Carney’s launch speech was strikingly sombre at points, possibly playing to the Alberta crowd’s pragmatism
Edmontonian Kristin Raworth said that Carney’s decades-long absence from the city didn’t make too many hearts grow fonder.
“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.
“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!”
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.
“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.”
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.
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.
“It would be a completely foolish effort for him to run anywhere in Alberta, it’s far too risky.”
National Post
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