Mark Carney wasn't made for TV — thank goodness

Mark Carney had a good first week. The president likes him, and so does the press.

“He needed to say, in no uncertain terms, that Canada is not going to become the 51^st US state, while avoiding a public fight,” wrote the New York Times of Carney’s inaugural visit to the Oval Office. “And he succeeded.”

He left that meeting with his “dignity intact,” acknowledged the National Post’s John Ivison.

“That probably went as well as possible for Mark Carney, and for Canada,” wrote the Globe and Mail’s Robyn Urback, among that paper’s most conservative columnists and no great admirer of Canada’s prime minister.

Carney’s success in that high-stakes encounter — as with his survival of the federal leaders’ debates three weeks earlier — was largely a measure of avoiding major screw-ups. That’s incredibly difficult when the world’s biggest cameras are trained on you and the fate of a nation hangs on every word and grimace. But if Carney doesn’t quite dazzle the cameras, he’s proving himself a capable TV performer.

That matters. Political success in today’s hyper-televised environment has more to do with camera performance than it does with policy acumen. However you felt about former prime minister Justin Trudeau, he clearly enjoyed being on air. Ontario Premier Doug Ford can make swallowing a bee on live TV look natural. Carney’s biggest domestic adversaries, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, are both excellent on camera. And Donald Trump, Carney’s foreign foil, is the apotheosis of reality TV.   

In many ways, Carney is Trump’s opposite. A man of immense policy experience and zero dramatic flair, Carney has never lowered himself to the mud-slinging theatre of political debate. That’s been a selling point to many — at last, a man of substance who doesn’t speak in slogans! But high-mindedness doesn’t always work out for aspiring politicians; ask former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. And while Carney managed to avoid disaster during last month’s campaign, he didn’t blow any minds either. He seemed to coast to victory on the strength of his resume, sliding through a fleeting portal of opportunity that Trump (as Trump well knows) inadvertently opened up for him.

So, the question of how Carney would navigate the biggest public confrontation of his life was entirely unresolved going into his sit-down with Trump. Yes, he kept his cool at the federal leaders debate. But staying calm amongst three bickering Canadians at Radio-Canada’s HQ is one thing; going toe-to-toe with a volatile gorilla who keeps threatening to annex your country, and who tore apart the president of that other country being annexed when he was sitting in the chair before you, and who posted a blistering rant against you on Truth Social moments before you arrived for the meeting — well, that’s a different thing. 

Carney’s body language at the White House betrayed him a little. He laughed nervously, pursed his lips, touched his face and had trouble sitting still. Then, he turned that into his opening joke: When Trump invited him to say a few words, Carney said, “Thank you, Mr. President. I’m on the edge of my seat, actually.”

And there it is, Carney’s secret, unexpected weapon: Humour. The ability to make his opponents smile, which is a way of startling and catching them off guard, is emerging as a key arrow in Carney’s public-speaking quiver. We saw it at his first post-election news conference when a journalist asked Carney if he intended to keep Francois-Philippe Champagne in cabinet. “Did he ask you to ask that question?” Carney playfully shot back, provoking a brief roar of laughter from the press pool.

Days later in the Oval Office, he managed to get a chuckle out of the American president while delivering the line we’d all been waiting for: “As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale.”

“That’s true,” Trump said, looking down and nodding.

“We’re sitting in one right now,” Carney went on, and Trump, looking back at him, now laughed in apparent surprise and said again, “That’s true.” 

Trump’s laughter seemed to express appreciation for Carney’s ability to frame their core dispute in terms that resonate with the president, as a real estate argument. But it’s hard not to wonder if some part of Trump’s laughter came from knowing that Carney was lying. In Trump’s world, everything is for sale. Under his presidency, the most corrupt in American history, that includes the Oval Office – or at least, the policies crafted inside it.

Both men in that room knew it. Neither would ever say it. Like Carney’s use of the word “transformational” to describe Trump’s second term in office, Carney was proving himself capable of deploying words with double-meaning, addressing two audiences at once — the one in the room, and the one watching from home. He was showing he, too, can play the game. 

That’s a different message from the one the prime minister has broadcasted at home. With respect to Poilievre’s search for a new parliamentary seat in Alberta, Carney’s promised to call an immediate by-election, rather than make Poilievre languish in the wilderness for months. “No games, nothing,” Carney said on that front. “Straight.”

He hasn’t lowered himself to gaming Alberta yet either, in response to Smith’s separation threats. A reporter asked him about that at the press conference Carney held after his meeting with Trump, and the look of contempt that flashed over his face said more than his spoken reply: “Canada is stronger when we work together. As an Albertan, I firmly believe that. You can always ask the [referendum] question, but I know what I would respond.”

For all Carney’s evident wit and the momentum his recent victories have provided, this game is new to him. His reluctance to play it has been part of his appeal — the way he reflects on questions and answers them directly, rather than pivoting instinctively to pre-crafted messaging. 

But his adversaries, and the political ecosystem he’s stepped into, won’t let Carney rest on that higher ground forever. Carney needs Alberta to cooperate for his nation-building plans to bear fruit. He’ll soon be squaring off against Poilievre in Question Period – a face-off we never really saw during the election campaign, when both men kept their gloves on.

Sooner or later, in other words, events will force Carney down to the muddy ground we got a glimpse of in the Oval Office. Politicians say the craziest things in that pit. Unlike real, untelevised life, you can’t just roll your eyes. You have to play ball. However quick a study Carney may be, that’s not a home game for him.