While Poilievre is humbled, Carney calls for humility

National Post, 4 May 2025

Prime minister's victory speech the strangest — in a pleasantly surprising way — in memory

During the federal election campaign I wrote that the “politics of humiliation” had become toxic to Canadians in the Trumpian era. Election night then delivered some humbling, and a call for humility — both of which are different from humiliation.

The humbling was personal for Pierre Poilievre, who lost his own riding. The NDP collapse fuelled a Liberal surge. Poilievre’s riding is immediately north of mine; the incumbent Conservative here, Michael Barrett, held off an astonishing 19-point Liberal gain by holding his vote from last time (50 per cent). Poilievre would have squeaked through had he held his vote, but the most famous Conservative in the country lost six points from 2021, in a riding where voters had known him for 20 years.

It is an opportunity, even if unwelcome, for humility. I have crossed paths with Poilievre since the early 2000s and have found him gracious and engaging. He can be humble. Yet the campaign was curiously centred on the man himself. Why the all-Pierre-all-the-time approach — including emblazoning his name on the campaign plane — when he consistently polled worse than his party did? As he charts out a return to Parliament and a future election campaign, the lesson ought to be that less Pierre is more.

Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered what surely must be the strangest — in a pleasantly surprising way — victory speech in memory. While Poilievre was defiant in defeat, Carney began by telling his excited partisans that they might wish to hold off their cheers until “after this next section, because I am going to begin with the value of humility, and by admitting that I have much to be humble about.”

They cheered anyway; they would have cheered if he had read a take-out menu. So he told them, again: “It’s not an applause line, it’s just a statement of fact.”

“Over my long career, I have made many mistakes, and I will make more, but I commit to admitting them openly, to correcting them quickly, and always learning from them,” he said.

As an aside, admitting mistakes would be welcome from the CBC. On election night, Rosemary Barton “reminded viewers” that four consecutive election victories was “incredibly rare in Canadian politics.”

It is not. Since 1887, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier became Liberal leader, every single Liberal leader has been part of four consecutive election victories, save for John Turner, Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. Twice the Liberals put five straight victories together.

Put another way, over 138 years, the Liberals have only been led for 11 years by leaders who were not part of a four-straight string. What Carney achieved is impressive, but it is what Liberals simply do.

Back to humility. Carney seems to be proposing — time will tell how sincerely and effectively — virtue as an approach to governance. His election was due in large part to not being Justin Trudeau, the great woke narcissist, and not being Donald Trump, the great anti-woke narcissist.

Narcissism is not a partisan affliction — they come in all political flavours, from Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi to Great Britain’s Boris Johnson to France’s Emmanuel Macron. Forty years ago there were genuine giants in global leadership; today we have lesser men who think that they are greater. It is a cultural illness which makes for bad politics. Perhaps Carney sees that.

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