— Feature, Musings —03.22.2025 11:24 AM
My latest: Election 2025 SWOT!
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
SWOT, it’s called, in corporate strategy sessions. What are our internal strengths and weaknesses? What are the external opportunities and threats?
In the federal general election campaign that gets underway today, you can be certain that the three main Canadian political parties have already done a SWOT, or something approximating it. It’s the kind of analysis that determines ad buy, debate strategy, messages, you name it. It’s important.
Here, then, is the SWOT for the 2025 election campaign. Clip and save.
STRENGTHS: The Mark Carney Liberals are winning. Their main internal strength, to the surprise of many, is Mark Carney. He may have the pedigree of a bland, boring banker, but the newly-selected Liberal leader has turned all that into a strength: at a time when the despised-by-Canadians Donald Trump is causing instability and uncertainty everywhere, Carney projects calm and predictability. Female voters, in particular, like him.
Carney has also been willing to take political risks. Going for a skate with the Edmonton Oilers could have been a disaster, if Carney had slipped and fallen on his keister – à la Tory leader Robert Stanfield and the infamous football fumble. Carney didn’t, and he won an approving quote from team captain Conor “Jesus” McDavid.
Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, has strengths of his own. He’s got more candidates, more money, and more organizational muscle. He’s a highly disciplined politician, and has been getting himself ready for this moment for his entire life. With the exception of the Mango Mussolini and climate change, his priorities match those of most Canadians.
Jagmeet Singh? He, um, is good at TikTok.
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Warren,
The Liberals are coasting to victory according to at least a plurality of the polls. But here comes a couple of Buts: when you break down the regional numbers, you see a two-election scenario: Liberals are ahead in Ontario and Quebec while BC is solidly in the Conservative column.
The Liberals face the highest level of risk of blowing this election: to begin, going into an election with a non-politician who has zero retail politics skills is a risk that is greater than any of the others that the other parties face. All Carney has to do is blow it during an election event and Liberal momentum will at least freeze or start to reverse. The other risk the Liberals face is a guy called Poilièvre, an ONTARIO MP. Pierre knows Ontario far better than Carney does. So, he has a better chance of turning it around in Ontario than Carney has of holding that province. Put another way, if Pierre does not have the personal skills to reverse the current polling trend in that province, then we are done as dinner in the election. I think he can draw from within and pull it off if he is politically sophisticated and not glued to a specific political agenda on a host of issues that are important to Ontarians.
The Liberal lead going in and could win. But the Conservatives are far from finished nationally or in that province.
I’m still waiting for Pierre to get the Forbes report on Carney’s personal wealth. That will give us added momentum and we will get even more if Pierre fully discloses his personal finances. In short, political transparency by the CPC while the LPC tries to hide Carney’s wealth.
The complete and full disclosure of Pierre’s net worth would actually be a good idea.
Trudeau escape black face, groping, elbowing a women, scandal and more scandal. Though he coasted due to his name will the liberal voter be as forgiving if Carney has some skeletons in his closet or will it depend on how bleached the bones are.
Ronald,
I am suspicious of the Conservatives.
They’ve been far too calm and disciplined for a party that has found a way to blow a 3-inch putt.
Day One will provide a glimpse of how they’re going to prosecute the Liberals.
If they don’t go Shock + Awe early, it’ll be a Carney romp.
Which I still fear will happen.
Douglas,
Agreed. Carney has a theoretical edge but running in Nepean may be the first step in setting up a national train wreck. Wonder how popular Arya was in his riding and are people prepared to vote CPC just to screw Carney in the riding? I hope so.
Warren,
The Boots Not Suits thing is a fine piece of political strategy. I like one hell of a lot more where we’re going strategically speaking than was the case during the past weeks or months. Hope this strategic shift continues without making a major mistake.
I actually watched Carney droning on and on after meeting with the premiers yesterday. There is actually something to be said for three word slogans sometimes. He pulled something from their greatest hits. Deferral of instalments. From Paul Martin’s 2001 budget.
“The budget proposes that small businesses be able to defer for six months payments of their corporate income tax instalments for the months of January, February and March 2002, without payment of interest or the assessment of penalties. This deferral will provide an interest-free cash flow benefit to small companies for a six-month period. All corporations with taxable capital that does not exceed $15 million will qualify for this deferral.”
I got a message to Martin through Jane Stewart that it was a pain in the ass and peanuts. His defence was that the head of the Chamber liked it.
I am not sure how the NDP voters who are blindly shifting to Carney are supposed to get excited about a proposal that allows profitable companies to borrow money from said voters in order to help their cash flow.
It’s a two way race. NDP voters have a serious disdain for Poilievre, like so many do. It’s not just that he’s not their cup of tea – they despise Poilievre so they’ll vote Liberal to stop him – I’ve heard from a lot of people who vote NDP that they’re switching to Carney to stop Poilievre.
Curious,
We’ll see. But watch what NDP-inclined women do. No question about it.
That installment deferral isn’t going to help companies that get crushed by the tariff battle. If they are getting crushed, they don’t have to pay instalments anyway. It is only going to help folks like me who won’t need it. That is more of the same wealth shift nonsense of the last 10 years. Thanks for helping to keep the party going Curious! The end result of the support of Carney by the NDP will be the end their say in the national conversation for at least 4 years all because of an irrational hatred of Pierre because you have been brainwashed into thinking he is in the pocket of the rich. Quite hilarious given all the billionaires supporting Pierre.
Carney might not be a professional politician, but he’s a far more serious person than Poilievre – I think that’s what Canadians are looking for.
I’m Tory sympathetic but I agree that in terms of perception, Polievre in this environment is hurting from that trollish persona that he’s copped for the last few years. The hard right likes rightp-wing trolls, pretty much nobody else does.
I hope the NDP and Green Party take some votes from the Liberals, and I hope Quebec tells Mr. Carney he needs better French.
There is an old saying about not changing horses in the middle of a stream. I think many Canadians are anxious right now, maybe too anxious to think about getting on a new horse.
Younger Canadians are anxious because of the Liberal government’s twin disasters on housing and immigration. Donald Trump has precisely nothing to do with that.
Older Canadians are anxious about Donald Trump, even though they have no reason to be since their generation will be protected.
Older Canadians are using Trump as an excuse to keep the grift going.
It’s true that for a big swath of Canadians, Liberal is their default voting option and they often latch on to some excuse for doing so.
Lorne Gunter wrote a great article in think in the National Post explaining that many years ago, I wish I’d saved it. He nailed it.
Eastern Canada will get the govt they deserve. They kept Trudeau in power and they deserved the results. The question is are they all of a sudden ok with everything they were angry about or is it now all better. These Liberals are the exact same group. Having Carney at the head changed nothing. It’s all Trudeau’s people supporting him. The Liberals have been bad for the west but we can weather more of this crap better than the east. Try and choose wisely this time. Show the west that its Team Canada and not once again Team Eastern Canada.
A good start would have been for Carney to run where he was born but he is too much of a chicken shit to do that. And he kicked a guy out that was ok for the last three elections.
Martin,
Bingo!
Chandra Arya is against DEI, mass immigration and uncontrolled spending. Maybe he’s too far to the right for Mark Carney.
Liberals have just dropped there new slogan! Axe the Tax-Build the Homes- Fix the budget-Stop the Crime…….guess there is no more winning ideas to steal from the NDP so time to leach off the next party.
Brian Lilley posted yesterday on Twitter a video from a top Mark Carney advisor, Mark Wiseman, in which Mr. Wiseman states that Canada should eliminate immigration screening processes. If a business wants to hire a foreign worker, the govt should just give automatic approval without vetting, according to Mr. Wiseman.
This is the kind of thinking that’s guiding Carney. Expect immigration (both permanent and temporary foreign workers, as well as foreign students) to expand dramatically if Carney wins, after a brief scaling back under Marc Miller.
Wiseman, formerly of Blackrock and McKinsey. That’s so cute that the NDP is getting into bed with more investment bankers! They also run the largest bitcoin fund in the world. I thought we thought that bitcoin was some sort of shady investment.
Pierre’s profession is politics, and more precisely an attack dog in politics. He isn’t much of a leader. Carney is a leader first who entered politics after a great career in the private, and public sector. Voters are gonna choose a leader who can meet the moment, and that’s Carney.
How do you know he had a great career in the private sector? Do you know him personally? Goldman Sachs has a very inconvenient history.
Are you happy Brookfield moved it’s headquarters to New York, he kicked out Chandra Arya and he’s afraid of Donald Trump?
Apparently there are several Conservatives on record as pushing for a customs/currency union with the United States. As well, top Conservatives, including senior campaign staff Jenni Byrne has been pictured wearing MAGA hats. Given all this, the ultimate question is how can Canadian’s trust PP and the Conservatives to stand up to Trump? This is why PP is now trailing in the polls, and Carney has the advantage.
Mike,
Anyone who categorizes the overall party drift as being based on what Byrne does or doesn’t do, doesn’t know much about the CPC.
At least we’re not stuck with LyingAssCarneyTM.