Prime Minister Mark Carney signs the White House guest book as President Donald J. Trump stands behind him in the White House on May 6, 2025. Photo by Lars Hagberg, provided by the Office of the Prime Minister © His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, 2025 (non-commercial use).
This article was first published by the Halifax Examiner on Dec. 18, 2025. Since then, the situation hasn’t improved, and Prime Minister Carney has stepped up the assault on the public service. Thousands of notices have gone out to federal public employees across government departments, slashing key climate and environmental research and policy programs. Those whose main source of information is National Post publications and other incurious, corporate and right-leaning media, tend to defend the cuts, parroting those media and social media messaging that glibly disparage the federal civil service as “bloated.”
Few would argue that there is always room for improving effectiveness and efficiency of large organizations – be they government departments or corporate bureaucracies. The Liberal government’s deep cuts to the public service is not that. It is a blunt force assault on crucial federal research and policy work, especially on anything involving environment, climate and sustainability, which looks more ideological than strategic. It is anything but well thought-out planning for an increasingly precarious future in a climate and biodiversity crisis, with a former neighbour and friend turned threatening foe.
In his much-touted and acclaimed speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in Jan. 2026, Carney didn’t breathe the word “climate,” and referred only tangentially to the U.N. Conference of Parties (COP) that meets annually to hammer out policies to tackle the climate crisis, which he said was another of the multilateral institutions that is now “under threat.” Yet Canada’s prime minister didn’t bother attending the 2025 COP in Brazil.
Carney’s Liberals are doing the work of Conservatives, pleasing moneyed moguls and their cheerleaders by making deep cuts in Environment and Climate Change Canada, Infrastructure, Housing and Communities Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Agri-food and Agriculture Canada, Global Affairs Canada, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that reports to the Minister of Health, among others. Carney’s government is cutting seven key agricultural research facilities, cuts the National Farmers’ Union calls “disastrous.” This includes Nova Scotia’s Nappan Research Farm in Cumberland County, established in 1887, which does important forage and climate research.
By weakening the public service and Canada’s own research and scientific capacity that leads to strong federal policies and protections for Canadians, Carney is doing the opposite of nation-building, and making this country stronger in the face of continued threats from our increasingly hostile neighbour to the south, led by a volatile and unhinged bully.
It’s a long read, because it’s a long and complex story …
The Carney way
It’s beyond terrifying watching U.S. President Donald Trump and his bullying, brash, and crass coterie of odious hatemongers destroying decency, building autocracy, and dismantling democracy to Canada’s south.
The trouble is that it can be all-consuming watching the gilded, gold-plated shitshow in the U.S. That means it’s easy to miss what’s happening closer to home.
Liberal democracy is a fragile thing that can be undermined in many ways. Not all star a malignant narcissist spewing non-stop lies and insults, working with a tyrannical cabal of billionaires, tech bros and bigots and sycophants, to unleash non-stop “Truth Social” turmoil on a country – and the planet.
Democracy and genuine human progress on social, environmental, and climate issues can be weakened much more quietly, subtly, and methodically, and with much less media scrutiny than is being accorded the autocratic blowhard to the south.
These can also be undermined by sophisticated and polite people wearing pleasant smiles using polite words, charmers who post videos of themselves patting adorable kitties.
The damage can be done in an understated, toned-down way, without a lot of fanfare, with policies that increase economic disparity, channel money and power upwards, put people and their futures at risk, harm the environment, and torch the climate.
And so far, that seems to be the Carney way.