On Sunday morning, prime minister Mark Carney released a ten-minute piece on his YouTube channel called “Forward Guidance,” because he’s still doing his central banker shtick, and it was a direct-to-camera (with three other cameras intercutting) discussion about the place we find ourselves in. Most of this was not new, repeating the same lines from past speeches including the one at Davos, while promising to never sugarcoat things—but he kind of did. I also have to question why this had to be over YouTube and not a speech in the House of Commons, which is why there is allotted time every day for ministers to make statements if they so choose. This could have been done there.
Carney pointed to a “statue” of Isaac Brock that Mike Myers gave him, but by statue he meant two-inch figurine, and that led him to launch into a whole War of 1812 narrative about the people who built this country, which, okay, sure, but you’re not doing much to show you’re not just the second coming of Stephen Harper. When he talked about the building of big things in the post-war period, this is again where things got a bit sugar-coated because there was still complexity to these old projects, and usually practices that would be unacceptable today for good reason. (I also noted that he mentioned universities being built in this period, without mention of the fact that provincial governments are in the process of dismantling our university systems). He also spoke about protecting social programmes (except for letting the funding of a bunch of groups who deliver services lapse), and he mentions pharmacare like it’s not limited to two types of drugs in a handful of provinces. And further sugar-coating was essentially by omission—the fact that so many Canadian businesses have become apathetic to growth or increasing productivity because they have taken the lesson that all they need to do is become rent-seekers.
Predictably, Pierre Poilievre decided he was going to have something to say about this, and that it was all just an illusion because nothing has actually been built yet (because you can build things overnight). He railed about Carney just enriching “well-connected elites,” but Poilievre’s whole scheme is to double down on trickle-down economics, which by definition enriches a small group of elites because the money does not, in fact, trickle down. Melissa Lantsman put out her own rebuttal that included the incredulous and false claim that the Liberals have cost the economy a trillion dollars in the past decade, which is completely fiscally illiterate, but that’s how the Conservatives roll.
Ukraine Dispatch
There was a massive overnight attack Saturday on Chernihiv which killed a sixteen-year-old boy, and wounded others. Ukraine is continuing its own drone strikes on Russian oil facilities in Samara, occupied Crimea, and the Baltic Sea.
Good reads:
- A recent report shows that employees at CSIS worry about reprisals if they disclose mental health issues on the job.
- Former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz assesses a thirty percent chance that we’ll fall into recession this year given the economic shocks facing us.
- Here is a deeper dive into what we know about the Alto high speed rail so far, including options for stops in Toronto, and issues along the route.
- Finnish president Alexander Stubb talks more about his working relationship with Trump, and why being the “Trump whisperer “is more about shouting.
- Former minister Catherine McKenna took aim at oil companies for being the only sector to increase emissions, while they spend on greenwashing over reductions.
- There are questions about Poilievre’s opposition to the high-speed rail project, given the popularity along the route and its economic potential.
- Avi Lewis fleshes out some of his proposals, like how his vision of publicly-owned grocery stores is to have them offer less choice.
- Two days after the purchase was announced, Doug Ford is backing down and selling his new private jet.
- Kevin Carmichael laments corporate Canada’s unwillingness to actually step up to meet the moment that we find ourselves in globally.
- Matt Gurney savagely mocks Doug Ford’s about-face on the private plane, and why it shows he’ll never actually stand up to the Americans on anything important.
- My weekend column wonders what has been the hold-up with the appointments Carney needs to make to the Senate, LGs, and soon the Governor General.
Odds and ends:
Doug Ford’s Government Apologizes For The Whole “Private Jet” Thingyoutu.be/OFr2TxX60lE
— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2026-04-19T18:05:38.419Z
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