In May 2006, a reporter asked then-finance minister Jim Flaherty about the new Conservative minority government’s poll numbers.
uncertain
reporter → ask → numbers
That same week, an Ipsos-Reid survey showed the Conservatives were up to 43 per cent support nationally.
asserted
Conservatives → show → support
“I think it’s a credit to Prime Minister Stephen Harper,” said Flaherty, “because Canadians are thirsty for a real leader.
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Canadians → think → leader
They don’t agree with everything he has done, but he is businesslike and gets it done.”
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it → agree → everything
A few weeks earlier, David Emerson, the minister for international trade, had called Harper a “hard-ass” — a term he regarded “as being a compliment.”
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he → call → Harper
He told reporters, “Stephen Harper is a hard-ass because he has views.
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he → tell → views
He has his principles.
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He → have → principles
He has vision.”
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He → have → vision
Harper’s election win in January had been as much as anything else a rejection of the messy, scandal-plagued final days of the Chrétien-Martin era.
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win → plague → era
Canadians were hungry for someone who could simply run things correctly — even if it meant being a bit of a jerk.
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it → run → jerk
Mark Carney is the apogee of Manager PM, with an abiding pragmatism directly derivative of corporate logic.
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Carney → abide → logic
And it’s working for now, but the lessons of the Harper years shouldn’t be ignored.
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lessons → work → years
Harper’s approach also fit the bill until it didn’t.
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it → fit → bill
Just over a year after Emerson had given his “compliment,” Canadians were starting to interpret it more negatively.
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Canadians → give → it
When Nanos Research asked in November 2007 what voters liked about Harper, 32 per cent responded “nothing.”
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cent → ask → nothing
He was no better than “the best of an imperfect group,” said pollster Nick Nanos.
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Nanos → say → group
It may not be the kind of thing Carney wants to hear, but this could be in his future.
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this → want → future
He is unlikely to lose much ground directly to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, but he still has to worry about Canadians.
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he → lose → Canadians
For better or worse, Canadians have struck the same deal they did in 2006, accepting Carney as a kind of “red Harper.”
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they → strike → Harper
As long-term public opinion tracking shows, Canadians haven’t totally abandoned core centrist values such as the climate and the need for public investment, but they have pivoted somewhat in key areas.
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they → show → areas
One is the economy, where they now demand more pointed execution — that, and protection from U.S. President Donald Trump.
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they → demand → Trump
But this approach to governance has a shelf life, as Harper demonstrated when his desire to remake the federal government in his own image put him in direct conflict with other institutions.
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desire → have → institutions
That helped turn the public’s perception: voters had respected his ability to get things done, but now they were recoiling at what suddenly felt like arrogance.
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what → help → arrogance
Carney’s not doing the exact same thing, but the Star’s recent reporting on his attempts to consolidate decision-making, disregard his cabinet and do end-runs around government departments certainly has the echo of the Harper years.
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reporting → do → years
The thing is, technocracy is effective so far as it makes very little contact with emotion.
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it → make → emotion
And that’s what’s fundamentally driving Carney’s popularity, whether the PM himself fully appreciates it or not.
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PM → ’ → it
Yes, his self-directed competence is a selling point, and it would be even if he weren’t being constantly juxtaposed with Trump.
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he → direct → Trump
But it’s also being propped up by raw nationalism — emotion, in other words.
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it → prop → words
Carney needs that raw positive emotional backing as much, or maybe more, than he needs anything else if he wants to fulfil his ambitious agenda — one that, frankly, puts Harper’s to shame.
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that → need → shame
But carrying the positive vibes gets harder the more you start to remind people of their bosses.
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you → carry → bosses
The top-down delivery, ignoring Canadian media — yeah, it all works for a bit.
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it → ignore → bit
Until it all starts to sound like a CFO describing quarterly results at the company town hall, and people tune out and open an angry TikTok.
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people → start → TikTok
There’s no denying that Carney’s currently out ahead.
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Carney → deny → ?
To borrow from another corner of the Carney-verse, you could say he’s up 4-1 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
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he → borrow → playoffs
But we all know how that can go, especially when you start to lose heart.
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you → know → heart
The PM has to protect his lead.
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PM → have → lead
He wants nothing short of national transformation — to push Canada to the kind of win it hasn’t seen in generations.
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it → want → generations
Maybe he can pull it off alone.
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he → pull → it
But chances are, he’ll need Canadians to be more than spectators if he wants to avoid turning a sure thing into a historic collapse.
asserted
he → need → collapse
The Aporia
