Tank: Carney’s Saskatoon stop aims to revive Sask. Liberals

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The weather failed to play nice when federal Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney made a brief stop in Saskatoon.

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The temperature with wind chill dipped to -29 C, amid a week of extreme cold warnings, and the streets and sidewalks were slick with ice.

Regardless, more than 300 people packed the basement of Winston’s English Pub & Grill in downtown Saskatoon on Tuesday — prompting jokes about the fire marshal — to listen to a 12-minute speech from the economist who wants to become Canada’s next prime minister.

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One woman presented Carney with a knitted red scarf he promptly donned. Another said she joined a political party for the first time to vote in the Liberal leadership race. Another woman told Carney he’s “our only hope.”

Supporters crammed into the pub whooped and applauded as Carney took shots at Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (as a career politician without a plan) and American President Donald Trump (“America has lost its mind at the moment”).

That level of enthusiasm is not just odd for a Liberal event in Saskatoon, but also for an economist speaking in a bar. Carney stressed his Prairie roots as someone born in the Northwest Territories and raised in Edmonton.

A Saskatoon Liberal source shared that federal party memberships in the province have jumped from just over 1,000 to 7,325 in about a month, including 2,621 in Saskatoon.

To nobody’s surprise, Carney failed to mention outgoing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Or how far Liberal support has plummeted in Saskatchewan.

If Trudeau’s unshakable unpopularity can be assigned a focal point in Canada, surely that location is Saskatchewan. And it could take more than hundreds of supporters in a pub to change that.

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The provincial Liberal party that once governed Saskatchewan no longer exists after opting for a name change that failed to improve its fortunes in a province where Trudeau and his policies have proved particularly unpopular.

Twenty years have passed since the federal Liberals last managed to finish higher than third place in an election in Saskatchewan. During the first election with Trudeau leading the Liberals, 2015, the party finished with 24 per cent in Saskatchewan, close behind the second-place NDP.

Liberal support sank to less than half that in 2019 and to below 11 per cent in 2021. Only the Michael Ignatieff-led Liberal implosion in 2011 fared more poorly in this province, with less than nine per cent.

Throughout the Trudeau era, Saskatchewan gave the Liberals the least support of any province. Conservatives swept all 14 of the province’s seats in the last two elections.

From that perspective, there appears to be nowhere to go but up. And polls that once had the Liberals on life support in a federal election are suggesting a surge, particularly if Carney becomes leader.

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So a pit stop in Saskatoon suddenly seems worthwhile for the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

“Canada very much includes Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, the north in Saskatchewan, all of Saskatchewan,” Carney said during a short interview. “So it’s important for me to be here on the ground to hear what the issues are from the perspective of the people across this province.”

Carney pointed out that he had met with Saskatoon Mayor Cynthia Block, whom he called a “hugely impressive individual,” prior to the Winston’s event. Block also happened to run for the Liberals in a Saskatoon riding in 2015, but the former broadcaster finished third.

As for the vilified carbon tax, Carney has said he plans to discontinue the consumer portion, but also said Tuesday that he will remove it on small businesses and farms to improve competitiveness.

And Carney added that he also plans to make “whole” people who are receiving hundreds of dollars in carbon pricing rebates, which he says distinguishes his plan from Poilievre’s simple pledge to “axe the tax.”

The Liberals’ national fortunes may have improved, but it will take more than a crowded pub on a frigid night before that reversal is reflected in Saskatchewan.

Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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