๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐.
Mark Carney has quietly taken control of how Canada is run. Cabinet, Parliament, the civil service and the press have all been pushed aside, and power now sits with the Prime Minister and a small circle of people most Canadians have never heard of.
That's not coming from his critics. It comes from more than a dozen Liberal insiders who spoke to the Toronto Star's Justin Ling this summer.
When Carney took office, he tore up the structure he inherited and rebuilt it as a strict pyramid with himself at the top. He has personally taken over major files instead of trusting his ministers with them. He is effectively his own foreign minister.
Then he built a parallel government. Instead of fixing the public service, Carney created brand new agencies inside the Privy Council Office and handed them to people he picked himself. A banker and personal friend runs defence procurement. An oil and gas executive runs the Major Projects Office. These bodies will have enormous power to approve, buy and build things, with far less of the oversight that normally comes with that power.
The ministers Canadians can actually hold accountable are being left behind. Insiders say the Treasury Board President doesn't seem to understand his own file, and the Immigration Minister has been a disaster. Carney won't shuffle them, because Jean Chrรฉtien reportedly convinced him it isn't worth the trouble.
Parliament is next. Omnibus bills are back, pushing massive legislation through the House with barely any debate.
And he won't explain any of it to you. Carney refuses one-on-one interviews with Canadian media, preferring the New York Times and Bloomberg, and talks to Canadians through his own YouTube videos where nobody gets to ask a follow-up question.
One Liberal put it bluntly: "You can get away with a lot when you've got a 10-point lead."
Canadians didn't vote for a government run by a handful of insiders nobody can name. They deserve one that answers to them.