The Pattern That Should Concern Canadians

What strikes me most isn't any single event — each can be individually rationalized. It's the cumulative direction of travel over a remarkably short period, and how each piece reinforces the others.

Start with the financial architecture. Carney holds carried interest in BGTF I that won't mature until 2032–2034. This isn't a passive stock holding you can dump into a blind trust and forget about. He designed the fund. He raised the capital. He knows exactly what's in it. He knows which policy levers affect its performance — clean energy credits, carbon capture subsidies, transition infrastructure, nuclear services. The ethics screen administrators don't even have the fund's investment list, and they serve at his pleasure. The structural conflict here is not a technicality. It is, as far as I can tell, genuinely unprecedented for a Canadian PM — not in having wealth, but in having performance-based compensation directly tied to policy areas the government is actively shaping.

Now layer on the policy machinery. The Building Canada Act gives cabinet the power to designate projects as "national interest" and effectively deem all regulatory approvals to have been made. Cabinet can then exempt those projects from environmental and other laws by regulation. The government refused to define "national interest" when Parliament asked. The Major Projects Office, which decides which projects get this treatment, is run by appointees chosen outside the normal competitive process. Bill C-15's Section 12 goes further — allowing ministers to exempt any entity from virtually any federal law for up to six years, with disclosure requirements weaker than standard regulatory practice.

Ask yourself a simple question: who benefits from a system where the government can selectively decide which companies must follow regulations and which don't? Even if you trust Carney's personal intentions completely, this is an architecture of discretionary favour. The companies that get MPO designation or Section 12 exemptions gain an enormous competitive advantage over those that don't. And the criteria for selection are deliberately vague.

The capital budgeting framework matters more than it seems. By splitting the budget into "operational" and "investment" categories, the government created a definitional shell game. The PBO found they overstated capital investment by $94 billion — nearly a third. This isn't a rounding error. The framework allows the government to claim fiscal discipline (balancing the "operational budget") while running massive deficits on "investment" — where "investment" is defined however the government chooses. Tax credits that flow to specific industries, subsidies to specific companies, and foregone revenue on specific sectors all get relabeled as "investment." This obscures accountability for spending in a way that benefits whoever the government is directing capital toward.

The appointments tell a story. Guzman (Goldman Sachs colleague) at the Defence Investment Agency. Farrell (energy sector CEO) at the MPO. Bailão at Build Canada Homes. The Trudeau-era open appointment process was apparently sidelined. Each individual may be qualified — probably is. But the pattern is one of a PM building a parallel executive structure staffed by people from his professional network, operating with significant autonomy and pay well above ministerial salaries, managing tens of billions in discretionary spending, outside traditional public service accountability. This is not how Westminster governments normally operate.

The floor-crossings are the accelerant. Three Conservative MPs in three months, converting a minority mandate into a near-majority without a single voter being consulted. Today's Jeneroux crossing is particularly notable because he originally said he was leaving politics entirely, then reversed course. The government has made no secret of wanting more. With three byelections pending in likely-safe Liberal ridings, Carney is on track for a functional majority built not from an electoral mandate but from post-election recruitment. Whether or not inducements were offered — and no one has proven they were — the democratic legitimacy question is real. Voters in those ridings chose Conservative representation. They are now represented by Liberals, with no recourse.

What Worries Me Specifically

The pattern I see isn't cartoon villainy or conspiracy. It's something more familiar and more insidious: the gradual normalization of discretionary power in the hands of people who believe they know best.

Carney is a genuinely accomplished person. He ran two central banks during a global financial crisis. He understands capital markets better than almost any politician alive. He probably does believe — sincerely — that he's the right person to navigate Canada through the Trump trade war, that speed matters more than process, that Bay Street expertise is what Ottawa needs, and that his Brookfield ties are manageable with the right screens.

But that's precisely the mindset that creates the greatest democratic risk. When you're convinced of the rightness of your mission, every guardrail looks like an obstacle. Environmental review slows down national projects? Give cabinet the power to deem them approved. Ethics rules are cumbersome? Set up a screen administered by your own staff. Parliament is obstructive? Build a majority through floor-crossings. The budget deficit looks bad? Redefine half of it as "investment."

Each step is defensible in isolation. The trade war is real. Canada does need infrastructure. Procurement is genuinely broken. But the cumulative effect is a concentration of discretionary power — over which projects get built, which companies get exempted from laws, which industries get subsidized, how spending is defined — in an executive branch led by someone with direct financial exposure to the outcomes of those very decisions.

What Would Change My Mind

I'd be less concerned if:

  • The government defined "national interest" with clear, binding criteria rather than leaving it to ministerial discretion.
  • Carney liquidated his Brookfield carried interest rather than placing it in a blind trust he can see through.
  • The ethics screen were administered by the Ethics Commissioner's office rather than by people who report to the PM.
  • Section 12 exemptions required Parliamentary approval rather than ministerial fiat.
  • Floor-crossing MPs were required to face byelections.
  • The capital budgeting framework used definitions set by an independent body, as the PBO recommended, rather than by the government itself.

The fact that the government has resisted every one of these straightforward accountability measures is, to me, the most telling signal. If the intentions are as benign as stated, stronger guardrails would cost nothing. The resistance to them suggests the discretion is the point.

Bottom Line

I don't think Canada is becoming Russia. I do think Canada is building a governance architecture where an unusually powerful executive, with unusually direct financial entanglements, has unusually broad discretionary authority to direct capital, exempt favoured entities from law, and define its own fiscal accountability — all while assembling a parliamentary majority that no electorate voted for. Whether that architecture gets used responsibly or not is a matter of trust in one person's character. Democratic systems are supposed to be designed so that question doesn't matter.

That's what concerns me. Not any single event. The architecture.