What If It Is A Deliberate Strategy To Step Into A New Position?

Jasmin Laine, a Canadian commentator, has a theory on Mark Carney that fits some of my own impressions of the guy, notably, that he doesn't have the charisma you'd expect from a national politician. Here's what she thinks is going on (at 6:05):

This sudden frantic push for an associate [EU] membership, which has not been debated in the House of Commons, it's just happened to us, 'cuz that's how democracy works, I guess, it has absolutely nothing to do with defense, security, or trade. So, what on earth does it actually have to do with? It makes no sense, right? Well, there are some numbers here that align in a way that are a little too close for my liking.

Ursula von der Leyen, her final term as the head of the European Commission wraps up in late 2029. The next Canadian federal election, where Mark Carney will be running again, is tentatively scheduled to take place on or before October 15, 2029, which means that unless Mark Carney decides to run again, which I highly doubt, him and Ursula are both scheduled to exit their executive offices within a few months of each other.

Under the old rules of EU and Parliament and how things work there, you cannot be appointed to be head of the commission unless you are a citizen of an EU member state, which is something that Mark Carney currently is not. If we take his word for it, he claims that he [renounced] his Irish ciizenship, and because he got that citizenship through descent, not because he was actually living there, . . . it would be a minimum three-year procerss for him [to regain it].

. . . So, what does that mean? Well, if you cannot run in Brussels unless you are a citizen of an EU member state, which you used to be, until you wanted to be the Prime Minister of Canada, . . . and now you're in a tricky situation where you don't meet that one really important requirement. So then, naybe you and your friend Ursula come together very secretly to all of a sudden spring on us and other European member states a completely unnecessary and unprecedented legal category called associate membership, a blank canvas with no historical definition where you can build the exact legal loophole to transition an international technocrat into being Ursula von der Leyen's successor.

So let's look at how this works. Ursula von der Leyen is President of the European Commission, which is the executive branch and head of government for the European Union. The President of the EU serves five-year terms. The leaders of the 27 EU member states (collectively known as the European Council) meet to propose a candidate for the presidency. By treaty, they must take the results of the Parliament elections into account when choosing their nominee. (Doesn't this sound like the Holy Roman Empire?)

The nominated candidate must then be formally approved by the European Parliament. (Back in the day, the Holy Roman Emperor was crowned by the pope.) In modern times, the candidate needs to secure an absolute majority (50% plus one) of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) via a secret ballot. So this sounds like a smoky backroom procedure, not much different from how Mark Carney got to be prime minister.

Juatin Trudeau says he plans to resign, the Liberals go into the back room and announce that Carney, never elected for anything, is now their leader. The Liberals get a member of parliament who has a safe seat in Alberta to resign that seat so Carney can run for it. Carney calls a snap national election, and by dint of winning his Alberta seat gets to be prime minister when the Liberals win the election. The EU presidential election is only slightly less democratic. Jasmin Laine continues,

And if you really think about it, and you take a look at some of the places that Mark Carney has prioritized traveling, he's had a hyper-aggressive schedule of diplomatic travel across European capitals. And how he becomes Ursula's successor is that he gets appointed [strictly speaking, nominated by the prince-electors of the EU], and then it has to be voted on [by the European Parliament].

So it almost appears as thpough he could, in theory, be engaging in a calculated backroom lobbying campaign targeting the exact heads of state who would vote on the appointment of the next European Commission President. . . . So, he is in theory doing all the groundwork stuff to buy the political goodwill of the EU's core voting factions.

But don't stop tnere. Carney has met with King Chalres fully three times since becoming prime minister, most recently on March 16. Think about that. King Charles, at least for now, has nothing to do with the EU, but recall that Labour is mooting the idea of rejoining the EU without a referendum.

So I kinda go along with Ms Laine, except that Carney doesn't really want to be president of the European Commission, he wants to be the Holy Roman Emperor, except the EU is much bigger than the Holy Roman Empire ever was.

The other necessry thing would be for Canada to agree to become an associate EU member. Under the parliamentary system, all tnis could probably be done with a simple majority in the House of Commons, although depending on what associate memberhip involved, individual provinces could object. What else stands in Carney's way? Superman, Donald Trump, the man with the cape. I'll have thoughts on that.