In a war, citizens know that the enemy is waging war on their entire country and everyone in it. What’s more, the consequences of failure are only too obvious, so everyone has a vested interest in helping out. Effective leaders will underline those facts in some variation of the “we are all in this together” speech, highlighting the need for sacrifices in order to win in the end. Even so, not everyone will automatically buy into that argument. It takes a strong leader with a solid plan and good communication skills, and a well-functioning democracy, one where citizens have confidence in the fairness and efficacy of their government, to forge a strong national consensus.
One striking example of this is Britain during the Second World War. Prime Minister Winston Churchill repeatedly made it clear why this was everyone’s fight. Even the King and Queen did their part by refusing to leave London for the safety of the countryside, a hugely important symbolic gesture. This was particularly significant since the British were being asked to make enormous sacrifices for a second time, barely two decades after they had experienced the devastating impact of the First World War, but Churchill’s well-reasoned arguments, eloquence and passion convinced them it was necessary.
Today, nearly four years after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky remains the outward and visible symbol of his country’s united resistance, its citizens inspired by their president’s refusal to leave when Russian troops first invaded. Instead, he responded to American President Joe Biden’s offer of rescue with the now famous line “the fight is here, I need ammunition, not a ride.” [i]
In many respects the global pandemic of 2020-22 posed a threat similar to war. Some countries, and some leaders, handled that threat far better than others. Probably no two countries demonstrated the consequences of effective leadership and citizen solidarity, or the lack thereof, better than Canada and the United States.
In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau led the federal response with a textbook combination of frequent, informative public communications, (based on scientific evidence provided by expert public health officials), and extensive federal-provincial coordination and cooperation which saw even putative political adversaries such as Ontario’s Conservative premier Doug Ford singing from the same hymn book. In both tone and tenor the federal leader stressed not only that all Canadians were in this together, but that defeating the disease required everyone to follow the plan. Both levels of government introduced a series of regulatory measures that depended on public compliance, such as the wearing of masks in public spaces and work-related vaccine mandates. Canadians responded to this leadership with a remarkable degree of consensus and willingness to follow the government measures designed to protect them.
The result? Canada’s COVID record was the best of all G7 countries except Japan, (where the result was only slightly better, and primarily because that country benefited enormously from a pre-existing traditional culture of mask-wearing in almost all public settings all of the time.)
Contrast this positive story with the disastrous tale of the United States. Rather than demonstrating leadership in the battle against the devastating disease, President Donald Trump was AWOL, in a state of denial, and in fact was singularly responsible for that country’s failure to pull together. He first claimed, falsely, that Covid was merely a type of flu, and then recommended individuals take an antimalarial drug or one used on horses, to the dismay of his Chief Medical Adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom Trump regularly ignored. Although he could have invoked federal powers by declaring a national emergency, as he so done so recklessly and unconstitutionally on several occasions since then, in order to deport ‘illegal migrants’, Trump in that instance left everything to the states. Moreover many states were run by vaccine mandate opponents, while others set almost no limitations on social activity and one or two actually banned the wearing of masks. Put another way, instead of demonstrating by example that all Americans were in this together, Trump and many state leaders left individual Americans to their fate, with many dependent on social media and conspiracy theories for their information.
The results were, sadly, predictable. The United States, arguably the most scientifically advanced country in the world, suffered the highest level of infections and deaths on the planet. It recorded some 3,647 deaths per million, and an appalling 333,985 cases per million. A total of 1, 219, 487 American lives were lost. And the numbers would have been far worse had it not been for the pre-existing advanced level of treatment available in most American hospitals, since the number of hospitalizations were also exceptionally high.
Canada`s far superior record was clearly the result of government intervention, but it was also due to the fact that the vast majority of citizens accepted those restrictions. Individuals who were prepared to challenge the government directives were few and far between. These outliers were exemplified by the leaders of the so-called Trucker’s Convoy that illegally occupied Ottawa, ostensibly to protest the government safety measures. Interestingly, the public inquiry that followed provided an unparalleled opportunity to observe firsthand the thinking of the protest leaders. It revealed at least two common traits: (1) widespread ignorance and/or distrust of the political system and democratic norms and, (2) a high degree of narcissism. As several of these ringleaders demonstrated repeatedly in their testimony, they viewed the pandemic almost entirely in terms of the negative impact that those government rules and restrictions had on them and their families, showing little or no understanding that almost all of their fellow citizens had undergone similar upheavals.
Why is this important? First, because nothing appears to have changed the perspective of this small minority over the past few years, despite the overwhelming evidence of how successful the restrictive measures were. But the more significant fact is that the dissidents’ ranks appear to be growing, as the BC ostrich farm fiasco in August of this year, among others, has demonstrated. (An event at which Convoy leader Tamara Lich was invited to speak.)
This willful rejection of government authority is partly due to the support that the convoy protesters received from none other than the Leader of the Official Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, and the Conservative leader continues to back them and similar dissident groups.[ii] But the increased numbers are also undoubtedly due to the fact that some Canadians have faced increased challenges to their standard of living and quality of life due to the post-pandemic economic fallout. This in turn has caused more citizens to lose faith in the fairness and efficacy of government generally.
This problematic situation is about to be tested once again. Just a few short years after the pandemic crisis required citizens to accept limitations on their freedom of movement for the greater good, they are now being asked to make a different set of sacrifices. This time it is to overcome an economic crisis, and perhaps a challenge to our very independence, due to the unprecedented tariff threats imposed by our oldest ally and trading partner, the United States.
Prime Minister Carney has described this situation as a pivotal moment in Canadian history, and argues it must be met with aggressive action to build an expanded and more independent Canadian economy. His response has been a plan to build a “Canada Strong” domestic economy less dependent on the Americans and more connected to international markets. In his words, “We are taking back control of our future.”
Canadians initially responded very positively to this plan. A widespread national consensus of defiance emerged that was captured by the “elbows up” slogan. In the April 2025 federal election voters chose Carney, who proposed an ambitious action plan, over Poilievre, who focused on problems unrelated to the Trump crisis and offered few solutions. Eight months later, Carney continues to post a 20 point lead over Poilievre in public opinion polls. And, despite the fact that no deal has yet been reached with the mercurial Trump, Canadians appear poised to give Carney the benefit of the doubt for some time to come. They also continue, in the short term, to express their defiance through decreased travel to the U.S. and concerted efforts to buy Canadian products.
Meanwhile Carney has indeed launched an ambitious set of initiatives designed to increase defence spending, promote domestic research and industrial development and ramp up the stock of affordable housing. It involves billions of dollars’ worth of major projects on a scale similar to the great national projects of the past, such as the building of the national railway, the St Lawrence Seaway or the TransCanada highway. Several of these new initiatives have already been announced with great fanfare. Taking a page from his election platform, Carney continues to refer to this package as a plan to build `Canada Strong`, a plan that ìs intended to deliver growth and prosperity for this country, and Canadians, regardless of what happens south of the border.
So what is the problem? The immediate answer is “time.” It is a truism of politics that the longer a problem takes to solve, the harder it is to keep up public interest, never mind resolve. Ask anyone involved in the environment and sustainable development movement. Ask Steven Guilbault. The reality is that the concept of “short term pain for long term gain” is relative. How long is short? What if it is really medium-term pain?
A recent set of Ipsos polls found that, given the upheavals and uncertainty of the past few years, many Canadians are viewing “the economy” through the very limited lens of their own personal situation. According to the Ipsos Review of 2025, Canadians are “looking for tangible proof that a path to their own economic prosperity exists, and sooner rather than later,”[iii] and they are not yet convinced the Carney plan will do the trick, or be helpful for them personally.
Even more importantly, their expectations about when they will see the benefits of their sacrifice runs to several months or a few years at most, while virtually all of the major projects will take 5 to 10 years to be delivered, with concrete benefits taking even longer to materialize. In short, someone needs to explain reality to Canadians and convince them the wait is worth it.
This leads to a second problem that is even more significant, namely, the need to convince citizens that the pain and the gain will be shared equally by all demographic groups, income levels and regions. From many of Carney’s statements and those of the relevant cabinet ministers involved in implementing the plan, it would appear that the support of individual Canadians is somehow taken for granted and assumed to be a given. There has been little or no concerted effort to convince Canadians that they are truly “all in this together.”
This is more than a little concerning, since according to several recent polls, a clear divide exists between those Canadians who trust government to “do the right thing” and those who do not. The gap is most significant based on political affiliation (Conservatives demonstrating the lowest level of trust by far) as well as region (Albertans being the least likely to trust the federal government or any level of government), and generation, with those under 35 viewing government as much less effective or fair than older Canadians.[iv]
In choosing Mark Carney and the Liberal Party in the last federal election, Canadians put their trust in a former Governor of the Bank of Canada with obvious economic expertise and international negotiating experience, even though he had absolutely no background or experience in politics. Carney is now delivering for them the well-crafted, expert plan they could expect from a technocrat. But it is not going to be enough. Politics is the art of the possible and, in Canada, the art of the compromise as well.
While the technical excellence of the Carney plan may be obvious to economists, academics and international leaders, it is far from being an easy sell to the average citizen, and Carney is clearly not equipped to make that pitch. He is neither charismatic, eloquent nor passionate. Indeed, in traditional terms he is not a political leader at all. Meanwhile Pierre Poilievre is the polar opposite. A career politician, he is a skilled communicator and shameless opportunist, and he has already managed to derail several objectively well-regarded items on the Liberal agenda in the past, including the Trudeau government’s carbon pricing plan so highly lauded by economists, environmentalists and Nobel Prize winners. With no public buy-in the plan was toast and Carney, as the newly elected Liberal leader, was obliged to scrap it before the election even began if he was to have any hope of winning.
In the end, If the Liberals are to have any chance of bringing about the type of massive transformational change to the domestic economy that experts agree is not only desirable but long overdue, they must take a number of additional measures to make sure their plan is one all Canadians understand and will enthusiastically back.
To begin with, they must bring more spokespersons into the campaign to create a national consensus, including both federal and provincial leaders as well as industry leaders representing both investors and labour. They must also develop a comprehensive promotional and educational advertising campaign, explaining not only what is at stake but why the plan is the right answer at the right time, and they must do this sooner rather than later. (Anyone who has witnessed the shameless and largely misleading ads promoted by the Ontario government about the Ring of Fire, or the skilled trades, will understand immediately the importance and potential impact of such initiatives.) Indeed, the ideal approach would be one in which an effort was made to engage citizens in a national conversation on the various issues raised by Trump’s threats and the proposed solutions.
But such initiatives will only be useful or successful if they are backed by concrete government measures to ensure that the pain, and the benefits, are perceived to be shared equitably. To date the Carney government has demonstrated a good understanding of the importance of bringing business onside, with significant assistance for hard hit sectors of the economy and incentives for specific projects and industries, the promise of reduced regulations and a speeded up approval process.
Their understanding also appears to extend to the need for perceived regional balance, and the generally positive acceptance of Carney’s priorities by premiers, including Alberta’s controversial Danielle Smith, speaks volumes about this perceived balance. Indeed, many critics on the left have argued that too much has been ceded to the concern that Alberta and the fossil fuel industry need to be included in the name of regional balance, (although the actual impact of Carney’s plan on that front – given the unlikely interest of the private sector in building another pipeline, for example — may make this a moot point.)
But Carney and his team do not appear to have any understanding of the need to balance the concerns of individual Canadians of various demographic and income groups, despite the fact that these individual citizens are key to the success of the plan. In particular, the need for intergenerational fairness is crucial to any attempt to achieve transformational change. With younger generations facing significant hurdles in obtaining a lifestyle anywhere close to that of their parents, the resentment of many in that demographic is both real and clearly directed at government. There is definitely no agreement on their part that “we are all in this together”, and no one in government appears to realize the importance of this problem or how to address it. A similar problem exists with lower income Canadians and those who are precariously employed, for whom the cost-of-living issue is paramount, not the Trump tariffs. Worse still, the plight of these citizens is constantly being recognized by Pierre Poilievre, who coincidentally has shown little interest in Carney’s plan and has not even bothered to travel to Washington.
Nowhere is this tale of two different economic realities more obvious than in the wealth divide between those under 35 and seniors. A large proportion of those seniors have found themselves well off due to the simple fact of owning a home, while all seniors benefit from the government program known as Old Age Security (OAS). The program is theoretically universal, although a small top income group sees their payments clawed back through income tax, but only beginning at an annual income of $75,000 . As Professor Paul Kershaw of UBC has repeatedly attempted to highlight through his “Generation Squeeze” project, this program alone cost the federal government some $31 billion in 2024 while at the same time it allocated only $6 billion to the national childcare plan. Some experts have suggested the OAS should not be paid at all to seniors above a certain income level, and the resulting proceeds should be applied to increasing the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for the lowest income seniors, or to increased funding for childcare and housing, to highlight deliberate government measures to achieve generational and income fairness. This is precisely the type of national conversation that the Carney government should be encouraging, but on which it has said very little.
This concern leads to a third problem. In addition to the large number of private sector experts now serving in the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr. Carney has appointed a number of former colleagues and friends from his Bay Street days – such as Energy MinisterTim Hodgson and Canada’s new ambassador to the UN, Mark Wiseman — to the most important posts related to the implementation of his transformational economic plan. Like him, they are skilled economic experts but not politicians, and they are laser-focused on doing the job they were assigned, rather than on communicating with citizens or explaining their actions. All the more reason, then, to have other strong members of the Liberal team who are capable of communicating the message in ways that resonate and encourage citizen involvement.
Carney is fortunate to have the services of exceptional veteran politicians such as Ministers Melanie Jolie and Dominic LeBlanc to help advance his foreign policy agenda and communicate with the general public, but there is a glaring lack of similarly skilled politicians in his cabinet who are managing social policy files. These involve, for example, longstanding issues relating to generational fairness and equality, including indigenous reconciliation, sustainable development, housing, postsecondary education and the trio of new but underdeveloped national programs in childcare, phamacare and dental care.
In the past, successful Liberal governments have had a range of ministers in cabinet representing both the left and right wings of the party. This not only achieved balance in decision-making, but in framing the government in terms of its public image. It may well be that the business Liberals need to be in charge of priorities in this pivotal time in the country’s history, but a failure to present both sides of the Liberal image to the electorate will risk serious difficulties down the road for the current agenda, and for the party’s future electoral success. Most important in such a pivotal moment in the country’s history, the prime minister and his government must demonstrate to Canadians that we really are all in this together.
[i] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/26/europe/ukraine-zelensky-evacuation-intl
[ii] As late as 2024 he famously stopped at an anti-GST protest camp near the New Brunswick border to “show his support” for the group, which included vehicles sporting Nazi symbols and Diagolon bumper stickers.
[iii] Ispos Canada. 2025 Review and 2026 Outlook.
