11th February 2025
Introduction
The appointment of Mark Carney as Prime Minister of Canada lacks democratic legitimacy. It exemplifies emerging devices to escape accountability and bypass the voter, thereby demonstrating contempt for the voter.
Appointment not election
One device is appointment by other politicans rather than election by voters: Rishi Sunak and two French prime ministers are further recent examples. Mark Carney is not even an MP, as Michel Barnier was not when appointed as Prime Minister of France by President Macron.
Semi-resignation
Another device is to semi-resign: Trudeau resigned in a fanfare but only, it later turned out, as head of his party, not as prime minister. This enabled him to continue as prime minister with full powers but under a lower level of accountability, not least because many must have thought that his powers would be diminished automatically or that he had already gone. A further example is the Archbishop of Canterbury: resigned in early November 2024, still in post until mid-January 2025.
King Charles’ Net Zero enthusiasm means he cannot be an impartial Head of State
King Charles, whilst calling recently for strengthened ties with the Commonwealth, has demonstrated the structural weakness of Commonwealth countries having him as Head of State. It has also highlighted his personal weakness as an impartial guardian of constitutional principles, caused by his partiality over policy issues, notably Net Zero.
What King Charles should have done – but now it’s too late
King Charles, as Canada’s Head of State, should have intervened when Trudeau resigned as head of his party to insist that he either give up his position as Prime Minister straight away and simultaneously, or that he leave both positions on an effective future date but in the near future i.e. a few weeks at most but no more than a month.
King Charles ought also to have insisted that a prime minister must be an MP as the position is directly accountable to the parliament. Carney could not then become prime minister without being an MP.
There was an obvious pathway to achieving this and to ensuring democratic legitimacy. King Charles should have insisted that parliament would be dissolved and that a date would be fixed for a general election on the same day that Trudeau left his positions, with an interim prime minister stepping in on that day until the general election.
How Carney could have legitimately become an MP and Prime Minister
A month could have been set aside for the election of a new party leader, at which point Trudeau would have vacated both his positions. Carney might have been elected as the new party leader but he would not have become prime minister at that point: the interim prime minister would have done.
Carney would then have registered himself as a candidate for election as an MP, and conducted his own and his party’s election campaigns. If he won his seat and the party won a majority, then he would become prime minister, and with democratic legitimacy conferred by the voters.
Instead Carney gets wafted in – by actions and derelictions
Instead he is wafted in, thanks to gerrymandering by Trudeau and his party, and to King Charles’ dereliction of his duties as head of state.
The suspicion lingers over this debacle that King Charles has not intervened because he is partial: Trudeau and Carney are both fellow globalist World Economic Forum buffs and Net Zero enthusiasts, although one felt that Carney’s Net Zero principles were cynical and opportunistic: it legitimised his global grandstanding and rubbing shoulders with his supposed peers up until a proper job came along.
Now Mark Carney sits there in a top political position in a supposed parliamentary democracy, having achieved all his advances by appointment and none by election: not a single voter has ever endorsed Carney’s claims and desires to act on others’ behalf.
Summary and conclusions
The pathway through which Mark Carney has become prime minister of Canada is not legitimate.
There was a perfectly feasible pathway towards legitimacy.
Carney and Trudeau have connived to bring about an illegitimate outcome, and King Charles has let the Canadian people down, demonstrating his unfitness to play the role of head of state and protector of the constitution on their behalf.
In doing so he has undermined the case for a continuation of the Commonwealth.
He has also put a question mark against the continuation of the monarchy here in the UK.