A letter writer, in calling into question Mark Carney’s reputation as a central banker and economist, provides a very partisan view of his performance (“Letter: Carney’s record spells trouble for Canadians,” April 10).

Unfortunately, as elections approach, such opinion pieces too often simply repeat party propaganda, rather than bother to undertake a little independent research themselves.

Had the letter writer looked just a little further, he would have discovered that, as the governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis, Mr. Carney acted faster than most countries to cut interest rates to stimulate the economy, and, as a result, Canada weathered the storm better than most. He earned accolades from the Financial Times and Euromoney, amongst others, for his actions during this period.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper praised Mark Carney when he left the Bank of Canada to become governor of the Bank of England. He said that Mr. Carney had been a “valued partner” who had helped “steer Canada away from the worst impacts of the global economic recession.”

Mr. Carney did not do this single-handedly, of course, and I don’t doubt that in retrospect there were some things that Mr. Carney could have done better, but Stephen Harper’s recent attempt at revisionist history to belittle Mr. Carney’s role at that time was a partisan cheap shot that has been largely debunked.

In fact, Mr. Carney claims that Mr. Harper tried to recruit him as his government’s finance minister in 2012, something Mr. Harper has not denied.

The letter writer is correct that the term “an unreliable boyfriend” was used by British MP Pat McFadden during Mark Carney’s term as the governor of the Bank of England because of the unpredictable timing of interest rate changes. Mr. McFadden’s actual words were: “It strikes me that the bank’s behaving a bit like a sort of unreliable boyfriend.”

However, Mr. Carney defended his actions on British interest rates by pointing out that economic conditions can change quite rapidly, requiring prompt responses “driven by the data.”

Mr. Carney was also criticized by some in the U.K. for what was considered to be political interference in the Brexit debate. He warned that a vote to separate from Europe would have serious economic implications for Britain. The Brexiteers prevailed and Mark Carney was proved correct.

Brexit is widely regarded as fuelling inflation in Britain by 1.7 per cent and contributed to the cost of living crisis in London as recently as 2023, according to the lord mayor’s report.

The high inflation rate in Britain in 2022, cited by the letter writer as attributable to Mark Carney’s interest rate strategy, was due in large part to the pandemic, which caused high inflation globally, and Brexit.

The letter writer also speculated, without any convincing evidence, that Mr. Carney would be easy prey for the unpredictable Donald Trump in upcoming negotiations, and that global elites would benefit from his tenure. This is simply vague party propaganda.

And the letter writer provides no sense of how he considers Pierre Poilievre would better protect Canada from the disruption that Donald Trump could inflict on us.

Furthermore, the claim that Mr. Poilievre has “a genuine commitment to serving Canadians” is something that can be convincingly applied to both Jagmeet Singh and Mark Carney.

So, is it Poilievre? Or is it Carney? Whomever we vote for should be driven by the most reliable information we can obtain, not by propaganda and bluster.

Calm, serious debate by adults is the preferred way forward.