How the Liberals Campaigned Against Austerity and Then Quietly Embraced It

Carney’s Liberals Warned Canadians About Conservative Budget Slashing. Then Adopted the Same Policies with Better PR and a NATO Logo

Remember this past spring? Mark Carney the Liberals’ handpicked successor to Justin Trudeau, a global finance insider parachuted into power told Canadians the sky would fall if Pierre Poilievre won. According to Carney and his Liberal surrogates, a Conservative government would gut public services, dismantle healthcare programs, defund CBC/Radio-Canada, and destroy Canada’s sacred international virtue-signaling machine also known as foreign aid.

They warned that a vote for Poilievre was a vote for chaos. Meanwhile, they promised the exact opposite. Carney wasn’t just selling steady leadership he promised the world, literally. Under his leadership, Canada would stay the course on social programs. It would protect public broadcasting, expand dental and pharmacare, fund global aid missions, and build an inclusive, climate-forward utopia. At the same time, Canada would somehow stand tall against Donald Trump’s America, revamp the economy, fix the housing crisis, and meet NATO’s defence targets. All this without cutting a dime from government services.

It was fantasy. It was dishonest. And Canadians bought it… barely.

The April 28 election, called early by Carney, was a high-turnout affair, drawing nearly 70% of voters to the polls. In the end, the Liberals scraped together 169 seats just enough for a minority government. Poilievre’s Conservatives finished with 144. But make no mistake: this was not a mandate for globalist nation-building. It was a desperate campaign to scare Canadians into accepting more of the same from a party that’s been in power for a decade.

And now? Now we get the truth.

Just ten weeks after the vote, the Carney government is preparing sweeping cuts, yes, cuts, to federal program spending. Departments are being told to slash 7.5% next year, rising to 10%, then 15% by 2028. So much for no austerity. So much for “protecting services.” So much for every warning hurled at Poilievre about conservative budget slashing.

Here’s the kicker: none of this touches the Liberals’ military budget. Defence spending is going up, way up, to satisfy NATO and to please Washington, especially as Trump flexes his muscles and slaps tariffs on Canadian exports. And the debt? Not shrinking. Social programs? Allegedly protected, but in reality, departments are being told to cut everything that’s “non-core.” What does that mean? No one’s saying. But if you work in the public service or rely on government operations, you should be very nervous.

Mark Carney ran as the man who wouldn’t cut. The man who would stand up to Trump. The man who would save Canadian institutions and restore international order. He’s barely unpacked his office and already he’s doing the opposite of everything he promised.

How Liberal Campaign Messaging Framed Conservative Policies While Quietly Preparing to Adopt Them

In the lead-up to the 2025 election, the Liberal Party didn't just run a campaign. They ran a fear campaign. It was apocalyptic. Mark Carney and his handlers weren’t content with defending their record what record, exactly? So instead, they launched an all-out assault on Pierre Poilievre, warning Canadians that if he won, the sky would fall. They told voters that the Conservatives would gut everything from culture to healthcare to foreign aid. And they did it with the straight-faced confidence of people who knew they’d never be held accountable.

Let’s start with CBC/Radio-Canada the taxpayer-funded state broadcaster that doubles as the Liberal Party's PR department. The Liberal platform warned that Poilievre would “erase 90 years of Canadian history, culture, and pride” by dismantling the CBC. That was the language. Not cut funding. Not streamline. Erase. This wasn’t just political messaging it was a theological defense of a bureaucracy. To Liberals, attacking the CBC is like attacking Canada itself. Apparently, we owe our national identity not to our people, our institutions, or our history but to a bloated media outlet that’s hemorrhaging viewers and trust.

Then there was foreign aid. The Liberals claimed again, without evidence that Poilievre would impose “massive cuts” to humanitarian spending. This, they said, would cripple Canada’s standing in the world. As if our relevance on the global stage is measured by how many millions we funnel to the UN and World Health Organization institutions that, coincidentally, are more accountable to Beijing than to any Canadian taxpayer. But Carney vowed to keep the tap open. At least $800 million a year, guaranteed. Because what’s a budget crisis when there are UN bureaucrats waiting for a cheque?

Next up: healthcare. Specifically, dental care and pharmacare two programs birthed in the final years of Trudeau’s reign, largely to placate the NDP. Carney and his team screamed that Poilievre would cancel them. Cut your medicine, take your teeth, basically. Poilievre denied it, but that didn’t matter. Liberal operatives pushed the narrative in every debate, every ad, every talking point. No nuance. No evidence. Just fear.

And then there were business supports and transfers the less flashy but equally important parts of the budget. The Liberals warned that Conservative promises to cut taxes and balance the budget would necessarily mean reductions to federal grants and supports. In other words, if you wanted fiscal discipline, you had to accept that small businesses and working Canadians would be left behind. That was their pitch: prosperity equals pain.

And how was all this reported? Not critically. Not skeptically. But in parallel. Side-by-side comparisons from outlets like CBC and The Globe and Mail dutifully listed each party’s promises but always with the implication that only the Liberals were interested in protecting what matters. The Conservatives might cut, therefore they will. The Liberals say they won’t, therefore they won’t. It was campaign propaganda laundered as journalism.

The Liberals Warned of Austerity Now They’re Delivering It, Just with a NATO Patch and a PR Gloss

And here’s where it all comes full circle.

So after months of screeching that a Conservative government would usher in a new dark age of “austerity,” what are the Liberals doing now that they’ve held on to power? They’re slashing program spending. Seriously—by their own numbers, they’re ordering cuts of 7.5% next year, then ramping that up to 10% the year after, and finally a whopping 15% by 2028-29.

This, of course, comes after a decade of runaway growth. Under Trudeau, government spending ballooned by 9% a year, and the size of the federal workforce grew by 40%. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s what happens when you run government like a progressive activist NGO—bloat, consultants, and bureaucracy stacked on top of bureaucracy. And now? Now the bill is coming due.

So Carney and his finance minister are scrambling. They’re calling it “efficient delivery” and “comprehensive expenditure review” because nothing says “we told you we wouldn’t cut” like ordering bureaucrats to trim fat from every department in the federal government. That includes fewer consultants, automated paperwork, capped growth in the public service, and programs being shuttered if they’re deemed “outside the federal mandate.” Sound familiar? Because it should it’s almost word-for-word what they accused Poilievre of planning just three months ago.

But here's the real kicker: while they're trimming the fat at home, they’re boosting defence spending. That’s right. The same Liberals who’ve spent years mocking military investments and dragging their feet on NATO now want to spend $30.9 billion more over the next four years with total defence spending projected to hit $150 billion annually within a decade.

And you know what? That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Let’s be crystal clear about this: we support increasing Canada’s military strength but only if that money stays in Canada. We don’t send it overseas to fund boutique UN missions. We don’t use it to buy political goodwill from Brussels. We invest in our own supply chains, our own domestic industry, our own Arctic sovereignty, and our own soldiers. If NATO wants us to spend 2% of GDP, fine—as long as that 2% goes to Canadian steel, Canadian tech, Canadian workers, and Canadian defense systems.

But this sudden flip from “austerity is evil” to “let’s gut public spending while massively ramping up military budgets” doesn’t smell like principle it smells like panic. This is the same party that claimed it would resist Trump’s tariffs and keep Canada out of Washington’s orbit. And now? They’re cutting domestically while bending over backwards to meet NATO quotas and please the Pentagon. You can’t make this up.

And what’s the fallout? Predictable.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is furious because they know what’s coming. Attrition, hiring freezes, service delays, and yes, likely layoffs, no matter how much the Liberals swear otherwise. Even CTV News not exactly known for its Conservative sympathies is warning of a large reduction in the federal workforce just to meet fiscal targets. That’s not belt-tightening. That’s a crash diet, and the people footing the bill are federal employees and taxpayers.

Economists are already throwing up red flags. Michael Wernick, the former Privy Council Clerk, is warning the numbers don’t add up and the solution? According to him, we may need a federal sales tax hike. That's right. After ten years of over-spending, the new Liberal plan is to cut quietly and then stick you with a tax increase to cover the rest.

Final Thoughts

Well slow clap for the Liberal Party of Canada. Bravo, really.

Because in a twist that should insult the intelligence of every living, taxpaying Canadian, the Liberal government led by former global banker, World Economic Forum darling, and heir to Trudeau’s empire, Mark Carney is now implementing the exact policies they claimed would destroy the country if Pierre Poilievre did them.

You heard that right.

Cuts to program spending? Check. Public service contraction? Check. Fiscal discipline and a pivot to NATO defence spending? Oh, absolutely. The only difference is, Pierre Poilievre was honest about it. He said that if you want sanity back in Ottawa, some hard decisions are going to have to be made. And for that, the Liberals labeled him a monster. And now? They're doing it anyway. Quietly. Behind the curtain. With a smug smile on their faces and a CBC headline that reads “Progress.”

Make no mistake: the Conservative machine won. Not electorally, but ideologically. The Liberal platform is essentially Pierre Poilievre’s, just buried under a thousand buzzwords, corporate euphemisms, and fake virtue. Carney didn’t beat Poilievre. He plagiarized him.

And yet, here they are these grifters, these absolute snake oil salesmen still without a federal budget, still spinning fairy tales about affordability and climate justice and “Canada’s place in the world.” They promised the world: no cuts, more programs, more virtue, more international praise. But they have no way to pay for it, unless you count capping public services, taxing you more, and hoping NATO doesn’t notice the fine print.

Let me say something plainly: this is not a party of principle. This is a party of raw, unfiltered opportunism. If tomorrow polling showed that Canadians wanted sharia law and Handmaid’s Tale-style governance, the Liberals would be handing out red robes at polling stations by noon. That’s how much they believe in power—and how little they believe in anything else.

And Carney? Let’s not forget, this is a man who wrote a book not because he had something to say, but because he had something to sell. That “green transition” babble? That wasn’t a vision. That was marketing copy. His ghostwriters gave him a storyline so Brookfield Asset Management his financial mothership could push ESG funds to your pension and call it progress. It's the oldest trick in the globalist playbook: wreck the economy, sell the fix, and cash in on both ends.

And the worst part? The Liberals want you to be grateful. Grateful that they’re “managing” the chaos. Grateful that they’re “fixing” the problem.

No. No, they are not managing the fire.

They lit the damn thing. They are the arsonists who torched the system, then turned around with a bucket of gasoline and said, “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

And that’s the punchline, isn’t it?

The Liberals talk a big game Carney waves his hand on TV, mutters “Canada First” in fluent banker, and thinks that’s enough to fool the peasants. But the real reckoning? It’s not happening in a press conference or a fawning CBC puff piece. It’s coming this fall.

Because guess what? Come September, when Parliament resumes, the Liberals are walking into the lion’s den alone. No more NDP shield. Jagmeet Singh is gone resigned, defeated, and irrelevant riding his bike in Toronto sitting on a fat pension after decimating his former party. The once-mighty socialist bloc has withered to seven seats. There is no progressive buffer. No safe cover. No friendly committee backroom deal to save them when the questions get hard.

And the committees? Oh, the gloves are coming off.

You can’t promise Canadians everything under the sun, gut the budget behind closed doors, funnel billions to defense contractors, and then expect no one to ask how the math works. You can’t scream about democracy while running the most opaque government in modern history. Because let’s remember there is no taxation without representation. And the taxpayers of this country are about to get loud.

So buckle up, Mark Carney. The campaign's over. The talking points are stale. You can’t bluff your way through committee hearings. You can’t hide behind empty slogans when MPs start digging into the numbers.

September is coming. Winter is coming. And this time, there’s nowhere to hide.