Cory Doctorow used his May 30 Pluralistic newsletter to draw a sharp line between what he calls “Carneyism” and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s actual governing record: keep the promises, ditch the politician. His charge is that Carney has endorsed popular ideas on taxing tech giants, restraining monopolies, resisting U.S. pressure and improving public services, then backed policies that Doctorow says weaken those same goals.
The post is a polemic, not a neutral audit. But the policy list is concrete enough to follow, and the gap Doctorow identifies is not subtle. He argues that Canada’s Liberal Party has made a habit of offering working-class-friendly rhetoric while governing in ways that favor the rich and powerful. His earlier example is Justin Trudeau, whom he cites marching with Greta Thunberg while also backing oil infrastructure and Canadian oil production.
The digital tax reversal
Doctorow points first to Carney’s promise to impose a 3% digital services tax on large U.S. technology companies. He describes the measure as a way to counter Big Tech’s use of low-tax jurisdictions, including Ireland, to reduce tax bills.
Canada’s Department of Finance later said the government had rescinded the digital services tax to advance broader trade negotiations with the United States. Doctorow frames that reversal as Carney retreating once Donald Trump objected, after Carney had also presented himself as willing to push back against U.S. trade pressure over CUSMA.
Antitrust powers without the money
Doctorow also focuses on Canada’s Competition Bureau. He cites the June 2024 amendments to the Competition Act, which Canada’s competition regulator describes as expanding its enforcement toolkit. Doctorow says those changes turned a historically weak antitrust agency into a strong one on paper.
His complaint is the budget. Doctorow says Carney made real-terms cuts to the bureau’s funding, leaving the regulator with new legal authority but too little capacity to use it. He connects that to Canada’s concentration problems, including the bread price-fixing scandal, and argues that weak competition enforcement lets domestic oligopolies keep extracting money from Canadians.
He makes a similar argument about consumer protection. Citing reporting by Don’t Pass Go, Doctorow says the Carney government eliminated Canada’s consumer protection agency. He presents that as another case where the government’s claimed concern for ordinary Canadians runs into the boring machinery of cuts, which is where the bodies tend to be buried.
Palantir, AI and public services
Doctorow’s foreign-policy critique centers on Carney’s Davos speech, where the prime minister described a “rupture” in the U.S.-dominated trade and political order and called for “minilateralism” among middle powers, according to the World Economic Forum.
Doctorow argues that message sits badly beside Canada’s reported dealings with Palantir. The Toronto Star reported that Canada’s defence minister defended a deal with the U.S. data company as legitimate. Doctorow characterizes Palantir as closely tied to the Trump administration’s domestic and foreign policy machinery.
He also criticizes Carney’s AI strategy, citing CBC reporting that he says involves firing tens of thousands of civil servants and replacing them with AI chatbots. Doctorow argues chatbots are poor substitutes for skilled public officials and adds that major AI systems are controlled by U.S. corporations exposed to U.S. political pressure.
The conclusion of Doctorow’s essay is electoral: Carney’s opponents should adopt the popular parts of Carney’s stated agenda and actually carry them out. His warning is that austerity, especially after a possible AI-market crash, would make Canada more vulnerable to far-right politics.
This story draws on original reporting from Pluralistic.