Carney plays hometown boy at Edmonton launch, Albertans not convinced

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OTTAWA — Liberal leadership contender Mark Carney made sure to play up his local roots at his official campaign launch in Edmonton on Thursday, but Albertan pundits and political strategists are still on the fence about whether he can connect with the province’s voters after decades away.

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Edmontonian Kristin Raworth said that Carney’s decades-long absence from the city didn’t make too many hearts grow fonder.

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“A lot of Albertans have this sort of raw nerve about people who grow up here and leave,” said Raworth, who is a former Alberta Progressive Conservative staffer.

“For a lot of people, it’ll look like he’s using Alberta as a way to seem folksy and relatable when he didn’t actually build a life here.”

Raworth said Albertans tend to gravitate toward politicians who build their public profiles inside the province.

High-flying ex-banker Carney went against type by choosing an unassuming community sports complex in his old west Edmonton neighbourhood of Laurier Heights as the site of the announcement, peppering his remarks with local colour, including asides to his days playing community hockey as a youngster.

“I wouldn’t have been there without all of the volunteers who coached the team… and who drove us across the city… so we could beat our opponents from Elmwood to Rio Terrace and Jasper Place,” said Carney, referring to close-by neighbourhoods.

“I’m going to just assert that we (beat them),” quipped Carney. “I got the mic (so) you can’t say anything!”

Carney was born in Fort Smith, N.W.T., but moved to Edmonton at age six, spending his formative years in the city’s west end before embarking on a 40-year academic and professional career spanning the globe.

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He conceded in a post-address Q&A that he needed to raise his visibility in his old hometown, joking with one reporter about a local news segment where people on the street were asked to name him based on a photo.

“The closest you got was ‘Mike’?” Carney quipped about his lack of local name recognition.

That could be an issue for Carney in the province.

“I don’t think Mark (Carney), for all his efforts, is going to find a base that resonates with him in Alberta,” said Michael Solberg, a Calgary-based partner at Shift Media Strategies and former Harper government staffer.

“Everything about him reads rich, affluent, high society… which is about as unrelatable as it gets around here.”

Carney’s launch speech was strikingly sombre at points, possibly playing to the Alberta crowd’s pragmatism.

“Th(e) good old times, my friends, are over,” Carney said in one of the speech’s most attention-getting lines. “Our times are anything but ordinary.”

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Several Liberal caucus members were present, including Calgary MP George Chahal, who introduced Carney.

One face that was notably missing was that of Randy Boissonnault, the Liberal MP for the Edmonton riding that includes Carney’s old neighbourhood.

Boissonnault, who resigned from cabinet in November over shifting claims of Indigenous heritage, announced on Wednesday that he was running for re-election and throwing his support behind Carney’s rival Chrystia Freeland.

Freeland, who grew up in Peace River, Alta., announced on Friday she was entering the race and will officially launch her campaign on Sunday.

Boissonnault’s re-election announcement could stop Carney from running for a Parliament seat in his home district, which is one of the few competitive districts in Alberta.

Carney wouldn’t say on Thursday where he plans to run for office, but did hint he’d like to set down roots in Edmonton.

“I have a strong commitment to this city, to this community, to the province and to the country,” Carney told reporters.

Solberg said that running close to home would be a mistake for Carney.

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“It would be a completely foolish effort for him to run anywhere in Alberta, it’s far too risky.”

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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