Veto Nation: Carney’s Vision Is a Curse on Unity

Unity isn’t built by handing out vetoes like Halloween candy. But that’s precisely what Prime Minister Mark Carney proposes for Canada: a governance structure for major projects so Balkanized, so suffocatingly fractured, that it makes the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’s liberum veto look like an efficient bureaucracy (more on this below). Carney wants every Premier and every federally designated Indigenous group to have a veto over major national infrastructure. In theory, that sounds like an inclusive approach. In practice, it’s a formula for paralysis.

Let’s set aside the political rhetoric and look at the mechanics. Under Carney’s vision, Northern Gateway, a pipeline that would have shipped Alberta crude to Asia through British Columbia, would never see daylight (just like under the sclerotic Trudeau regime), not because of B.C. alone, but because Quebec and a network of interest groups could all find reasons to kill it. And someone would. That’s not a guess; it’s institutionalized sabotage.

Canada's constitutional architecture is founded on the division of powers: Ottawa handles matters of national importance, such as interprovincial infrastructure, while provinces manage their respective jurisdictions, like natural resources. Carney’s approach turns that on its head. By granting a national veto to every Premier and indigenous band, he weakens Ottawa’s ability to act in the national interest and undermines each province’s ability to chart its path. In a twisted irony, every Premier becomes the prisoner of the most obstructionist among them.

The Prairie Problem

Nowhere is the damage more acute than in the Prairie West. Alberta and Saskatchewan, rich in resources but landlocked, are perpetually beholden to access routes across other jurisdictions. Manitoba has limited, seasonal access to tidewater. Quebec and B.C., meanwhile, routinely use their geographic leverage as a cudgel, blocking energy projects that could lift national productivity. In Carney’s Canada, the Prairie provinces are even more stuck in an economic purgatory, asked to consent to everyone else’s plans but never able to execute their own.

Alberta and Saskatchewan would be held in economic purgatory and again left at the whim of so many envious sentiments outside their borders. Such an arrangement potentially serves the baser interests among Canadians instead of figuring out how to elevate cooperation and the national interest.

This isn't a blueprint for unity. It's a rigged game that makes winners of Laurentian power brokers seeking reelection and losers of the provinces that form the backbone of the country’s resource wealth. Once again, the Prairies are allowed to pay the bills but not sign the cheques.

One Veto to Rule Them All

And then there’s the Indigenous veto. In the name of “Reconciliation,” the federal government will determine which of the 630+ bands and tribes gets to say "no" to national projects. But here's the kicker: the real decision-maker is still Ottawa. This isn't self-determination; it’s proxy obstructionism. Indigenous groups become pawns in a federal game, weaponized for political aims that have nothing to do with local prosperity or autonomy.

This is where things get truly dangerous. Hostile foreign powers have already infiltrated some Canadian institutions while Justin Trudeau looked the other way. Beijing has intimidated MPs, meddled in federal nominations, and harassed Chinese-Canadians with impunity. Canada has proven wholly incapable of shielding its own Parliamentarians from foreign threats. Carney’s proposal thus creates hundreds of additional points of vulnerability. Any group granted veto power becomes a potential target for interference, coercion, or influence peddling, foreign and domestic.

This should deeply concern Canada's allies, especially the United States. A weakened and fragmented Canada poses a security risk for the northern part of the continent. The United States depends on Canada for stable energy flows, critical minerals, and strategic reliability. Carney’s model jeopardizes all of it. It creates a country where small communities, by design or manipulation, can be used to shut down the arteries of continental commerce.

And there is no need to theorize. Foreign-financed activist groups such as the TIDES Foundation have already targeted Indigenous communities to block energy infrastructure. It is not outlandish to imagine that what has already occurred will recur, particularly when Ottawa provides the incentives to do so. The blueprint invites it from hostile foreign powers.

From Poland with Chaos

The history of Poland offers a cautionary tale of self-destruction. Beginning in 1652, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’s liberum veto allowed any member of the Sejm (parliament) to block legislation unilaterally. This was done in the name of liberty. By the 18th century, this mechanism had become a fatal flaw. The Sejm had between 300 and 400 members, and any one of them could dissolve a legislative session. The result? National impotence. What began as a safeguard against tyranny became a tool for foreign manipulation. Russia, Prussia, and Austria exploited it to fracture and eventually partition Poland out of existence. By 1795, the country had been entirely swallowed and was wiped from the map for 123 years.

Canada under Carney might fare even worse. Canada would have hundreds more veto points, more than the number of parliamentarians. Given that Canada has already proven unable to protect even a small number of MPs from foreign intimidation, the threat is real. With such risk, investment would flee, national projects would languish in committee rooms and courtrooms, and regional resentment would erupt, grow, and spread like brushfires in a drought.

A Gift to Sovereigntist Movements

What Carney proposes isn’t an ordinary bad idea. It is an accelerant to the centrifugal forces in the country.

In Alberta and Saskatchewan, the autonomy movement grows stronger every time Ottawa blocks a pipeline, or when Quebec Premier François Legault vetoes a Western energy project while pocketing equalization cheques. Carney’s blueprint takes this existing bitterness and injects it with steroids. By making Alberta’s economy hostage to the whims of multiplying distant governments and federally favoured activist groups, it makes its case for separation more compelling than ever.

Even Quebec, long masterful at playing federation politics to its advantage, may find itself boxed in. Imagine a Cree or Mohawk community, motivated by a domestic political dispute or nudged by a foreign hand, torpedoing Hydro-Québec’s plans for a new transmission line. The sword cuts that way, too.

Carney’s Rhetoric vs. Reality

Carney talks a good game. “One economy, not 13.” “Canada strong.” But his plan builds significant barriers, not bridges. It multiplies veto points, institutionalizes paralysis, and scares away badly-needed investment. It’s the political equivalent of paving the Trans-Canada Highway with landmines.

The contradiction is glaring: to remove interprovincial trade barriers, Carney proposes to create more gatekeepers (and obstacles) than ever before. The supposed aim is inclusivity, but the effect is exclusion. Just as the identity politics of the federal government has devolved into a performative sorting hat that sets groups against each other in a zero-sum game, so too does Carney’s infrastructure plan reward the politics of obstruction over cooperation. In identity politics and infrastructure policy, the consequence is the same: exclusion, division, and dysfunction.

Balkanized and Broken

Canada doesn’t need more obstructive elements to development. It needs decisiveness. It requires one national economy, not 630+ local vetoes masquerading as reconciliation. It also needs a constitutional order that respects the autonomy of provinces without shackling them to the slowest ship in the convoy, or to forces beholden to foreign interests.

Carney’s plan doesn’t unite Canada. It virtually dissolves it. It’s the Polish liberum veto dressed up in environmental or reconciliation robes, ushering in greater gridlock as national policy. It’s not a vision, it’s a slow-motion fracture. A curse to the common good, and the most straightforward path yet to an even weaker, more fragmented country.