By Don Newman

October 24. 2025 

With the federal budget 10 days away, the Prime Minister has been walking two paths at the same time. One path is the traditional path of announcements. The other is the path of trying to get Canadians to realize that the November 4th budget will tell the hard truths about the country and the policy shifts and sacrifices that everyone will have to make.

Carney was on both paths this past week. The announcement was at a ceremony with Ontario Premier Doug Ford near the nuclear power plant at Darlington just east of Toronto. Together the federal government and Ontario will invest $3 billion dollars developing the first new nuclear power sources in Canada in 30 years — small modular reactors (SMRs) that will generate electricity for Ontario’s power grid and also hopefully attract export sales worldwide.

The path of getting Canadians to realize and support the tough measures that will have to be taken to transition the economy from its excessive reliance on the United States was on display in a speech to University of Ottawa students on October 22nd.  Carney painted a gloomy picture of the short-term prospects for the country, and by extension, for the students in his audience.

As he had before, Carney said the world has irrevocably changed, with the Trump administration throwing the international trading system into chaos with its protectionist tariffs. Canada is particularly affected, with the bulk of its exports currently supplying the American market. To counter, that he said the government will double exports to countries other than the U.S. within the next decade.

That shift, combined with new spending requirements on defence and building major infrastructure projects will strain the country’s finances, increase the federal deficit to levels previously seen in the pandemic, and require cutting and realigning social spending programs that will cause pain for some Canadians.

Whenever Carney tells Canadians where things stand, he does it in a calm, reasoned way you might expect from a successful international financial expert and central banker he has been. As governor of the Bank of Canada and then the Bank of England, Carney had to measure his words because his words carried disproportionate economic weight. He spent more than a decade in roles where his words could move markets.

So far, the Liberals have the substance right but the music wrong. The message is there but many people are not hearing it fully. That’s where the ‘Ask Not’ moment comes in.

In the case of former U.S. central banker Alan Greenspan, that vocational circumspection earned him the nickname “The Sphinx”. But Carney is a political leader now, and he cannot simply expect Canadians to understand how an unprecedented set of circumstances will impact their lives without bridging the language gap between his expertise and their anxieties.

So far, the Liberals have the substance right but the music wrong. The message is there but many people are not hearing it fully. That’s where the “Ask Not” moment comes in.

Those of us old enough will remember — people younger will have seen the videos — of the moment on January 20 1961 when John F. Kennedy was sworn in as President of the United States. In his acceptance speech, Kennedy electrified his worldwide audience from the U.S. Capitol with his stirring challenge to Americans: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

Few lines from inaugural speeches live on at all. But along with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “we have nothing to fear but fear itself,” Kennedy’s clarion call for sacrifice did. While Kennedy was speaking at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, he had already said in his speech that the United States would bear any burden to defend freedom around the world. He was one of the most eloquent and charismatic presidents the Americans have produced, and his famous line triggered a response that set the tone for what was to come.

So far, that is lacking in the run-up to what is sure to be a tough and challenging budget. The whole system of presenting the budget is going to be changed. Expenditures will be divided into “operating costs” and “investments” in future projects. How the expenditures are divided will no doubt be controversial.

John Kennedy was one of a kind. No one would expect Carney to have the same impact that the 35th president did 65 years ago. But the Prime Minister is articulate, intelligent and convincing. Time is running short before the budget and the Carney is currently out of the country. But he will be back before the budget, in time for a last-minute speech or even a press conference or interview. He should stop worrying about moving markets and start moving people.

He still has a chance for an “Ask Not” moment. He should take it.

Policy Columnist Don Newman is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a lifetime member and a past president of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery.