What happened to the Mark Carney who promised to make things better?

About this episode

The episode discusses the economic challenges faced by Canada under Mark Carney's leadership and critiques his policies.

When he first became prime minister a year ago this month, Mark Carney vowed to improve affordability, build badly needed projects quickly and make Canada more resilient and competitive in the face of President Donald Trump’s trade antagonism. As William Robson, president emeritus of the C.D. Howe Institute, discusses with Brian, the situation on all those fronts isn’t much better and, in several respects, worse than before. Canada keeps getting poorer, our fiscal situation is worse, the investment climate remains uncompetitive, projects we need aren’t happening, and Carney’s fiscal moves, from the GST grocery refund to green subsidies, are as economically misguided as the policies from the last guy. Carney can’t just blame Trump for it all. (Recorded March 20, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Brian

Guest: William Robson

Topics covered

• politics
• economy
• affordability
• investment climate
• fiscal policy

Keywords

• Mark Carney
• Canada
• economy
• affordability
• fiscal policy
• C.D. Howe Institute
• investment climate

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: C.D. Howe Institute, Postmedia

Places: Canada, United States

More episodes of Full Comment

• Carney officially gives up on Canadian values for fear of losing the bigoted vote · June 8, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Face it, some migrants are totally abusing our immigration system · June 1, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Investor interest in Alberta going ‘nuclear’ over Carney’s messaging · May 25, 2026 · 51 min
• Canada’s too late now to save CUSMA from a Trump rewrite...or worse · May 18, 2026 · 43 min
• This is why so many Albertans want to separate · May 11, 2026 · 57 min
• Carney looks more like Trudeau with every update · May 4, 2026 · 1h 0m