Mark Carney's big, big, big mistake

With all due respect to cabinet ministers: you folks come and go. Limousines and expense accounts notwithstanding, most of you are forgettable. Sorry.

But Prime Ministers are a different matter. You only get one Prime Minister per government. Theirs are the names inscribed on history’s pages. Your team’s fate, good or bad, is inescapably tied to the PM. In our system of government, no one else matters nearly as much.

Which is why the job of every Minister and staffer is pretty straightforward: protect the Prime Minister at all costs.

When things go well, all credit should go to him or her. If things go less well, staff and ministers are expected to take the blame. Simple.

But the main job, most of the time, is stopping the Prime Minister from doing stupid things.

Which brings us to the very stupid thing Mark Carney did last week.

In Exhibit One, The Video, Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney stand facing each other in well-appointed room somewhere, wearing suits and ties. They are seen with legs apart, a bit, which is the equivalent of mansplaining using body language. Nate, being a self-styled maverick of note, has his hands in his pockets, looking rather insouciant. Mark, meanwhile, is waving his hands around like a windmill in a cyclone, and is doing all the talking.

“You’re going, but I understand it,” says the Prime Minister of All of Canada. “Because you’re going to be more on the ground. You know, working at the provincial level, working for the folks” - and here he pauses, and adds a bit of emphasis - “I hope, in Scarborough, you know, in healthcare and education, making lives better, helping to grow that economy. And we’ll be right right there alongside.”

“I hope, in Scarborough.”

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