Carney easing into the job, and Canadians’ low expectations suggest they’re just fine with that

Opinion

It’s the honeymoon that is defying all the odds.

Six weeks or so after the federal election, Prime Minister Mark Carney continues to do a remarkable job of growing support for his government. National public opinion polls show Carney’s Liberal government gaining modestly in popularity even though, other than striking a new cabinet, jousting with U.S. President Donald Trump and gathering with Canada’s premiers to talk about strategic infrastructure, he hasn’t done that much.

In some cases, he’s done nothing at all.

The new prime minister, for example, has turned aside demands from inside and outside the House of Commons to table a budget before Parliament breaks for the summer at the end of this month. Among the biggest concerns about not having a budget is the fact that Carney would be making spending decisions without the direction of the House of Commons, a bad look for a minority government.

Those arguments have not swayed Carney, who became the Liberal leader in early March and almost immediately called a federal election. He has promised to introduce a new spending plan sometime this fall.

No matter. Carney’s decision to skip the budget has had zero negative impact on his popularity.

Nanos Research found that in early June, right as Carney was shunning demands for a budget, the Liberals had opened up a six-point lead over the Conservatives. That may not seem like a huge margin but when you consider how tight the April election was, it is statistically significant.

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s trend line is heading in the opposite direction.

In the same Nanos poll, Poilievre’s approval rating is hovering at about 28 per cent, a 12-point drop from the election. The fact that Poilievre lost his seat in the election but refused to resign as leader has, no doubt, contributed to his declining support.

It all adds up to a somewhat surprising scenario: Carney has not really done anything since getting elected, and yet his support is continuing to grow.

Abacus Data found that in early June, the Carney government had a 53-per-cent approval rating, up an astounding 30 points from the beginning of the year when former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still in charge. As well, Abacus found 38 per cent of Canadians believe the country is headed in the right direction, the highest level of optimism in government in three years.

What, you may ask, is the basis for our growing optimism? Inflation has moderated and interest rates have gone down slightly, but not because of anything the Carney government has done. And none of his biggest campaign pledges — most notably approving strategic national infrastructure and easing the housing crisis — have been even partly fulfilled.

Carney’s continuing honeymoon appears to be built on a series of external factors that have combined to create a safe port in an otherwise stormy political environment.

The biggest of these advantages is the simple fact that Carney is neither Trudeau nor Poilievre, two politicians that Canadians clearly did not want leading the country. Carney also continues to benefit from the fact that he has proven to be an able foe for the Trump administration’s volatile rants and irrational trade policies.

Carney is also, rather surprisingly, benefiting from historically low expectations.

A Nanos survey taken in the first few days of June found that 38 per cent of respondents do not expect the Carney government to deliver on major pledges, or solve big problems, before the end of the year. Although 17 per cent do think there should be measurable progress on big files by summer, an almost equal number (about 12 per cent) think tangible results won’t come until next year.

The final advantage that Carney is exploiting is that there are no other alternatives for voters to consider.

The Tories remain shackled to Poilievre’s desperate plan to remain as leader and await a byelection so he can be readmitted to the House of Commons. It’s a bad idea that poll results suggest is only getting worse in the eyes of voters.

The argument for keeping Poilievre was based on the fact that he received more votes and won more seats than the Tories had in the previous election. However, Poilievre’s supporters ignore the fact that he has always been significantly less popular than his party, which makes him less of a saviour and more of a millstone going forward.

And then there is the NDP, the only other party in the current political melodrama that has a theoretical hope of denting Carney’s Teflon surface. Lamentably, nobody seems to want the job of leading the party now that Jagmeet Singh has been dispatched to the political graveyard. Without a dynamic leader, it’s hard to imagine the NDP eating into anyone else’s support.

The stars have clearly aligned for the Carney government. He hasn’t had to do the tough work of drafting a budget and his principal political opponents are too disorganized to mount any serious threat of toppling the minority government and triggering a new election.

It won’t last forever. But right now, with nothing but political tailwinds pushing Carney forward, it feels like it just might.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca