Half a century ago William Simon quoted a friend’s wisecrack that “A Republican is a Democrat who knows he’s crazy.” In Canada today it could be said of the new Liberal administration under Mark Carney, which looked all set to do a 180° spin on Trudeau’s inane climate policy, but decided to keep going and make it a clean 360°. Determined to set aside Baroque woke projects and focus on economic growth, they remain convinced that Baroque woke projects are the key to growth. Thus instead of repealing the EV mandate they are merely pausing it for six months to think about… what? What more do they need to know? Sales have collapsed, the auto sector is begging for mercy and people are demanding cars that work and that they can afford. Does Carney think that anything will have changed in six months, other than the departure of whatever remains of our auto sector to the US? They’re also promising to turbocharge the economy with major projects that… um… have to be minor enough to satisfy all their exotic climate concerns and more. Alas, the worst thing about knowing you’re crazy is that your plans to become sane are the product of a crazy mind and hence, you know, crazy. Including Carney bloviating that “Our focus in this very rapidly changing global economy is on what we call climate competitiveness”. So a 360° pivot, aka spinning around and bouncing off in what increasingly feels like the walls of a rubber room.

The fact that Carney is promising “an austerity and investment budget at the same time” might have many people speed-dialing their psychiatrist instead of rocking back and forth muttering “We need to rein in spending, we need to find efficiencies … that create the room for these big investments”. But not the author of those words. Instead his staff puts out press releases saying things like “Prime Minister Carney launches new measures to protect, build, and transform Canadian strategic industries” that ought to be in bell-bottoms… and strait jacket. Especially as it includes the claim that “Canada’s new government is building a new industrial strategy to meet this moment. This will transform our economy”. Yeah, into a smoking empty crater.

The odd thing is that in this a lifetime in public policy, in Carney’s case including central banking, he seems to have given astoundingly little thought to economics. For instance, in Europe recently Carney said:

“Our government is in the process of releasing half a trillion dollars of investment in energy infrastructure, port infrastructure”.

Releasing. As if the state had this vast sum in its hands and for some reason wasn’t letting it romp until now. But what they’re really doing is trying to borrow a fortune and blow it on speculative projects including an LNG export facility in Churchill, Manitoba, on the shores of Hudson Bay which is ice-bound eight months of the year. But because of an unbounded faith in the creative capacity of government to release, galvanize or otherwise conjure from cucumbers a vast flood of currently non-existent private sector money, they cannot tell genuine investment from reckless spending on items big or small.

They think every dollar government spends brings back a multiple of that dollar in benefits so everything’s an investment and we cannot afford not to spend even on the wackiest things. But they think so with a weirdly grandiose vagueness.

An unfriendly review in the Dorchester Review of a friendly biography of Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s finance minister and deputy prime minister and now Carney’s minister of transport and internal trade, included this scathing take on her beliefs and the biographer’s limp labeling of it as centrist pragmatism:

“I would define them as aspirational progressivism. A desire for power exists; she wants to be ‘in the room where the decisions are made,’ but we don’t know why. Freeland’s ‘values’ are a confection of tasteful platitudes that signify status. One might call hers the Audi of ideologies: multiculturalism, globalization, and woke capital, all in the slipstream of careerism.”

And to be sympathetic, up to a point, it is hard for people with that kind of mindset to ask hard questions even about their own assumptions. But would it be unfair to ask the PM and cabinet to write something akin to the following list of questions?

1. What do you still need to learn about EVs?
2. What is left to be said, on either side?
3. What arguments persuaded us this mandate was a good idea and which of them do we now doubt and why?
4. What have opponents of the mandate said that we previously dismissed and now believe have some merit, and why?

If they can’t even draft the questions, let alone answer them, then the only thing this pause will do is inject yet more uncertainty into an economy already soggy with investor repellant. Indeed, Canadian commentators seem unsure even of what the pause amounts to, never mind what might come next.

The “Global Automakers of Canada” feigned pleasure at the announcement while calling on the governments of Quebec and BC to undertake similar pauses. But they also groveled as one often feels compelled to do before governments with the power and arrogance of ours:

“Our members are fully committed to the transition of their product portfolios to electrified transportation and this is the future of our sector, however that transition can only happen as quickly as consumers are willing to move and it is clear that higher initial upfront cost and the lack of widely available quick, reliable charging infrastructure have hindered uptake.”

Perhaps they too need a list of questions, such as:

1. Do we really think electric is the future of the sector?
2. Do we really think it is possible in our lifetimes?
3. If we don’t think so but say we do, won’t it encourage governments to adopt policies we know will destroy our industry which would be bad?
4. How’s groveling before Leviathan worked so far?
5. Is it better to depend on consumers for revenue or be on the government take?

Somebody already knows the answer to the last one, which is part of the problem. A press release “Electric Mobility Canada’s response to the federal government’s announcement regarding the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard” says exactly what you’d expect. It grovels too, of course. They know on which side their bread is buttered:

“Electric Mobility Canada (EMC) supports the federal government’s decision to uphold the EV Availability Standard and acknowledges the challenges posed by President Trump’s policies, which are affecting the global economy and the automotive sector.  While the current standard provides sufficient flexibility to address these impacts effectively, EMC understands the government’s decision to launch a review process.”

So by all means stop and think deep thoughts. Then give us money and give it fast, because even we know this paralytic uncertainty is bad as well as pathetic:

“That said, the 130,000 Canadians and thousands of small and large businesses currently working in the transportation electrification sector in Canada are also impacted by commercial tensions and need predictability in order to facilitate short- and medium-term investments. For months, mixed signals from federal and provincial governments have contributed to making the situation even more unpredictable, which cannot continue for long without having a significant impact on these workers and businesses.”

It’s a pity there aren’t more people offering vigorous alternatives just in case the politicians were really finding a way to pry their minds open and shake off the obsessions they recognize are a problem. But alas, as Terence Corcoran recently complained, the enthusiasm of Canada’s business elite for “state capitalism” seems as unbounded as it is unfounded. Among other things, he noted:

“Another paper from the Commission on Carbon Competitiveness and The Transition Accelerator, titled ‘The Right Move at the Right Time,’ claimed that ‘Canada has an opportunity to create a new Canadian industrial strategy for economic growth.’ Both organizations are motivated by the urgent need for climate action.”

So is the cabinet. They just can’t help themselves. They know it’s crazy. But then, they are crazy. So they wander in circles muttering then go buy 68 more copies of Catcher in the Carbon.