Post-Election Pulse: 2025 Briefing

Abstract: The discussion began with a deep dive into the rapid political shift that led to Mark Carney becoming Prime Minister of Canada, highlighting his ascension following the resignation of Justin Trudeau and the re-election of Donald Trump in the U.S. These events created a strategic opening for the Liberal Party to rebrand under Carney’s more centrist, business-friendly image. His policy platform emphasized national unity, infrastructure investment, environmental stewardship, and a middle-class tax cut—all framed in contrast to both his predecessor and political rivals. The U.S. tariff crisis and anti-Trump sentiment were pivotal in shaping the ballot box question, allowing Carney to galvanize support and portray himself as a stabilizing economic force.

Carney’s government is positioning itself as technocratic, decisive, and pragmatic, promising faster decision-making and closer collaboration with the business community. However, the panel noted potential growing pains, particularly in execution due to a transitional public service still being staffed and operational bottlenecks like delayed security clearances. Despite near-majority status, the Liberals are navigating a volatile minority Parliament, and Carney’s central banker background is expected to influence cautious, data-driven governance—particularly in fiscal policy, lending markets, and inflation control. Infrastructure and housing are prioritized, and some legacy Trudeau-era policies, like rate caps, may be revisited or reversed.

Looking ahead, policy watchers should expect a more respectful approach to the private sector and a methodical rollout of regulatory priorities such as open banking, though likely framed around consumer affordability more than small business benefits. Lobbyists were cautioned to begin engagement at the departmental level due to a high volume of interest in the new government. The panel also warned of continued partisan committee activity and evolving lobbying rules. Carney is not viewed as a political disruptor but rather a disciplined policy operator who will act decisively where consensus exists, aiming to leave a legacy grounded in stability, economic renewal, and national cohesion.

• Mark Carney Becomes Prime Minister following Justin Trudeau’s resignation and a shift in public sentiment driven by Trump’s re-election and trade tensions, positioning Carney as a centrist alternative.

• Liberal Comeback Fueled by New Leadership, with Carney distancing himself from Trudeau’s legacy by scrapping the consumer carbon tax and cancelling a proposed capital gains hike.

• Campaign Success Driven by U.S. Trade Anxiety, with the ballot box question framed around economic sovereignty, allowing Carney to capitalize where other parties, notably the NDP, could not.

• Core Mandate Focuses on Four Themes: uniting the country, securing Canada’s borders and values, environmental sustainability, and a massive infrastructure-focused “build” agenda.

• Business-Friendly Tone: Carney is expected to take a more collaborative approach with the private sector, emphasizing pragmatic, data-driven policymaking over ideological positioning.

• Execution Challenges Loom due to unfilled senior staff roles, delayed security clearances, and a learning curve around the machinery of government, potentially slowing early implementation.

• Infrastructure and Housing Are Top Spending Priorities, with potential changes to CMHC and renewed use of the Canada Infrastructure Bank to accelerate project delivery.

• Regulatory Reversals Possible, especially around the controversial rate cap, which is seen as distorting the market and now lacks key advocates like Chrystia Freeland.

• Open Banking Will Continue Progressing, though framed more around consumer affordability than small business benefit; the PM may rely heavily on institutions and civil service advice.

• Lobbying Will Surge, with new rules under consideration; associations are urged to engage strategically and start with departmental officials rather than ministers to gain traction.

 Check out the full VIDEO here.

Matt Barnes: There’s been a big shakeup in Ottawa. I’m sure most people in this room followed quite closely. We have a new government, but the same political party that said there’s likely to be some significant changes in approach which I think for many in this room will be a bit of a relief. But hopefully we’ll walk through some of Carney’s rise to power, Mark Carney’s rise to power, and what that signals for how they’re going to run the government. So to start, obviously people in Canada and around the world have noted how quickly Mark Carney came into power and the change in fortunes.

This will be obviously pretty familiar for most in this room, who wants watched the significant turnaround for the Federal Liberal Party. But this is just a graph showing some public opinion research over the course of the campaign and just seeing that red spike. Obviously the Liberal Party of Canada, the significant shift in fortunes which eventually returned the Liberals to power and mark Carney as Prime Minister. So there’s a few just understand Carney’s approach. It’s important to understand how this significant shift happened and the milestones that got us there. So we. One is obviously on November 5, 2024, President Trump was elected in the U.S. Significantly changing Canadian sentiment towards the federal government, especially looking at their alternatives in the Conservative Party and seeing similarities with the leader south of the border. 

And then in December, the big spike we see is the resignation of Justin Trudeau, which we’ll all remember, but. But significantly shifted the fortunes of the Federal Liberal Party. And then over the duration of both the leadership campaign for eventual Prime Minister Carney and the general election, the ongoing tariff dispute continued to contribute to what ultimately ended up being the core ballot question. So we’ve kind of broken it down into three main things that led to Carney’s victory. One is he was a new face. There was obviously, as I’m sure people in this room know, significant fatigue to the former Prime Minister, to his approach. And he did a lot of things early on to differentiate himself in a big way. That includes reversing the consumer carbon tax. 

It also includes canceling the proposed increase on capital gains, which signaled he was bringing a new approach. And I think if you put him and Trudeau side by side, and especially the way they speak and the way they come across, it’s very easy for Canadians to see it as a significant change in the approach. But of course, the biggest factor, which I’ll get to in a moment in some of our public opinion research, was the Trump factor. Without a doubt, they framed that as the ballot question as created by Trump. And Carney was able to lean into it in a way that the other federal parties were not, particularly the ndp, which saw a very significant collapse.

The reason we point that out is because I think a lot of people look at Prime Minister Carney and look at the Federal Liberal Party in its current form and think they’ll be a lot more centrist, a lot more friendly to business. But it’s important to note that the coalition that ultimately brought them to power includes large swaths of people who may normally view themselves as progressives. So important to understanding what exactly Carney’s gonna do is looking at the four things he ran on and I would say that they are very much committed to this. He’s very much personally committed to this vision. 

And as they put forward their initial policy planks or for people in this room who have asks of government, we’re emphasizing how important it is to align with what Mark Carney views as his mandate and the mandate of his government. So the first is to unite Canada. Now that obviously is bringing together the country during the crisis and is in response to the U.S. Tariffs. And we can see that today he’s meeting with the first ministers in Saskatchewan. He views this in his mandate. When he was first elected as prime minister he viewed it as particularly important and tried to show consensus very early on. But what that also means for folks in this room is he views himself as someone who can bring in the business community into government, bring in that expertise, bring in those perspectives.

So we’re likely, or at least their intention is to be much more collaborative with the business community than their predecessor may have been. Second, secure. I won’t spend too much time on that unless there’s folks working in the defense sector. But very much relates to securing our borders, reinvesting in defence, finding new allies abroad, protecting our Canadian values, whether that comes to culture, land and sea, our environment is another area of focus. But perhaps the most important I think is build. This is where two thirds of new spending in the platform is dedicated which is pretty unprecedented. If you look at previous platforms by liberal governments, they spent a lot less in this area. So it includes new tax credits, it includes new nation building projects, it includes a middle class tax cut. 

But it also includes a lot of things that may be relevant to this room and including a comprehensive, sorry, an expert tax review. Not a comprehensive tax review, but something that’s been called for a very long time. A review of the mortgage system and other collaborative efforts with business that they’ll inevitably be consultation opportunities on in the near future. Next. The other thing we like to look at in terms of figuring out where the government’s going is where public opinion is. They’re inevitably driven what the public is thinking. We saw this during the duration of the campaign. It’s why Mark Carney was able to be so successful. 

But if we’re saying that the ballot box question was Canada, US trade, it’s important to note it’s not the biggest question on Canadians mind which continues to be a major vulnerability for this liberal government which is going to be cost of living in and inflation. So although those four categories obviously they’d argue cover affordability and will make life more affordable. They’re going to consistently be reminding themselves of this key vulnerability. It was a vulnerability for their predecessor. That’s why the first piece of legislation is a middle class tax cut. So as organizations and businesses approach government, it’s going to be a continued reinforcing factor. But there’s a big divide across the political spectrum on that particular question. So this, by the way, I should have mentioned this, is research Navigator conducted coming out of the election. 

So it really is a pulse of like what is the election day read on where Canadians want the Liberal government and Mark Carney to focus. And that divide between Conservative voters, which were heavily focused on cost of living and inflation, and Liberal voters, which drove him to victory, and we’re focused on trade with the United States is going to continue to be a key vulnerability that the government’s going to need to address. And very briefly, before I turn it over to Alexis, just because I think this is super interesting and I’m sure most people in this room have seen the rise in patriotism and Canadian pride. So we’ve taken a look at what that’s meant for Canadian sentiment or on U.S. Businesses and how Canadians want their government to address the crisis. 

So when I said earlier that public opinion research is a really good way to know where the government is heading, I think this graph is a great illustrator of that because we’ve seen through the duration of the campaign and this particular poll was taken mid campaign, but his predecessor talked a lot about dollar for dollar retaliatory tariffs, responding in kind to what the United States put on us. But that slipped very quickly over time as Canadians realized the economic impact on their cost of living. So prioritizing new trade agreements with non US Countries rose to the top and was reflected very clearly in the way Mark Carney spoke during the duration of the campaign. And lastly, this is the interesting one just to illustrate how much trouble U.S. 

Businesses are in Canada or if you’re, if you have US Based operations, the level of trust in American businesses and comfort in American businesses in Canada has taken a complete nosedive. So you can see it’s much closer here, the level of comfort with American businesses to that of China than it is to our traditional trading partners like the UK and Japan. So obviously this is a moment in time. Sentiment shifts. This was taken at a time when the tariff war was certainly more heated, although over the last couple days it’s spiked up a little bit more again. So who knows. But certainly is a major vulnerability for businesses that have U.S. Operations or U.S. Businesses looking to navigate the trade environment. Turn it over to you, Alexis. 

Alexis Levine: Great. And just to give you a sense as to how dynamic this environment is, I mean, I think Matt and I are going to try and put on our prognosticating hats here and tell you a little bit about what you can expect. But by way of a little bit of context, we sat down on Friday to finalize this presentation. And today several of the things in the presentation have changed. So that’s a very dynamic decision making environment. Things are moving quickly. A couple of key factors. First of all, we have a central banker in chief as prime minister, a former central banker as prime Minister. Obviously there are direct impacts to that because he will have views as to how to handle the economy and the lending market and inflation that are very well informed and very nuanced.

But there’s a real indirect impact to that too, which is you will see decision makers are reluctant to impose their own policy views or their own positions on factors like inflation or lending markets or the regulatory environment because they know that the Prime Minister will have a specific and very well informed view. So that actually is a good opportunity for folks in the banking and lending space to urge some caution and some diligence and some care in the way these sorts of decisions get made. Not to cast any aspersions on any previous finance ministers, but certainly we’ve all seen in the last 10 years some decisions that got made without real careful thought about the knock on policy implications of that. And I think you’ll see more deference to the policy piece. 

The second thing I expect you’re going to see a fair lot of is renewal. The Prime Minister has signaled very clearly both internally and externally that his government is not an extension of the Trudeau government. This is Mark Carney’s government. And you will see a willingness to depart from policy positions that were passed, a willingness to depart from personnel that were in roles that were in pass, and a willingness to say, look, that issue that was created was not created by this government, it was created by the previous one. And I think that’s an important thing to understand. There is not just a political desire, but a policy willingness to create a separation between Mr. Trudeau’s government and Mr. Carney’s government. You should, you should expect real focus on data, not on headlines when making decisions. And that is a little bit new. 

Governments always at the end of their mandates move more towards headlines than they do toward long term data. Their incentives tend to be shorter term. I think you will see longer term decisions driven by data coming up. Flux is the third theory. And what I was gonna say is from the Chief of Staff on down, there many key roles remaining to be decided. But as of yesterday, now what I’ll say is other than the Chief of Staff on down, there are probably only a handful of people in this government who know for sure what they’re going to be doing. Outside of the cabinet ministers that have just been sworn in, you know, there’s at least one deputy Chief of Staff who’s clearly going to remain in that role. There is a Chief of Staff, there’s at least one report on the principal Secretary. 

And beyond that, a lot of ministers have not finalized their Chief of Staff. The Chief of Staffs have not done hiring in their offices. The political staff environment, there’s a lot of turnover coming and we could see lots of folks coming in from outside. We could see a return of some familiar faces. We will certainly see a lot of shuffling and churn that flux goes beyond just knowing who’s going to be sitting in what chair and what approach they’re going to be bringing, but it also means that because of all that change, some of the functions of government are going to slow down. So by way of example, you have about 500 to 800 staffers currently in Churn. That’s gonna create a lot of work at the Information Security Directorate, which means things like security clearances. 

If you’re looking to get those for your organization, expect an extra six weeks to eight weeks in that process just because of the number of new people coming into government who are gonna have to get security clearances. So we’re already seeing a real slowdown in security clearances. And I expect that to continue really through the summer as the government staffs up and brings on staff. It is probably September before we see a fully staffed government. And of course, the unique feature of this government is at 169 seats in a near majority, people are not really sure what they’re being hired for. Is this a two year mandate? Is this a four year mandate? It’s pretty easy in a four year mandate to recruit people. It’s typically quite difficult in a minority government to recruit experienced talent. 

And so there will be a bit of a iterative process here where ministers go out and try and recruit people from experienced people from other sectors to come in. And there will be a conversation about how real is this as a minority versus a majority? Because certainly with three seats, it’s very close to being a majority. Finally, this is a Prime Minister who brings a very decisive approach. You shouldn’t expect decisions to languish. I know we saw decisions that sat for a long time under the previous government and previous ministers. And in part that’s a feature of governments that get big and busy. But there’s generally no incentive on government to do something. The easiest decision for government to make. 

The lowest risk decision for government to make is to do nothing, is to decide we’re not going to take a risk because if we do something and it goes badly, we can get blamed for it. But if we do nothing, we can blame the last guys for it. And therefore the political incentive is often to do nothing. That is not this Prime Minister’s approach. This Prime Minister makes decisions. He’s hired a chief of staff who is known for making decisions. I do not expect as much kicking the can down the road, which frankly was a conscious strategy of the last government of saying, we’re not going to make this decision now, we’re going to wait. You will see less of that in this government and the smaller cabinet will also help in this regard. 

And the fact that there is a perceived economic crisis with what’s happening south of the border and the tariffs will also help. Decisions will get made quickly. You will see a very busy next few weeks in the House of Commons and quite a lot of activity going on. Let me just pause there for a second to see if we have any questions, concerns, expressions of outrage. Well, it’s a good question. Sorry. The question was there’s only eight sitting days. How busy is it going to be? I think the answer is there’s going to have to be some water put in the wine between the agenda and the number of sitting days and there may need to be an omnibus approach. Maybe I’ll just stop there on that front. 

But obviously the budget’s been pushed to the fall and we, you know, so you’re going to have to see interim supply get passed because they can’t issue special warrants. But beyond that critical piece of business to keep the lights on. I actually expect that you will. And we did have some interim supply. We’ve already had some interim supply, do we not? 

Matt Barnes: They’re debating public accounts, I think, or they voted on public accounts. I’d also say they’re kind of. There’s a bit of a. We were talking about this earlier. There’s a bit of a wake up call happening in that this is a government that has constantly projected them as a government that’s going to move quickly and with speed and then Here we are talking about key positions like Chief of Staff not being locked in until yesterday. And that exists for legislation too. I mean the procedural side of it is I know the government was very inclined to pass three pieces of legislation before the summer. They reiterated it consistently throughout the campaign. And, and then the Senate of course is saying, well, we’re not going to sit throughout the summer, so good luck. 

Alexis Levine: And let me just get crisper if I can on the supply business. So from early January, when the Prime Minister resigned on January 6, I think it was January 6, until March 27, the government could not issue special warrants because the House had not been dissolved. And you can’t issue special warrants during prorogation on March 26, which when Mr. Carney called the election, they were able to issue special warrants. That power ceased on May 27 at the throne speech. So they will need to keep the lights on past the interim supply. That’s a must do. And then I imagine there will be some omnibus measure it may relate to. Obviously priorities, tax cuts, infrastructure, tariff response are the things that you’re likely to see. So I’ve got a slide up now that talks about lending issues. 

What are the issues for this room that are likely to be top of mind? This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a couple of things that you should expect. First of all, housing continues to be a source of major concern. It feeds into affordability, it feeds into infrastructure and frankly was in the liberal platform and is a focus for governments at all levels. There has been a promise of new tools for housing, including direct investment. We will see exactly what that looks like. I don’t think the federal government is going to be hiring people to start actually digging holes in the ground and putting up housing. But I think you will see new tools for housing come online in the very near future and that could have a significant impact on mortgage environment, on multi housing investment, on the mortgage insurance environment. 

There’s lots of possibilities there, including possible changes to the structures of how things get done. You may see a change to CMHC’s role here where CMHC really does focus on assurance and the policy piece moves out of cmhc. But there’s an open question there as to what exactly is going to happen. I do expect you’ll see changes. The rate cap. The rate cap has been of great interest to the cla. The Prime Minister is going to have a view on rate caps that distort markets and what the impact of this rate cap in the first few months of the year has Been there is a study out there showing billions of dollars of GDP impact from the rating cap and GDP impact in the negative way. 

And for a government that’s trying to stimulate the Canadian economy through domestic activity and non American international activity, that will be low hanging fruit. The rate cap was really driven by Minister Freeland and her office, but in particular Minister Freeland herself, and she is no longer in that role. And so you may well see a change there. Infrastructure obviously is an absolute priority for this government. It’s at the very center of the government’s strategy. A heavy investment infrastructure is certainly going to be on the table. And what exactly that means, which, exactly which projects get prioritized and to what extent the Canada Infrastructure bank and other existing tools are at the center of that or we see new tools, I think remains to be seen. 

But I think what you’ll see is the CIB had a bit of a slow start, but they really have started to get their feet under them. Lots of projects starting to move and the government will likely want to use that existing proven structure as opposed to taking time to set up a new one. And so if I’m guessing, and I am, I think you’ll see the CIB as an important tool going forward on infrastructure because of the real heavy emphasis on infrastructure. Some of the obvious winners, if you’re in the lending market looking for people who are going to be needing capital to scale and to grow and who are going to be likely reliable debtors for the coming years, folks in the construction space and related industries are likely winners. 

I would also say there’s a pretty decent chance the folks in the defense infrastructure space would also fall into that likely winner category. I would venture to say you should expect a return to deficits in the short term. It’s very hard to fund infrastructure and create stimulus to the economy without a return to deficits. Obviously our Prime Minister will have a very specific view on that and I don’t purport to know his mind on it. But I think it’s hard certainly where I’m sitting to see how you fund the infrastructure that’s been promised and the housing that’s been promised without at least some return to stimulus spending. And then of course, everybody’s favorite chestnut, open banking, is going to continue to be a conversation. I think you will continue to see it moving forward, possibly being remarketed as a tool to address affordability issues. 

Because as Matt pointed out at the beginning, affordability is very much still in the window both for this government’s voters at 46%. And for the voters who supported the opposition at 62%, 61%. It began with a six. Okay, so lobbying considerations. Brand new government, lots of new ministers, a few familiar faces, lots of new staff, possibly deputy shuffle in the not too distant future. Lots of new civil servants. Everybody’s going to be rushing to talk to folks. One thing you should be aware of, for those of you who do talk to government, you’ll remember that there is a threshold. It’s called the significant part test. 20% of one employee’s time aggregated over the organization, including preparation time, over a four week period. 

But basically, if your organization is talking to the federal government more than 28 hours over a four week period in the aggregate, including prep time, you’ve got a registered lobby. Expect that test to change. We don’t know exactly how it’s going to change, but the lobbying commissioner has made no secret of the fact around Ottawa that she plans to revisit the lobbying threshold. And that means, I expect, that lots of people who used to be able to talk to the federal government without having to register will find that they now do need to register. Failure to register is a mandatory RCMP investigation of your CEO because the obligation is not on the company, it’s on your CEO. That tends to be an awkward conversation with your CEO. So I would caution you to make sure that you’re registering. 

We are in a minority parliament, which means that committees are going to continue to be a thing. And those of you who are watching committees over the last few years will know that committees have gone from being nice, polite, Canadian institutions of sober second thought to less polite, extremely partisan fundraising tools for opposition parties to embarrass the private sector and the government. That is unfortunately going to continue. We will continue to see the partisan use of committees as long as we have a minority Parliament. And so you should expect that some of your senior executives might get called the committee. That they will continue to be a tool to raise issues, but also frankly, to raise profile for the political members who are in those committees. 

I will make no secret, this is my editorial that I’m concerned about the way committees are being used. They have not been used the way they’re supposed to be used to actually study issues. They’ve been used to play political games. But unfortunately, I do think that’s going to continue. Matt and I have seen some examples of that in the last few years. Obviously, if you do get tapped to go to committee, this is an art, not a science. It is very different than testifying in court, I will strongly urge you to find someone knowledgeable to properly prep you for committee. It is a gladiatorial sport and one that requires a specialized set of skills to navigate well. But the punchline is the objective is to be as boring as possible and finding someone who can train you how to do that is helpful. 

You should expect a very high volume of new registrations and new lobbying contacts. Lots of people talking to government. Your competition is going to be talking to government, which will make you feel like you need to talk to government as well. But expect that there will be lots and lots of people knocking at the doors of the new chiefs of staff and the new minister saying, we really want to talk to you about X. And so getting truly critical issues to the top of the pile. So will require some skill. My caution there is it’s not always the smartest thing to do to start at the top of the House. 

If you knock on the door to a cabinet minister and they open the door and you walk in and you tell them your issue, the first question they’re going to ask is, well, what does my department say? And if your answer is, we haven’t talked to your department yet, it’s a really easy answer for the cabinet minister to say, great, I’m going to introduce you to my apartment. Check. I check the box of meeting with you. You, you may never see my face again, but it was a pleasure meeting with you. Go down to the department. You are much better to start off with the civil Service. Have them identify the issue as a priority, work their way up. This is a government that is going to give credence again to data to the views of their civil servants. 

Work your way up and then cash the jet of I’d like to talk to the minister. Don’t always start at the top. There is a lot of volume there and you will easily get sent back down. And finally, you will see, and Matt alluded to this earlier, a very different approach to Bay street and business. This is a Prime Minister who has a lot of respect for the business community, who has been a member of the business community, who likes working with people who understand how to get things done and understand how things really work and will value input from the business community. That doesn’t mean he’s going to favor the business community, but it does mean that there will be, throughout government, I think, a respect for the role of business in providing information. 

Too often we see people walking away from lobbying because it’s too difficult, because you need to register, because there’s public risk. And the end result is that government doesn’t always get the information they need to really understand the issue and make the best decision. And I think you’ll see a lot less of that and a lot more eagerness to make sure that the civil service is gathering intelligence to digest and provide advice and as opposed to providing a vise in a vacuum. And I think that’s an important development. So I’m going to pause there. We’ve left ourselves about 15 minutes for questions and happy to take any. 

QUESTIONS

Just a quick question about lobbying. Do you always have to register? Like at which point are you like an industry association? Do you have to register federally, provincially? I just would love some thoughts on that. 

Alexis Levine: I’m so glad you asked that question. So first of all, there are thresholds for registration and they’re different depending on the province and the federal government. Federal government. The simple version today is 28 hours over a four week period. Ontario, for example, is 50 hours a year. Each province is different. But the piece of your question I really want to pick up on is on industry associations. The single biggest mistake, and this will apply to lots of folks in this room, the single biggest mistake that people make on registration is they think I’m a volunteer member of a board of an industry association because I’m a volunteer. I’m not a paid employee or a consultant and the industry association is registered. So I don’t need to register. 

And really unhelpfully occasionally, and I hope I’m not calling anybody in the room out on this, but it does happen, industry associations will say, don’t worry about it, we’re going to register. You don’t need to register. We’ll register for you. That’s wrong. If you are communicating with a public official about a change in law, policy, program, financial contribution, any of that long list of things that counts as lobbying and you’re doing so in the course of your employment, it has to be treated as being a communication on behalf of your employer whether or not you’re doing it in a meeting set up by an industry association. 

So if you are there under the umbrella of an industry association, but you still act, you’re still an employee of the bank, the question you have to ask yourself is, would I be here if it wasn’t for the fact that I was employee of this bank or this lender or my employer? The answer is usually no, you wouldn’t be there. You’re there as part of your job. And if that’s the answer, then your communication with government counts as a communication by your employer and has to be registered under your employer. But we see that mistake and we see people get in trouble on that all the time. Other questions, Gary, I’ve scared them into silence. 

Who will be the next leader of the Conservative Party?

Matt Barnes: The next. Well, I have my own take on this, which is that they’ve grappled with appeasing the center aspects of their party and the right wing aspects of their party. For now, three leaders and Pierre Poliev is the closest that party has gotten to, you know, toeing that line and figuring out the right balance. But he did so in a context where, you know, right leaning conservatives and more progressive conservatives were united by one thing, which was their hatred for Justin Trudeau. So now with Justin Trudeau gone, I think that balance is going to be trickier to hold for him. Notionally if they keep doing this same flip flop, they’d go back to a more centrist progressive conservative candidate. 

I certainly know maybe I should be careful what I say, but there are progressive conservatives across the country who are at least eyeing the possibility of it. But as of right now, Pierre Poliev’s intention is certainly to stay on. If he’ll be successful in that balance, which so far he has been, then he’ll likely lead them into another election, which could be a very different landscape. 

Alexis Levine: I’m not going to say a lot more than what Matt has just said, except to say it certainly does look from the cheap seats, which is certainly where I am, that Mr. Poliev is going to be able to hang on not without some challenges and some work. And I think the future of some of his campaign leadership is very much in question. But I think his own future is relatively stable, even without a seat. 

Matt Barnes: I might also add that this is a related point, but for the last working government relations for the last six, eight months, the intention has very much been to advise people to prepare for a conservative government or at least figure out how to set sell whatever policy or regulatory change you’re trying to make in the context of potential Conservative government. So for many organizations, those policy asks are going to shift once again to figure out how they fit into a Mark Carney government. Those buckets we talked about earlier are a very good first step. But certainly for organizations that were preparing for a conservative government and Building their asks accordingly. There’ll be some shifting required, to say the least. 

Two questions. One, the decision making is going to be quick. That’s great to hear. What is Carney’s track record or how do you see execution of what is decided on to be implemented on a timely basis? And then second question. Do you think Carney is going to take a leaf out of Ford’s book and call another election if seizes the momentum? 

Alexis Levine: On two, I really don’t. I think we’ve seen a Prime Minister who’s very reluctant to play political games. You saw that in the decision to give a straight up or down by election to Mr. Poiliev. So I don’t think, I mean, never say never, but I have no indication that an early election is the sort of thing. And I also don’t think that Mr. Carney is really a political animal. He’s a policy wonk. Ultimately he’s focused on policy and he’s going to want to stay there. On the execution question. I think the thing that governments do worst is execution. And I suspect if there’s an area where Mr. Carney has growing pains, this will be it. 

So I don’t think he’ll have trouble making decisions, but I do think wielding the machinery of government requires a certain amount of expertise and experience that he’ll be gaining over the next period of time. I’ll give you an example of that, Rajan. So when you make a decision to hire somebody, you have a conversation with them, it feels pretty good. You say, okay, great, well I’ll see you on Friday. We’ll get you plugged in with hr and if you forget to call hr, they get there on Friday and then you call HR and say, hey, I forgot this person’s starting today and can you get her a badge and get her a desk and we’ll get her to work. That’s great. If the Prime Minister has a conversation to hire someone, the Privy Council Office needs to know. 

The relevant Minister in whose ministry this policy issue arises needs to know. Let’s say it’s a trade issue. Minister of Foreign affairs and International Trade needs to know what’s going on. The Treasury Board needs to know so they can run the paperwork. The Communication Branch needs to know so they can put out or release the appointments desk. And the PMO better be applied informed. The Deputy Minister and the relevant department better know and their branch. I mean there are about 15 people that need to know. And if you’re a brand new Prime Minister who’s never done that before and has a conversation with someone and there isn’t someone in the room with you may not even think about all these 15 people, the policy shop. 

I haven’t even begun listing all the folks that we need to know that need to be in the loop for this one small, tiny decision to be implemented. And that’s where execution risk comes in. My own personal view is Prime Minister should never be in a meeting by themselves, full stop, ever. There should always be someone who can take some of those actions and that will be the place where this will be very new for Mr. Carney and he’ll have to get used to that. So execution risk, I think is a good call out. It’s probably the toughest question. 

Matt Barnes: I’ll just add to that briefly if it’s any silver lining and he’s definitely signaled himself as a pragmatist. I would say a more blunt way from an interpersonal perspective is he doesn’t suffer fools. It’s been reported, but there’s an expectation that if a minister isn’t working out, they’ll be moved out of a portfolio much quicker. Similarly with staff. I mean that can be his intention and we can see where that leads in execution. But it is certainly the impression they’re leaving out there to the folks on the Hill. 

Sorry, just quick question at the back here. I’m going to tee up my own panel which is next on the digital asset front. This was obviously a huge issue in American politics election and it snuck in a little bit from some Poliev comments previously. But it’s by and large hasn’t been something that’s been broadly brought up as a big wedge issue or people taking sides on it. Obviously Mr. Carney has had some positions in the past from the bank of UK and has had some positions currently on that. Where’s this administration at on the digital asset question? And I know that’s a big broad one, but just curious, your takes. 

Alexis Levine: Don’t know that they’re anywhere on the question to be honest. I mean I do think Canada is a bit behind on the question. Some would say more than a bit behind on the question. And I do think there are very significant privacy implications which get tricky. But I don’t know that this is on the list of the top 40 things the government’s thinking about right now. 

Matt Barnes: I would say there’s like Mark Carney’s position as a former central banker definitely leaves an impression of how he’s going to approach the issue. I suspect he will allow the bank of Canada to continue their work in a way that on a digital currency which I know that Pierre Poliev was dead set on putting an end to, I would say, and maybe can talk separately. There are allies I know just from around the hill in government who are certainly seized with the issue that they see what’s happening south of the border, they see politicians there leaning into the policy area. So I certainly, as Alexis said, I don’t think It’s a top 30 issue on the government’s mandate, but it’s certainly on people’s mind. 

Open Banking

Alexis Levine: I would argue the biggest beneficiaries would rather be small and medium sized businesses like bookkeeping, accounting, tax prep, cash management. These are the bane of all small, medium sized business owners. And open banking would crack open a lot of opportunity to make that situation better and deliver value to businesses. They do more transactions, they have more banking that needs to get done. Do you see Carney or this government thinking of it through the lens of like the economic benefit and the business benefit or more like the common voter and mortgage affordability is kind of like the only lens.

I think there are probably two lenses the Prime Minister is going to see this through. I’m not sure either of them at first blush as small business. That doesn’t mean that he can’t be persuaded to see small business as a primary lens. And again, I’m not speaking with any inside knowledge, but just knowledge of him and his approach. I would say he’s going to be focused on how this affects the institutional financial institutions that as a central banker, he’s always been concerned about. And he’s going to be focused on how this affects affordability, which is politically an issue that’s very high on the list. So somewhere, well, in third would be small business. That doesn’t mean he can’t be persuaded that there’s an opportunity for small business that might benefit both of those other stakeholders. 

But I don’t think that’ll be the first stakeholder in his mind when he thinks about open banking. We’ve got two minutes left. Which probably leaves us, Gary, with room for one more question, if there is one. 

Gary Schwartz: So from association perspective, should we be expecting a lot of shaking the trees on the hill or is he going to. On the finance side, is he going to try to look for a legacy in that regard over the next few years as Prime Minister and obviously how the world perceives him, he’s coming in and I would think legacy has to be top of mind for him. So association, should we be expecting a lot of shaking of the trees or will he try and shake the trees and they turn out to be oak trees?

Is he going to try and say, hey, I’m going to tackle, I’m going to reinvigorate the Canadian economy by taking my wealth of knowledge from my banking sector days and I’m going to tackle regulation and I’m going to tackle obviously open banking and AI and I’m going to be a shit disturber and that’s going to be my legacy. 

Matt Barnes: So I would say no and I would point back to that first category when went through platform items, which is Unite. He very much views himself as a unifier. So I think if the business community were to come to him and say, here is a solution to a problem you have. We are united, you won’t piss off the provinces and its net benefit to consumers. I think you will certainly see things move a lot quicker and there not need to be as much push and pull and bureaucratic roadblocks for issues in which you can unify. But I think he’s not going to spend as much time having those debates if he doesn’t need to have them. So I think he certainly isn’t intending to be a disturber, so to speak, except where he feels there’s consensus to do so. 

Sign up for the CLA Finance Summit Series