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Month: September 2025

Mark Carney faces a rare challenge for a Liberal PM: Selling a Conservative budget

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Let me give you a scenario. See if it sounds familiar.

After years of Liberal rule, a Conservative party is swept into office on the strength of a campaign promising to cut waste and invest more strategically.

Soon, that new government faces its first real test: the budget.

In the lead-up, they issue stern warnings that portend difficult decisions. Efficiencies are being sought. Deep cuts are in the offing.

Far from being a political vulnerability, this is treated as a coup — a return to fiscal sanity. And the signal is crystal clear: the grown-ups are back in charge, and the big red pen is coming out.

This, of course, is the standard script for many newly formed conservative governments, here at home and around the world.

And it might have been the story of Mark Carney — were it not for that one pesky, complicating detail: he doesn’t lead a new governing Conservative party. He leads the same Liberal one that presided over the overspending in the first place.

That legacy creates a profound communications challenge. Far from invigorating his base, Carney may well be forced to alienate key parts of it in the name of restoring fiscal order.

Layer on a shrinking economy and rising unemployment and you get quite the predicament.

But it’s precisely the nature of that predicament that makes the communications strategy surrounding this budget absolutely critical.

Political rollouts of this magnitude tend to follow a predictable choreography.

Step one: lay the foundation. Almost immediately after taking office, Carney directed his ministers to identify “ambitious savings,” with an overall target to cut operational spending by 7.5 per cent for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

Step two: set realistic expectations. Last Sunday, the Prime Minister announced that the deficit “will be bigger than it was last year.” (For the record, last year’s figure was an eye-watering $61.9 billion.)

Step three: apply a touch of budgetary finesse. On Tuesday, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told reporters that the government will draw a line between operational spending and capital investments (as is done in the UK). Translation: operational costs will be trimmed, investments in infrastructure, defence and housing will grow.

Final step: drive home a clear, concise political message.

That final part is still emerging. But I would argue the path is clear.

Because the communication around this budget doesn’t have to be defensive, or an act of tightrope walking.

On the contrary, it’s an opportunity to show Canadians that the Liberal party has turned the page from the Trudeau era. To demonstrate the progressive base holds zero sway. That the age of expansive social programming and limitless spending is dead and gone.

No apologies required.

Will some voices on the progressive flank howl in betrayal? Yes, they will.

But Mark Carney was not elected as the heir to Justin Trudeau’s political project. He won on a different promise entirely — one rooted in economic expertise and a credible plan to steer the country through global uncertainty.

That movement, his new tent, was never about the progressive base. It consisted in peeling away soft Conservative support and capitalizing on the fact that the NDP voters had no other choice to stop Poilievre.

That math hasn’t changed.

So, here’s my message to the Liberal strategists: It’s not a vulnerability to communicate about cutting waste. It is an asset. Lean into it.

To be clear, there will be a political penalty to be paid. Pockets of that progressive support will be infuriated.

But to be blunt, those voices don’t have a dog in the fight.

The Carney government will not — and cannot — deliver cuts with the same relish and ideological clarity as a Conservative government. But they can make a powerful case that the age of indulgence is over, and that every dollar spent must now be justified against the stark backdrop of global volatility and a domestic affordability crisis.

No matter what, Pierre Poilievre will say this budget overspends and underdelivers.

But if Mark Carney can demonstrate that the government is reining in waste and investing strategically, he doesn’t just rebut the opposition, he redefines the Liberals. He sends a reminder his is a new government not just in leadership, but substance.

And given where Liberals stood in the polls just one year ago, delivering that reminder and proving that transformation isn’t just worthwhile, it’s essential.

‘Generation screwed’: With the dismal youth employment numbers, Poilievre found a wide-open lane and pulled in

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Being leader of the opposition is a little like being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 401.

You’re boxed in. Options are limited. And any “creative” manoeuvres usually lead to pileups.

So when a lane opens up — a clear stretch of political laneway — you don’t ask questions. You step on the gas.

Pierre Poilievre did just that last week when he called upon the federal government to scrap the temporary foreign workers (TFW) program, claiming it had flooded the labour market, suppressed wages, and made it nearly impossible for young Canadians to find decent work.

It was part of a wider series of announcements and press events designed to reframe the conversation before Parliament returns on Sept. 15, and to drag the spotlight back to the cost-of-living pressure points facing everyday Canadians.

But buried in the announcement was a line worth paying attention to:

“Let’s be honest. Young people today form what I call ‘generation screwed.’ Let’s look at the situation … It’s the first generation that cannot afford a home in Canadian history. And now, the double gut punch, they have the worst employment number of any group of young people since the late 1990s.”

You can argue about who might be to blame for this state of affairs, or indeed the wisdom of axing this program.

But you cannot argue with the underlying facts. Nor their political potency.

The youth unemployment scandal that Poilievre referenced is not a niche concern. And we need to be absolutely clear about what it represents.

Young Canadians are graduating with more education, more debt, and fewer pathways.

They’re facing wage scarring: the long-term earnings damage caused by unemployment or entering the workforce during a downturn. It is dubbed “scarring” because the pain lingers, reshaping career trajectories, home ownership timelines, and family planning for years — sometimes decades.

It’s also a canary in the coal mine for the wider economy, as youth unemployment is often the first visible crack ahead of a broader economic recession.

“Screwed” might be putting it too gently. Because there is also AI.

Young Canadians are extremely digitally fluent. They know better than anyone how much of the white-collar job market is vulnerable to automation. They’ve already seen it. They’re not naive about the “future of work.” They’re anxious — justifiably so — that the future has no room for them.

As chancellor of OCAD University, I shake the hands of hundreds of graduates every year. And, I can tell you: this year was different.

The anxiety was palpable. Students weren’t just worried. Many felt disillusioned.

What we’re witnessing is the slow formation of a politically volatile cohort: highly educated, underemployed, underpaid, and increasingly impatient.

What does this mean for Poilievre and the Conservatives?

It means the generational lane is wide open.

In the last election, there is no question the Conservative party made tangible gains among this younger demographic.

There is a widely held perception, born out in exit polling, that the boomer generation drove the Liberal party’s resurgence, and the younger Canadians were more skeptical and leaned Conservative.

Specifically, young men. Advantage Poilievre.

But for Poilievre, the other half of that cohort — young women — it’s another story. Appeal to women has been a niggling, persistent problem for him.

So you can bet Anaida Poilievre, who has considerable political skill and — right on cue — has a book coming out, to take on an increasingly prominent role.

But the bottom line for Conservatives is this. If they get this right, they can fracture the generational vote in a way we haven’t seen in decades.

Because it is young, jobless Canadians who are feeling the economic downturn and poor job market conditions the most and who can speak loudest.

Critically, however, Poilievre must realize that the message is one thing. Waxing poetic about “generation screwed” is easy. Building a reactive, youth-focused comms machine that speaks in their language, reflects their anxieties, and channels their energy into votes — that’s the hard part.

But it’s also the most important.

Pierre Poilievre has found an open lane. Now he needs to build the right machine to seize it. Because young, jobless Canadians aren’t just watching — they’re waiting. And right now, they are up for grabs.