Pierre Poilievre decided his strategy this week was to question Mark Carney’s economic credentials — calling him “very badly educated in economics.” This is the man who has a PhD in economics from Oxford, ran the Bank of Canada through a recession, and then ran the Bank of England through Brexit. Poilievre’s plan after losing three byelections back to back was to walk into Parliament and tell the PhD economist he doesn’t understand economics.
Carney walked into Question Period for their first face-off since the majority win and looked like someone who’d heard the insult coming and couldn’t wait. “One thing I’ve learned in my economics education,” he said, enjoying every syllable, “is you’ve got to study history and you’ve got to look at numbers.” Then he told Poilievre he “wouldn’t pass the exam.” Poilievre handed him that line and Carney caught it perfectly.
You can criticize Carney’s policies — real debates exist about the deficit, whether tariff negotiations are moving fast enough, housing. But “badly educated in economics” coming from a guy whose peak credential is a political science degree from Carleton? That’s not political critique. That’s a man telling the physics professor he doesn’t understand gravity. Poilievre didn’t just fail the exam — he forgot what class he was in.