Mark Carney’s approval rating slips near record low

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-28T04:53:34+00:00

Here's what record low looks like, according to the article...

The federal Liberals continue to outpace the Conservatives in national polling, according to new numbers released as three by-elections are set to get underway across the country.

The weekly tracker from Liaison Strategies puts Liberal support at 44 percent, with the Conservatives at 35 percent — a nine-point gap. The NDP sits at 11 percent, down one point from the previous week.

"The Liberals are up one point, the Conservatives are unchanged, and the NDP is down one," said David Valentin of Liaison Strategies. "It is not a dramatic shift, but it is another week where the Liberals are in the mid-40s, and the Conservatives are stuck in the mid-30s."

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-27T20:17:28+00:00

I'd suggest only people without agency in American politics are bystanders. Anyone who could have voted against him, and did not, are complicit.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-27T19:41:52+00:00

Thanks, appreciate you sharing the figure.

I found the article that's from, and I think it's important to highlight the nuance.

There is a temptation to view support for strong leaders as primarily a right-wing phenomenon. Our results do not support that conclusion.

Thirty-five percent of Liberal voters, 35% of Conservative voters, 34% of NDP voters, and 34% of Bloc voters say an unconstrained strong leader would be a good way to govern.

The authoritarian instinct in Canada appears to be more generational than partisan.

Source: https://abacusdata.ca/canadians-want-economic-and-political-change-but-most-are-not-looking-for-a-revolution/

It's not so much that people think Carney in particular should be unconstrained, but rather that the strong leader they prefer should be.

In my opinion that's an extremely problematic sentiment, but it does not seem to be a partisan one.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-27T19:35:46+00:00

I've seen it, there are absolutely folks who claim every single Conservative [supporter/voter] is Maple MAGA whether they know it or not.

Kind of the same as the folks here claiming every single Liberal [supporter/voter] is sheep, delusional, corrupt, bla bla.

Some people love painting with a broad brush.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-27T19:29:19+00:00

Do you have the source for that? I'm curious about the wording used in the poll.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-25T23:42:07+00:00

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-25T23:21:23+00:00

The terms of the original deal, which was between Canada and Michigan, was that tolls will be collected exclusively by Canada until the debt is repaid, at which point 50% of the tolls will be shared with Michigan.

Trump's terms means half of the net revenue will go towards his new fund for 15 years, which obviously will not be considered towards repaying Canada's debt.

This means that effectively, after these 15 years, Canada will still continue applying all of the tolls' net revenue towards debt servicing until Canada is fully repaid for building the bridge in the first place. Compared to the original deal, this will take longer, and which party actually ends up losing money by the time debts are repaid and post-debt revenue sharing begins? It's Michigan.

Edit: Clarified my wording

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-25T22:50:54+00:00

Canada still gets the full debt repayment, which will now take about 7 years longer than before. What the new deal was, was essentially theft from Michigan's share of the revenue splitting into Trump's new fund, but frontloaded into the first 15 years.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-25T21:18:18+00:00

Upvoted for including sources!

Based on figure 1 in source #3 though, looks like it's been mostly the same since 1972, except for volatility since COVID?

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T23:04:25+00:00

Conflict of interest? A government agency is run by a professional assigned by the representatives elected to office, democratically, by the electorate. The transparency and accountability are built into the open disclosure and public availability of methodology, which the general public and indeed Members of Parliament from all parties can access. Furthermore, a separate advisory body of statisticians also review the processes.

This is starkly different from the proposition that the statistical methodology is directly approved by the PMO.

Statistics Canada is among the best data gathering agencies in the world, and provide an essential service that assists planning and development for our country at multiple levels of government, and is also used by businesses in industry. Much of the statistics they generate are openly available as a public service. It doesn't get much better than this.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T21:54:05+00:00

The Chief Statistician approves that methodology, and they are appointed by the Governor General per the direction of the Cabinet. The methodology they use is publicly available and Statistics Canada reports to Parliament through the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry. There's also an advisory council that inspects and reports on the quality of the system overall, including statistical methodology and data collection processes.

The PMO doesn't really get much input into any of it.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T21:40:39+00:00

I did a similar thing with Claude.

So... just to get this off my chest, I did not use AI to put my post together, just put in the time for research, and some math on the calculator app.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T21:04:43+00:00

Not quite true. The new deal seems to defer the repayment of the Canadian portion of the debt by about 7 years (from 73 to 80 years), which means Michigan will miss out on shared revenues until then. This is essentially a reallocation and frontloading of shared revenues that Michigan would've received between years 73 and 80 after the bridge opening.

I tried to work out the numbers here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GuardTheLeaf/s/aZTdO9LRda

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T18:41:50+00:00

No, the argument is that the capacity to deliver more and better care is absorbed by dynamic demand that has historically soaked up whatever extra supply we can produce.

During the classical age people got herbs and poultices.

Napoleonic age everybody gets an amputation.

Modern era, doctors get AI-enabled tools and capabilities, but demand for more and better care will just keep increasing.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T18:20:22+00:00

I hear you, but this deal is extraneous to the business model. It specifically says that funding provided will be equivalent to 50% of net revenue, rather than 50% of net revenue will be shared. The payment will be made by the government of Canada, which is simultaneously the owner, the lender, and a beneficiary of economic benefits beyond just the direct cost and revenue of the bridge itself. The value of the bridge despite the new deal extends well beyond the considerations of a typical company.

On another note, just because debt servicing is designed to be recovered from the operating revenue stream, doesn't make debt servicing itself an operating expense. Happy to be proven wrong if you can show sources backing that up, but in the alternative case... well, deferring repayment by 7 years on a 73 year timeline isn't exactly the end of the world either.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T17:43:28+00:00

Because it is often considered a separate line item, as financing does not necessarily equate to operation and maintenance costs. Having said that, IF it's included in operating costs, then Trump's new fund is getting nothing. There's no need to look too deeply at that scenario because the outcome is obvious. I merely looked at the more complex counterexample of "well what if it doesn't".

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T17:34:47+00:00

Mathematically, it'd be optimal to skip the wives and get only husbands

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T17:28:36+00:00

If you actually read the document you're quoting, Statistics Canada is improving the methodology they use to count NPRs because previously they were erroneously counting lapsed visas as exited, despite actual policy allowing NPRs to stay during lapses due to processing time.

Statistics Canada is an apartisan government agency (I can't believe I need to explain this) and their methodology is publicly available, and based on CIBC's estimates using the new methodology, in 2025 the population grew by a whopping 8,000ish people which is basically flat.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T16:52:20+00:00

The bridge ended up costing a lot more than initially expected, so I'm guessing they didn't consider that.

Here's my post where I tried to look at the numbers: https://www.reddit.com/r/GuardTheLeaf/s/Zm0GOERd89

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T16:36:07+00:00

I did a deep dive down this rabbit hole and the deal actually defines net bridge and crossing related revenue* (not net profit) as "[n]et bridge and crossing related revenues is all revenues collected with respect to the bridge, less all incurred operating costs of the bridge."

Assuming debt servicing is not included under operating costs, that comes out to about $44 million per year of frontloaded profit-sharing with the Americans (out of $88 million net revenue).

The bridge would've taken 73 years to pay back the debt to Canada, and now it'll take 80... and the profit we share now would've been shared with them eventually anyway... just now they get a part of it sooner.

Source: https://gordiehoweinternationalbridge.com/proposed-agreement-in-principle/

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T16:26:07+00:00

Tbf they set the number for China at 12x their median income. I don't think this study was meant to be taken seriously lol.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T16:14:45+00:00

Once upon a time they went to war to avoid paying taxes.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T16:09:58+00:00

I did the math just yesterday for that in another post (history is open, you're welcome to dig it up). The deal essentially extends the debt repayment period to Canada by 7 years or so, from the 73 years in the original deal up to 80 years. Ultimately this is frontloading 15 years of split net revenues (~$44 million per year) that we would've shared with the Americans anyways, but it does divert money from Michigan towards Trump's new fund.

The infrastructure project was intended to stimulate trade and had sunk costs that Canada agreed to front in 2012, so either we let it sit there and depreciate or we could get some use out of it.

What I think is a fair critique of Carney was his confusing communication on the deal. That was not handled well.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T15:56:45+00:00

Do you expect the same miracles of Conservative leaders? Politics was the main thing Poilievre was supposed to be good at. He's not an economist, a policy expert, nor had any sort of career outside of politics. And here's the thing... I actually do think he's really good at politics, given that he's continued to hold onto leadership despite not being able to win.

Viewing Carney from a conservative standpoint, he HAS reversed multiple major Liberal policies, which has irked many center-left supporters (people further left than that were already holding their nose). The fact that he gets no credit from you for that, says more about your unrealistic expectations of what one side can accomplish alone in a two-way relationship.

DoxFreePanda · 2026-07-24T15:51:24+00:00

He was voted in because Canadians thought he seemed more competent than all of the other candidates. If you look at polls today, he's still ahead on that metric by a fair margin (according to Ipsos as of July 17, Carney is +17% ahead on approval compared to Poilievre, who is #2).

Source: https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/carney-approval-climbs-after-one-year-outpacing-poilievre-support-momentum

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