Yesterday, following his victory in the Liberal Party’s leadership election, Mark Carney was formally appointed Prime Minister of Canada. This took place at a meeting of the Privy Council in the presence of the Governor General.

British cabinet inaugurations are not televised – instead we have to rely on merely reading the orders in council off the website later – but this gives us a good guide to what it might look like (minus the speeches and the anthem, of course): Each minister in turn gets up to take his or her oath of office, with those not already privy counsellors (including Carney himself) taking that oath as well. The Privy Council oath contains frequent acknowledgement of Charles III as King of Canada.

This being Canada, proceedings were conducted in both English and French. Given that the vocabulary of the oaths heavily favours the Romantic over the Saxon, it often sounded like the same sentences but in different accents.

At twenty-four members in all (including himself), Carney’s cabinet is considerably smaller than Trudeau’s. All the other ministers are incumbent members of the House of Commons, though only two (Dominic LeBlanc and David McGuinty) began their parliamentary careers before Trudeau became party leader. Arielle Kayabaga, a relatively junior member still in her first parliamentary term, has been appointed Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, a role which will probably be more burdensome than normal given the Prime Minister’s non-membership.

Parliament is, of course, the elephant in the room. The legislature last conducted chamber business on 17th December and was supposed to meet again on 27th January, but then was prorogued. The new session is expected to begin on 24th March. That would be the start of a new session, requiring Her Excellency to give a new speech from the throne with the government’s legislative agenda. That would be an opportunity for Carney to attempt a government “relaunch”, but this will be hampered by the parliamentary balance of power – not only the Prime Minister’s own absence, but the fact that the party as a whole has not won a majority of seats in the lower house nor a plurality of the popular vote since 2015. The new government is severely lacking in democratic authority and, with an absent leader, may well struggle to get its business through even more than Trudeau’s did.

The current (44th) Parliament is near the end of its term. Under law, the next general election can be no later than 20th October, but the Governor General can arrange one earlier at the Prime Minister’s request. The Liberals’ polling was remarkably poor in January at the point of Trudeau’s resignation announcement, but has recovered dramatically in the face of invasion threats from the United States and now, in what may be deemed Carney’s “honeymoon period” as a new leader, some polls suggest they could actually win again.

The Leader of the Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, has campaigned hard against the personality, posturing and poor performance of Justin Trudeau, embracing a populist style often likened to that of Donald Trump and associating himself with other prominent figures in that sphere of politics. Now that Trudeau himself is off the stage and Trump is Canada’s principal antagonist, this is likely to fall flat.

Supporters of Carney and opponents of Poilievre are drawing attention to the latter being a “career politician” who “never held a real job” in contrast to the former’s extensive business experience. Of course, being an elected lawmaker and a party leader is an occupation and has a skillset different to that needed for appointed roles in the state or private sector, so a having Parliament sit for an extended period without his opponent may work to the Conservatives’ advantage, as may a protracted electoral campaign. From a partisan perspective, therefore, it is in Carney’s interest for the general election to take place as quickly as possible.

Whether that is in the national interest is not certain: At a time of serious external and internal crisis, Canada has been without a functioning legislature for three months. Dissolving it now would prolong this situation for at least another month, maybe two. Then again, it’s not clear how functional that Parliament was anyway – Trudeau referred in his January speech to there being months of paralysis. Still, Carney might wish for some emergency legislation to be passed to deal with current events.

In the absence of Parliament, the Carney government must rely on ministerial powers and orders-in-council to carry out its agenda. The Prime Minister has already had himself photographed signing some form of instruction to eliminate an unpopular tax which his predecessor had devised, though people learned in the constitution have questioned its validity – news sources are calling it an order-in-council but neither the text nor the format match this.

While I’m discussing the King’s Privy Council for Canada, indulge me a little in discussing its British counterpart: The council has recently launched a complete redesign of its website. Rather than one big PDF for each meeting, there is now a separate link for each individual order and proclamation with a search function, distinct from the list of business.

It would now be prudent to check up on the state of relations between His Majesty’s Governments of Canada and the United Kingdom, as well as the stance of Charles himself.

In his first public speech after taking office, Carney referred to Canada’s “proud British heritage”. He has already announced that he will be rapidly visiting both France and the United Kingdom in the next few days, the latter obviously involving a meeting with the monarch.

The King planted a tree in the back garden of Buckingham Palace on Tuesday to commemorate The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy. That it was a red maple tree did not go unnoticed. On Wednesday he held an audience for two representatives of Canada’s sentate, Gregory Peters (Usher of the Black Rod) and Raymonde Gagné (Speaker). The King presented them with a new ceremonial sword bearing his royal cypher. I note that the heraldic illustration etched onto the blade shows the Tudor crown rather than St Edward’s or the Maple Leaf version. There is also a carving of the crown at the pommel, but I can’t make out what the objects around the rim are supposed to be.

From 12th-14th March the foreign ministers of the G7 held a summit at Charlevoix, Quebec. A join statement was put out regarding the situation in Ukraine, but David Lammy remained curiously noncommittal on the US-Canada dispute. Sir Ed Davey, by contrast, has been pressing the government on this issue, as well as showing support in his characteristic way.

UPDATE (16th March)

Global News has this discussion about the mechanics of the carbon tax repeal.