to speed up voters’ heartbeats, these heroes are (I’m sorry) lost in space compared with former prime ministers’ sons.

Making a virtue of necessity, Mr. Garneau aims to be the candidate of gravitas rather than excitement, arguing in effect that in manning its highest office, a country is better served by a safe pair of hands than a pop star. That it’s the same argument offered by Stephen Harper, another purveyor of competence over charisma, doesn’t mean it won’t work. Come the next election, voters may decide they prefer new safe hands to old.

Related
John Ivison: As the Conservatives gallop to the centre, Marc Garneau stakes out the right
Unfortunately, gravitas in the Liberal party is a little like gravity on the Moon, i.e., a few newtons short of Earth strength.

Mr. Garneau did gain praise with his plan to open up telecommunications to foreign competition. CRTC directives are never going improve service or bring rates down. What’s needed is an American, European or Asian giant or two jumping in to force efficiencies. If instead we keep the market small and cosy, prices will stay high and service mediocre.

And yet, strangely, a Garneau telecom policy would exempt broadcasting. His version of telecom’s future still envisions a CBC and a continuing alphabet soup of video and broadcast funds. Mr. Garneau was eloquent, if brief, in explaining his new, more open policy on the technology side. Maybe as the leadership campaign proceeds he could explain why openness and competition aren’t virtues on the broadcast side, too. The consumer is his focus at the hardware end of telecom. Anything that honours consumer choice is the Garneau policy. So why isn’t that also the policy on the software side? Why can’t Canadians be trusted to make their own choices in their own ways about what content they want to see, just as wisely and carefully as they choose which carrier will bring them that content? Indeed, how does it make sense to let them choose one but not the other?

Could Mr. Garneau also expand on what he would do if a strategy of openness on the hardware side didn’t in the end leave room for Canadian operators. Would he be content to see the industry run, subject to Canadian regulation of course, by foreigners? If you truly trust market processes, you don’t really care who moves the bytes. How does Mr. Garneau feel? If Canadian consumers did decide no Canadian firm deserved to survive, would Mr. Garneau be happy with that or would he not preserve some portion of the market for the halt and the lame, in former Liberal Finance Minister Donald Macdonald’s phrase for the ages?

As for the rest of Mr. Garneau’s platform, some say it is so pro-market it outflanks the Harper Conservatives on the right. Now, the Conservatives have moved so assiduously to the centre that outflanking them on the right isn’t nearly as hard as it used to be, but just how market-oriented is Mr. Garneau?

As he described them to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto Wednesday, the policy innovations Mr. Garneau proposes are to: get our venture capital system onto a sustainable glide path by removing capital gains tax on startups and providing tax benefits for those other denizens of the heavens, “angel investors;” cut taxes for small and medium-sized (but for some reason not big) businesses that train workers (because the $300 a year difference between what our firms spend on training and what U.S firms do is a major determinant of our 20% productivity deficit with the Americans); integrate new Canadians into the work force; and use tax breaks to subsidize the hiring of young Canadians, “who are our future.”

How exactly are these innovative and right-wing? We already have multiple tax gimmicks for startups and training and have had for a long time. Integrating new Canadians into the work force must be the job of at least two dozen ministries across the country. Outright subsidies for hiring young Canadians have been a summer staple of governments for decades. Making summer last all year long is innovative in a way but hardly “transformative.”

In essence, the policies Mr. Garneau proposes are “if-then” tax cuts: If businesses do something government believes is good for economic growth, then businesses get tax cuts. So long as they spend their money in government-approved ways, they get to keep it. That’s not market-oriented! Market-oriented is when governments keep taxes low and let businesses and consumers meeting in, yes, markets decide how the economy evolves.

Mr. Garneau stresses that, unlike the Tories, his policies will be “science-based.” That gives Liberals a clear choice, for Justin Trudeau says only that his policies will be “fact-based.” But what does “fact-” or “science-” based mean? Another Garneau proposal is for a federal “children’s commissioner,” even though every province and territory already has a children’s commissioner. Without one at the federal level too, it seems, we can’t be sure the interests of all children will be sufficiently represented. (MPs and bureaucrats who are parents evidently use up all their wisdom and concern on their own children.)

Do either facts or science establish that yet another official in this area will make any children better off (not counting, that is, the children of adults who will make excellent salaries working for a federal children’s commission)? Or is this yet another instance of the time-dishonoured tradition of sentiment-based policy? To assuage people’s guilt, distress or sorrow about various scandals, tragedies or social problems, we establish a bureaucracy officially dedicated to them. “We announce, we budget, we spend, therefore we care. We are Liberals.”

Sitting atop a controlled explosion and rocketing into space takes courage columnists can only marvel at. So far, however, Mr. Garneau’s policy recommendations have not required courage. Deregulating telecoms is an easy promise (unless you pine for a seat on the board of Bell or Rogers). Big telecom companies rank with banks and pedophiles in terms of populist loathing.

By contrast, a market-oriented proposal that’s really hard to make is Martha Hall Findlay’s idea of doing away with supply management. That pits her against several thousand dairy and poultry farmers who, thanks to their lobbyists and publicists, have an excellent reputation with Canadians. If and when Mr. Garneau joins her out there in middle space, with asteroids zipping by dangerously, then maybe conservatives will be impressed.

Financial Post
 
"But what does “fact-” or “science-” based mean?"

Euphemisms for "whatever we feel/think is right".  Most politicians and media people can no longer distinguish between "fact" and "interpretation", and thinks social studies are "science".
 
This article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, illustrates how divided the Liberal Party Of Canada remains - M. Trudeau is not the first choice of many Liberal insiders/power brokers:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/how-the-liberal-party-lost-mark-carney/article6414626/?cmpid=rss1
How the Liberal Party lost Mark Carney

DANIEL LEBLANC, STEVEN CHASE AND JANE TABER
OTTAWA and HALIFAX — The Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Dec. 15 2012

Mark Carney was cast as the perfect alternative to Justin Trudeau by a tight network of Liberals who pulled out all the stops last summer to attract the Bank of Canada governor into the Liberal leadership race.

Mr. Carney was responsive to the efforts, and his actions over the summer – taking phone calls, asking questions about the race, staying over at a senior Liberal MP’s house during a week-long family holiday in Nova Scotia – fueled speculation about his candidacy.

By September, Liberal officials were trying to put together a team of organizers and supporters, and mapping out Mr. Carney’s road to victory at next year’s Liberal convention.

Now, as Canadians digest the fact their central banker has been lured to London to become Governor of the Bank of England, The Globe and Mail has pieced together details of an alternative courtship of Mr. Carney by the Liberals. Dozens of interviews over the past few weeks provide clearer evidence of the effort to convince the man who’s been called the “outstanding central banker of his generation” that he had a shot at winning the Prime Minister’s Office.

Speaking to The Globe this week, Mr. Carney refused to go into details about the conversations, or explain why he didn’t immediately shut down the campaign as a non-partisan public servant working under a Conservative government.

He insisted, however, that he never actively sought the job or reached out to Liberals.

“I never made an outgoing phone call,” Mr. Carney said. “I never encouraged anybody to do anything.”

Mr. Carney tried to put an end to the speculation about a Liberal bid through Bank of Canada officials in late September. Then, in October, he went public in a more overt effort to kill the story, heaping scorn during a news conference on media questions about him entering politics.

“Why don’t I become a circus clown?” he told reporters in Nanaimo, B.C., on Oct. 15. “I have gainful employment and I intend to continue it.”

Six weeks later, however, Mr. Carney again gathered in front of journalists to reveal he was indeed switching jobs – but heading to London instead of the House of Commons’ opposition benches.

For Liberals seeking a socially progressive, fiscally conservative candidate to replace interim leader Bob Rae, though, Mr. Carney was an obvious choice.

The central banker’s pedigree and background closely matched the search criteria of more conservative-minded Liberal Party members – sometimes referred to as “Blue Liberals” – who had supported Paul Martin and had doubts about Mr. Trudeau’s ability to lead the party back to power.

One of Mr. Carney’s most prominent Liberal admirers was former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, now a Toronto banker who remains a political and business power broker in Canada. “Frank was a booster,” said one of the former premier’s circle of Liberal contacts.

However, the Liberal said, Mr. McKenna was not as involved in laying the groundwork for a Carney candidacy as Tim Murphy, a Toronto lawyer and former chief of staff for Prime Minister Paul Martin. The Liberal organizer said he was less confident about recruiting Mr. Carney this summer, putting the odds at the time at 25 per cent. “I was not as optimistic as Tim,” the Liberal said.

Still, the Liberal said the sense in party circles is that Mr. Carney has “Liberal DNA” and is ambitious enough to envision himself as being prime minister one day.

The Northwest Territories-born banker is bilingual, with unimpeachable economic bona fides and evidence of a social conscience that would appeal to Liberals. Many of the ties that exist to this day between Liberals and Mr. Carney date back to his time as a senior bureaucrat under the Martin government, including personal friendships that played a part in the courtship from Liberals last summer.

Speaking to The Globe, Mr. Carney said he had been previously approached by people from across the political spectrum about entering politics, and would not confirm any Liberal leanings.

“Certain people want things to happen … the political world, it seems to me, is a world for optimists. I’m in a world that’s a world for realists.”

He declined to divulge what he told Liberals who contacted him last summer. “This isn’t True Confessions,” he said.

In fact, much of the organizational work on behalf of Mr. Carney was kept quiet, with some Liberal sources saying they were sworn to secrecy. Still, the effort was concerted. Liberal sources said Mr. Murphy made a number of phone calls over the summer to “get organizers and support around the country” for Mr. Carney.

“I got a call in the summer from Tim Murphy, who was at one point very convinced that he was going to run,” said a veteran Liberal organizer with a winning track record in the party.

A Liberal MP was also contacted by Mr. Murphy and urged to avoid offering his support to Mr. Trudeau before Mr. Carney made a final decision. “Timmy really didn’t say much other than to keep my powder dry. He was purposefully evasive with any details around any conversations that would have taken place.”

Liberal MP and former bank economist John McCallum spoke to the governor in mid-August. After addressing a controversy over the bank’s decision to remove a scientist of Asian origin from the original design of its $100 bill, Mr. McCallum said he raised the issue of the Liberal leadership with Mr. Carney.

“I chatted with him a little bit about it,” Mr. McCallum said. “He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no.”

Other Liberal organizers said Mr. Carney responded to inquiries by seeking clarification about the job, but also about what it would take to beat Mr. Trudeau at the convention next April. “He asked questions,” said a well-known party organizer who was tasked by Liberals with finding answers for Mr. Carney.

The pro-Carney Liberals discussed a strategy that would entail signing up a set number of members in every riding in the country, as the leadership rules give equal weighting to all 308 ridings. The sense was that Mr. Trudeau would have more support on the first ballot, but that Mr. Carney might be able to win more second-place support than Mr. Trudeau from the other leadership camps.

Liberals sensed that Mr. Carney was one of theirs, and that he could be sold to the party membership.

As governor, Mr. Carney startled more than a few central bank watchers in 2011 by sympathizing with the frustrations of the Occupy Wall Street movement. That same year, he told Reader’s Digest that he found Bay Street culture too materialistic for his liking.

Mr. Carney’s father, Bob Carney, ran as a Liberal Party candidate for Edmonton-South in the 1980 election.

Mr. Carney spent a part of the summer in the company of his Liberal boosters, expanding on the traditional duties of a Governor of the Bank of Canada with a surprising speech to the Canadian Auto Workers and a human-interest interview with a Nova Scotia Web publication that focuses on political and business news. The moves gave the impression that he was trying to gauge his ability to connect to a new audience.

The central banker and his family stayed for close to a week at Liberal finance critic Scott Brison’s Nova Scotia seaside home last summer, a visit that took place as members of the opposition party mounted the effort to recruit him.

Mr. Brison and his spouse own a house in the small community of Cheverie on the west coast of Nova Scotia. The modest two-storey house has a commanding view of Minas Basin, an inlet of the Bay of Fundy known for very high tides.

Mr. Carney, his wife and family stayed at Mr. Brison’s following a keynote speech the central banker delivered to a Nova Scotia gathering of East Coast business elites. It is an annual invitation-only event organized by Mr. McKenna at the luxury Fox Harb’r golf resort and spa.

Mr. Brison, one of the party members who’s been identified as expressing interest in seeing Mr. Carney helm the Liberal Party, declined to speak about hosting the central banker and his family – or what was discussed during the stayover. “Cheverie is our home and private space, not something I really discuss,” he wrote in an e-mailed response.

Mr. Carney declined to discuss his family’s stay with Mr. Brison, a politician he’s known since the central banker was a senior bureaucrat in the Finance Department and the Liberal was public works minister. “I’m not talking about my personal life when I’m on a private vacation; full stop. So I’m not going to entertain your question.”

While he was on his Nova Scotia holiday, however, the central banker found the time to sit down for an interview with longtime Brison aide and writer Dale Palmeter. The Q&A posted on allNovaScotia.com included a discussion about how Mr. Carney relieves stress by running at least five times a week, playing tennis with his wife and cross-country skiing.

The central banker went on to discuss the benefits of moderation in eating, saying he’d much rather give his children a small serving of full-fat yogurt than a larger serving of diet yogurt. He told Mr. Palmeter he thinks Reader’s Digest named him the “most trusted Canadian” in 2011 because “I call a spade a spade.”

In the interview, Mr. Carney said that his biggest concern in Canada was “income inequality,” a theme that Mr. Brison raised with Mr. Carney during parliamentary hearings at the finance committee of the House this year.

The Bank of Canada refused to answer any questions about the Carney family’s stayover at the Liberal finance critic’s Nova Scotia home.

The bank’s conflict of interest policy, however, says employees must avoid “the appearance of impropriety” as well “avoiding actual impropriety.” It advises central bank staff to ask themselves “does it feel right” when deciding whether to accept hospitality or gifts or other benefits – and to consider: “Is there an alternative action that would not pose an ethical conflict?”

By deciding to leave for England next year, Mr. Carney becomes the first Bank of Canada governor to bow out of the job early since 1961, when James Coyne quit over disagreements with Progressive Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker. The move to Britain was particularly surprising because Mr. Carney had publicly denied that he had any intention of leading the Bank of England. “I have my job … and I absolutely intend to fulfill that role,” Mr. Carney told CTV in August.

While Mr. Carney is quitting Canada for the Bank of England, a decision he called a “hard choice,” there is nothing to suggest he’s ruled out a political career in Canada down the road.

His term at the British central bank is five years, meaning that unless things change the Carney family will be back in Canada in 2018. Depending on the Liberal fortunes in the next federal election, expected by 2015, Mr. Carney could be in an even better position to contemplate a leadership bid.

One of the concerns among Liberals about Mr. Carney’s potential candidacy last summer was whether he could successfully jump into the world of politics from his non-partisan position at the Bank of Canada.

He would have had to leave his job before the end of his term, which would have irked those who wanted him to continue his stewardship of Canada’s financial system. But he would have also had to answer questions about his working relationship with the Conservative government at the same time as he had prepared his bid for the Liberal leadership.

Sources say Mr. Carney started to express similar doubt during the summer about the Liberal option, telling some that it would not be appropriate to go straight from the governorship into politics.

Another worry for Liberals was Mr. Carney’s lack of political experience. There is a history in Canada of smart and talented candidates who fail to get support at the ballot box. The last full-time Liberal leaders, Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, bombed despite impressive intellectual qualifications.

Over the summer, Mr. Carney voiced concern about the toll that politics takes. He told one colleague he was not willing to take on the brutal life of politics, at least not with a young family. But he was determined on one count – to continue a career in public service.

Mr. Murphy and Mr. McKenna, for their part, refused to answer questions about their efforts in favour of Mr. Carney’s candidacy.

Mr. Carney said that any talk of him being courted by Liberal officials needs to be taken “with a grain of salt.”

“People approached me as they approach others about these issues,” he said. “People approach you and say, ‘Shouldn’t you do X?’ or ‘Would you do X or would you do Y?’ and the question is whether you do it,” he said.

“I didn’t do it.”


I think we should take Mr. Carney at his word: people approached him but he declined to play along. The media will, however, now try to suggest that the Liberal courtship somehow or other makes it impossible for Mr. Carney to work with the Conservative government.

I'm happy to concede that Mr. Carney might well be a "Manley Liberal" but he might, just as easily, be a "Prentice Conservative."

But, the main point is: divisions, deep divisions remain in the Liberal Party. It appears to me that M. Trudeau is trying to position himself so as to earn the trust of the "Manley Liberals" but so are M. Garneau and Ms. Hall Findlay and they might push M. Trudeau back towards the 'left,' his father's socially and economically discredited 'left' which now belongs to Thomas Mulcair and the right wing of the NDP. Rock, meet hard place.
 
For me the key line in the article was this:

“Certain people want things to happen … the political world, it seems to me, is a world for optimists. I’m in a world that’s a world for realists.”

Looking at the current state of the Liberal party, I can't say I blame him. OTOH the article seems to put a lot of time and energy in attempting to paint him as a Liberal, even though I have not seen any public declarations by Mr Carney as to what, if any, political party he follows or belongs to. Situating the estimate could be quite embarrasing if he does choose to enter politics on his return from England.
 
I have to agree with the previous opinions. I've always sensed that Mr Carney was more blue than red. The contention that his father was Liberal ergo so is he is a patently false assumption: witness the Layton father/son. I'm not sure that now is the time for "blue liberals" to succeed. The current LPC is still far too red for the Manley group to make any meaningful headway.
 
Stephen Gordon in MacLean's weighs in in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from MacLean's:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/12/16/the-carney-affair-with-the-liberal-party-of-canada-it-will-all-end-in-tears/#.UM3N_BnGpjQ.twitter
The Carney affair with the Liberal Party of Canada: It will all end in tears.

by Stephen Gordon on Sunday, December 16, 2012

I – and presumably most people familiar with the recent history of monetary policy – read this article in Saturday’s Globe and Mail with mounting horror:

    Mark Carney was cast as the perfect alternative to Justin Trudeau by a tight network of Liberals who pulled out all the stops last summer to attract the Bank of Canada governor into the Liberal leadership race.

    Mr. Carney was responsive to the efforts, and his actions over the summer – taking phone calls, asking questions about the race, staying over at a senior Liberal MP’s house during a week-long family holiday in Nova Scotia – fueled speculation about his candidacy.

    By September, Liberal officials were trying to put together a team of organizers and supporters, and mapping out Mr. Carney’s road to victory at next year’s Liberal convention.


This isn’t just a bombshell; it’s a bunker-buster. As Mark Carney noted in his most recent speech, modern monetary policy depends crucially on making sure that people understand what is going on:

    [R]esearch and experience demonstrate that clear and open communications also enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy. In particular, successful monetary policy requires transparency around two aspects of the policy approach – what we are trying to achieve and how we go about achieving it.

This sort of transparency is almost impossible to achieve when monetary policy is set by politicians. This goes beyond the usual concern that since raising interest rates in never popular, monetary policy will always be too loose. There’s also the risk that even if the government does announce a shift to monetary tightening, people won’t believe that it will be carried out. And actually carrying out the monetary tightening doesn’t make the problem go away: an unexpected increase in interest rates is more disruptive than an expected increase.

It took twenty years and two recessions – both of which were more severe than the one we just had – before we were able to come up with a monetary policy framework that works well. The current practice in Canada is that the government provides the Bank of Canada an inflation target, and the Bank of Canada is free to exercise its discretion in how it meets its mandate. This is not full independence – the Minister of Finance has the legal authority to override the Bank in extreme circumstances – but it’s been enough so that when the Governor of the Bank of Canada speaks, people know that there are no unspoken partisan political considerations through which his message should be filtered. Explanations of how monetary policy is being conducted can be taken at face value, even if they are couched in cautious and nuanced language.

Or at least, that was the case before the Globe story broke. The second paragraph puts this hard-earned reputation for non-partisan professionalism into question. Unless Mark Carney can swiftly and convincingly demonstrate that he responded to those Liberals’ overtures with a quick and unequivocal refusal, we shouldn’t be surprised if non-Liberals start looking through his recent speeches through the corrosive, distorted lens of partisan politics. Was his speech to the Canadian Auto Workers simply a play for union support? Was his dismantlement of the Dutch Disease talking point simply a tactic to put the NDP off-balance? For me, these are hypothetical questions written with a sense of sickening dread; others will doubtlessly repeat them in earnest and with angry, partisan vigour.

But even in the best-case scenario in which Mark Carney’s conduct is blameless, we are still left with the prospect that not-insignificant elements in the Liberal Party of Canada were willing to risk one of the most crucial elements of our governance for partisan gain. If we are extremely lucky, this episode will be quickly forgotten. But if by taking a run at Mark Carney, these Liberals have initiated a never-ending cycle of speculation about the possible political ambitions of future Governors of the Bank of Canada, they will have weakened – perhaps fatally – the foundations of Canadian monetary policy.


I think I agree with most of this. I suppose one cannot blame the Liberals for trying to find a better leadership candidate than Coyne, Garneau, Hall Findlay, Murray, Trudeau etc but is it appropriate to approach an official who is already sitting in such a key post? It's been done before, of course: Lester B Pearson was recruited into the party while he was serving as a very senior public servant in External Affairs; Marcel Massé was recruited by the Liberals after he retired as Clerk of the Privy Council and amongst the many, many other examples we have Gen Andy McNaughton who was recruited into the Liberal Party (and into the cabinet) shortly after he resigned his overseas command, but the Governor, like the Clerk and a very few other appointments (the CDS?) ought to be "out of bounds" for political recruitment while they are in office.
 
This is mainly about Liberals, but the Cons are not blameless either. Anyone remember Hillier?
 
More, on the (unofficial) Liberal courtship of Governor Carney, in this item which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/mark-carney-and-the-liberals-need-to-clear-the-air/article6460101/
Mark Carney and the Liberals need to clear the air

MICHAEL BABAD
The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Dec. 17 2012

Certain members of the Liberal Party and the governor of the Bank of Canada need to account for their actions lest the revelations of The Globe and Mail fast become the Carney Affair.

I'm not, at this point, as outraged as other observers by the flirtations of the Liberals and Mark Carney, but I do believe they need to be aired publicly before the Bank of Canada is tainted, and with it the next governor of the Bank of England.

If it was harmless, let's hear it. If it wasn't, perhaps Mr. Carney should take his leave early and check out his new digs on Threadneedle Street.

But as the story is told, it well may not have been harmless, but rather a mess that tangles the Bank of Canada, the Liberals and Mr. Carney in a sticky wicket that raises issues about the impartiality of public servants and the quasi-independence of the central bank.

To recap, as reported by The Globe and Mail's Daniel Leblanc, Steven Chase and Jane Taber, Mr. Carney was courted by some members of the Liberal Party last summer as an alternative to Justin Trudeau as leader.

The effort was led by Toronto lawyer Tim Murphy, former Prime Minister Paul Martin's chief of staff.

Mr. Carney and his family also stayed for almost a week last summer at the Nova Scotia home of Liberal Scott Brison - oops, who happens to be the party's finance critic - though whatever relationship they may have apparently dates back to when the central bank chief was a bureaucrat and the politician was public works minister.

Mr. Carney stressed that he didn't prompt the Liberal effort, though he did discuss it, according to The Globe and Mail's sources.

At issue is the central bank's quasi-independence, which is sacrosanct and is a superb model in that it does not allow the government to play with the bank, nor an unaccountable governor to go rogue.

What reportedly played out, however, threatens to tarnish the church-and-state relationship of politics and monetary policy.

Monetary policy has certainly affected politics in the past, in terms of fallout.

Witness the 1993 rout of the Tories amid the terrible recession during John Crow's tenure, or, more importantly where this story is concerned, the majority win of Stephen Harper's Conservative under Mr. Carney's admirable stewardship of the economy during the financial crisis and subsequent slump.

But politics is not supposed to play a role in monetary policy, or be seen to be playing a role.

Hence, the little scandal that threatens to become something more.

Canadians need to know the full extent of what went on between Mr. Carney and the Liberals, and, for that matter, the extent of his relationship with Mr. Brison.

If there's a long-time great friendship there, what's to argue?

We also need to hear about his relationship and discussions with Liberal MP John McCallum, who said he did talk about it all with Mr. Carney, and who, as a former banking economist, cannot plead ignorance where the optics are concerned.

I can understand why the Liberals would want Mr. Carney, but this does not appear to have been particularly well thought out.

One is left to wonder how the country would have embraced him, having learned he'd been flirting with politics while conducting monetary policy.

I won't go as far as some others did this weekend in speculating on why he spoke to a Canadian Auto Workers union convention, or why he dashed the NDP's argument over Dutch Disease.

Mr. Carney is unlike his predecessors, and that's a good thing.

And I don't for a moment believe any Liberal has affected the course of monetary policy under the current governor.

But I do want to know what happened here. So should all Canadians.  Mr. Carney says we should take everything with "a grain of salt."

If that's the case, let's have it out and put it behind us. If this was the ill-conceived idea of one Liberal, let's hear that.

The governor is leaving and the Liberals are a spent force, but we still must protect the sterling reputation of the Bank of Canada, which Mr. Carney himself helped build.


If this does become the Carney Affair and if "the sterling reputation of the Bank of Canada" is tarnished then Tim Murphy and the other Liberal insiders have much for which to answer. This "star search" nonsense is not, of course, an exclusively Liberal pass time, as GAP correctly notes, but there need to be some limits, enforced by at least some sort of a "gentlemen's agreement."
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Stephen Gordon in MacLean's weighs in in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from MacLean's:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/12/16/the-carney-affair-with-the-liberal-party-of-canada-it-will-all-end-in-tears/#.UM3N_BnGpjQ.twitter

I think I agree with most of this. I suppose one cannot blame the Liberals for trying to find a better leadership candidate than Coyne, Garneau, Hall Findlay, Murray, Trudeau etc but is it appropriate to approach an official who is already sitting in such a key post? It's been done before, of course: Lester B Pearson was recruited into the party while he was serving as a very senior public servant in External Affairs; Marcel Massé was recruited by the Liberals after he retired as Clerk of the Privy Council and amongst the many, many other examples we have Gen Andy McNaughton who was recruited into the Liberal Party (and into the cabinet) shortly after he resigned his overseas command, but the Governor, like the Clerk and a very few other appointments (the CDS?) ought to be "out of bounds" for political recruitment while they are in office.


More on "L'affaire Carney," this time from the UK in an article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from The Guardian, which notes that the Bank of Canada has cleared Governor Carney of any conflict regarding his vacation visit with Scott Brison:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/17/mark-carney-cleared-conflict-interest?INTCMP=SRCH
Mark Carney, next Bank of England governor, cleared of conflict of interest
Bank of Canada says Carney, who will replace Mervyn King, did not breach rules over holiday stay with opposition leader

Phillip Inman and agencies
The Guardian, Monday 17 December 2012

The incoming governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has been cleared of a conflict of interest after the Canadian central banker holidayed at the home of an opposition party leader.

The Bank of Canada said Carney, who will take over from Sir Mervyn King next summer, was cleared of breaching rules despite a report that he stayed for a week in the home of a senior Liberal politician while the Canadian party was seeking to recruit him.

Carney's flirtation with party politics may ruffle feathers at the Bank of England, where officials are expected to stay out of politics to maintain their reputation for independence. According to reports in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Carney and his family stayed at the home of the Scott Brison in Nova Scotia during part of their summer holiday.

The Bank of Canada spokesman, Jeremy Harrison, said Carney and Brison had been personal friends for about a decade.

"The Bank of Canada's general counsel, who is responsible for enforcing the bank's conflict of interest policy, has assessed that this visit does not breach the bank's conflict of interest guidelines in any way," Harrison said in a statement.

"Neither the Bank of Canada nor Governor Carney have an actual or potential commercial or business relationship with Mr Brison.

"Mr Carney's acceptance of hospitality provided by a personal friend does not arise out of 'activities associated with official bank duties'. Nor can it be defined as partisan or political activity."

The Globe and Mail reported that Brison, along with other senior party members, had expressed interest in seeing Carney lead the Liberal party.

Carney was a surprise appointment last month when George Osborne said he had turned down applications from senior UK regulators and bank officials in favour of the Bank of Canada governor.

The chancellor said Carney was "the outstanding central banker of his generation" and "a person of real quality" who would serve at the Bank of England for five years from next July.

Little was known about his record other than he spent 13 years at investment bank Goldman Sachs before a meteoric rise at the central bank of his native Canada.

In public, Carney has repeatedly batted away questions about political ambitions, saying at a news conference in October: "Why don't I become a circus clown? I appreciate the great concern about my career but I have gainful employment and I intend to continue it."

But the latest revelations have led to criticisms from some commentators, who say there are risks that the central bank's impartiality could be called into question if officials are linked too closely to politics.

The bank's conflict of interest guidelines urge employees to avoid the appearance of impropriety in accepting hospitality or gifts.

"It does show a complete lack of judgment," said Mike Moffat, an economist at the Ivey school of business at the University of Western Ontario.

"The larger issue here is that Carney is being seen as the guy who can do no wrong," Moffat said. "For the most part, he's been a very strong governor. There's some point where you start to believe that anything you do is justified because you've been doing such a great job and that's where these sort of ethical lapses get in."


I'm inclined to agree that Carney's normally good judgement was "suspended" for a while ~ he should have informed Finance Minister Flaherty or, at least the Clerk of the PCO, when the courtship began and he should have told the Liberals that he was not interested until, at least, after he had left the BOC. The vacation with Brison is not, for me, a problem: Ottawa is a small town; Scott Brison is a rising star politician of a similar age to Carney and with an interest in finance; that he and the Carney family might have become (and remain) friends is not surprising.
 
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