Beyond the Ballot: 'Mark Carney's not just Trudeau 2.0. He's a climate change activist'

Mark Carney is a lot more dangerous than he seems, according to a Kelowna businesswoman and former MLA.

Renee Merrifield said the former central banker’s strong commitment to climate change policies could take Canada to a “very scary place.”

“I can’t say this enough: he is not just Trudeau 2.0,” she said. “He is a climate change activist and is going to [act as one by] using the economy.”

She said Carney – reckoned by many pollsters to be the runaway favourite in the Liberal leadership election – is planning to implement a “carbon tariff” if he becomes prime minister on March 9.

Carney said last week that, should he win the race, he’d scrap and “replace” the carbon tax as it exists in its current form.

His plan would instead include forcing “big polluters” to pay “their fair share for emissions.”

“We've seen what – just in BC – the Clean BC plan does to our economy,” Merrifield, speaking with Jim Csek on the Beyond the Ballot show, said.

“It grinds it to a halt. It's why BC was number one in Canada, and is now dead last. We have taken over dead last in terms of our economic output. And largely because we have the largest and most oppressive bureaucracy when it comes to our climate action plan, which is called CleanBC.”

Carney, she added, is “going to do the same" for Canada as a whole.

Merrifield also said she’s been “disgusted” and “annoyed” by the amount of airtime given to Carney while other leadership candidates are left on the sidelines.

“Both sides of the border,” she said, referring to Carney’s interviews in the US. Csek also mentioned Carney’s appearances on British television.

“The amount of airtime that they are giving him is absolutely ridiculous,” Merrifield said. “It was good to see that on social media, it's almost the reverse. Very few people are talking about Carney and a lot of people are actually looking at Danielle Smith, as well as Pierre Poilievre, as the ones who actually have plans moving forward, and should be covered in the way that they're being covered on social media.”

In her chat with Csek, Merrifield also discussed:

• Her fear that Canadians are becoming “fatigued” with the Trump tariff drama

• Her disappointment in Premier David Eby’s decision to target “red states” – i.e., Republican-controlled jurisdictions in the US – in retaliation for Trump’s tariff

• Her view that Eby should have targeted California wine in any trade reprisal, since that would have helped BC producers

• That she sees Trump as “the biggest bully we’ve seen in a very long time”

• The importance of recognizing that Americans, and America, are different from the president, who will be gone in four years

• How the Canadian political class has failed to prepare for a decoupling from the US

• Her admiration for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

• The need to call back the federal parliament and BC Legislative Assembly