Upon Mark Carney’s formal entry into the Liberal Party leadership race almost exactly a year ago, supporters endorsed the eventual prime minister as a cosmopolitan man of the world.

No one disputes that the 60-year-old Fort Smith, N.W.T product has deep ties around the globe, but Canada’s head of government demonstrated during his state visit to China that his awareness of the state of the world is far from infallible.

It was troubling to these ears to hear our leading Roman Catholic politician state on Jan. 15 that he is “heartened by the leadership of President Xi Jinping,” considering the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary oversees one of the most repressive anti-Christian regimes in the world.

Advertisement

To start, 10 Chinese Catholic bishops approved by the Holy See have either been placed under house arrest, forcibly expelled from their bishopric or outright disappeared off the grid.

Authorities have breached sacred houses of worship with sophisticated facial recognition cameras to identify the congregants in the pews and monitor sermons to ensure that the CCP ideology is not being questioned or challenged. The surveillance state also extends to tracking Christ worshippers' phone usage and actions. Beliefs deemed as non-conforming to “Xi Jinping thought" are a blight to their social credit score.   

And while our Prime Minister and every Catholic in Canada has the automatic freedom to attend Mass each week if they choose, there are some regions in China where churchgoing is outlawed for children under 18 years old, according to the Christian persecution watchdog organization Open Doors International.

We also have the comfort of knowing that the doctrine preached in our Canadian Catholic houses of worship is inspired by the Holy Scriptures. What a blessing.

By contrast, to hear the true Gospel, Chinese Christians have to take the dangerous, illegal step of participating in the underground Church.

Registered churches that fall under the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPA) or the Catholic Patriotic Association are under great pressure to Sinicize, which means assimilating to ideological character and propaganda. Pivotal to these indoctrination efforts is a 10-year project to rewrite the Bible and the sacred texts of other belief systems.

It would be heartening to see Carney take a principled stand for his faith in his dealings with China instead of opting for calculated flattery.

Unfortunately, there are too many occasions in recent years where Carney has chosen not to be the man in the arena on behalf of his professed faith.

Advertisement

Carney did not render a single condemnation in reaction to dozens of churches being vandalized or burnt to the ground over the past four-and-a-half years.  

He has also not validated the Roman Catholic Church’s pro-life stance in any way. He has publicly stated support, “unreservedly,” for an environment that enables sex selective abortion, later-term abortion and children born alive but left to die.

Though he is pro-choice, why could he not honourably value the pro-life ideals that govern many other members of his faith by endorsing the societal contributions of crisis pregnancy centres and other pro-life non-profit organizations? They were kept on a razor’s edge for months after the 2025 election, wondering whether or not their charitable status would be revoked in the federal budget. Fortunately, these groups got a reprieve for another year.

Most unfortunately, Carney has not uttered a single comment about a Bloc Québécois amendment to Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, that would strip away the religious speech protections from Canada’s hate laws.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL), governing bodies of other faith groups and numerous civil liberty organizations are denouncing this measure agreed upon by Liberal members of the justice and human rights committee. They all warn that this amendment would cause a grave chilling effect on religious speech.

Why would Carney, as a church-going Catholic, want to attend a service where a priest feels great unease over what he can and cannot say? That’s hardly an optimal recipe for spiritual enrichment.

He has ceded all major government comments about this controversial amendment thus far to Minister of Justice and Attorney General Sean Fraser and Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller.

Miller being handed the identity and culture portfolio is disquieting, considering a comment he made about religious texts during an Oct. 30 justice and human rights committee meeting, which he chaired. He said: “Clearly, there are situations in these texts where these statements are hateful. They should not be used to invoke, or be a defence, and there should perhaps be discretion for prosecutors to press charges.”

When the House of Commons resumes sitting on Jan. 26, Carney must be asked by opposition parliamentarians to state his position on the amendment to Bill C-9 publicly and if he endorses his minister’s comments.

One of the Register’s regular contributors, Anna Farrow, raised the question in a January 2025 column whether Carney would be “the Catholic or the Davos Man,” the latter a nod to his ties to the wealthy global elite that attend the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Advertisement

Carney’s first nine months of governance have seen him put many “Davos” points on the board. By encouraging his party to scuttle this ill-advised amendment to Bill C-9, he could deliver a well-timed and appreciated example of his Catholic credentials.