Mark Carney snubs finance committee after CPC filibuster

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OTTAWA — Former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s possible appearance at the House of Commons finance committee was the subject of many hours of filibuster from Conservative MPs and much frustration from Liberal MPs for nearly a month.

And in the end, all parties agreed to extend an invitation for Carney to appear as a witness at the committee on Monday as part of its study on the budget.

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But Carney did not come.

Although he did not respond to email queries on his refusal to appear at committee, in a previous comment to the National Post, Carney said he was “not interested in playing games” on Canada’s economic future, including the opportunities to build clean growth.

“Canadians rightly expect our elected parliamentarians to produce solutions to Canada’s challenges, rather than performing political stunts or mindlessly repeating simplistic slogans,” he said.

While delay tactics are a common occurrence in committees, especially near the end of a session, this one was notable for the hours that were passed focusing on a man that the official opposition claims has political ambitions to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Conservatives first attempted to invite Carney to appear at the finance committee on April 30; the NDP and the Liberals called it a delay tactic to pass the fall economic statement. Ultimately, the NDP’s Don Davies moved to adjourn the debate.

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Davies said that he would be “interested in hearing” what Carney had to say but urged Conservative MPs to invite him in the context of a study, on inflation for instance.

On May 7, Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull, who had been recently appointed as parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance, tabled a scheduling motion to speed up the study of the budget implementation bill, sparking outrage.

Conservative MP Philip Lawrence said he was “disappointed” in this “heavy-handed motion,” while Bloc Québécois MP Gabriel Ste-Marie said the Liberals were rushing the work of the committee on the nearly 660-page budget bill.

“If we were to arrange for Mark Carney to come here, I think we would be able to move this motion forward,” said Conservative MP Adam Chambers.

His colleagues, Jasraj Singh Hallan and Marty Morantz, tabled amendments to the motion to extend the study of the budget and to hear from Carney for three hours.

“It’s… clear Mr. Carney wants to be the leader of the Liberal party. He is anything but a random Liberal. He is likely the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and I think Canadians deserve to hear what he thinks,” said Morantz at the time.

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In the weeks that followed, Conservative MPs took turns speculating about Carney’s political future, reading into the record an interview Carney gave to Liberal strategist David Herle’s podcast in 2021 or his recent testimony at a Senate committee meeting.

“I have not heard a single argument in these very painful hours that we’ve been in a filibuster that supports why we should bring a private citizen to this committee,” said Liberal MP Joanne Thompson.

On May 28, Turnbull withdrew his scheduling motion to present a new one that ensured the next three meetings would be dedicated to hearing witnesses on the budget bill and that Carney be invited as a witness for two hours. It was adopted unanimously.

The last meeting with witnesses was held on Monday, during which the committee heard from nearly 20 witnesses including representatives from the Centre for Future Work, Nature Canada, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and Unifor.

Absent from the list of witnesses was Carney. The clause-by-clause consideration of the budget bill starts on Tuesday.

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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