We know this about Mark Carney, because it’s often repeated. He was born in Fort Smith, NWT, and raised in Edmonton. He is the child of school teachers and went to Harvard on financial aid.

He went on to Oxford, Goldman Sachs, and governorships of the Banks of Canada and England.

I applied to Harvard for my (first) undergraduate degree too. But it was more of a lark because I knew I had no chance of getting in, although it was something I thought I really wanted at the time.

But let’s think about this, about Mark Carney as a teenager in the very early 1980s. To go from a high school in Edmonton to Harvard would have meant he had opportunities even then to flesh out his resume. Maybe it was the hockey, maybe he… I don’t know. President of the student’s society? Who knows. But it’s not just about solid grades and test scores. He would have had to demonstrate he was already special in his mid-sized Canadian city. Harvard doesn’t take you if you’re average.

I have no doubt the class differences hit him hard when he got to Harvard. I have no doubt this made an impression on him that stuck and stuck for the long term. But I want to say these were buffered by something else that he had, that had gotten him into Harvard in the first place: an ease with moving through the world.

Some people are good at that. Some people are natural communicators, are comfortable in social situations, and adjust easily to new settings. These are the people who can manage Harvard and go on to Oxford and Goldman Sachs. Because it’s not just about the grades. It never is.

I bring this up because we in Canada do a whole lot of pretending our differences don’t matter. We’re Canada, we take care of each other. Everyone has opportunity. We don’t hold you back if you work hard.

It’s a bit of a lie. Because, yes. We get some basics, and those are very good basics (relatively affordable and accessible post-secondary education, decent health care) but opportunity doesn’t come from just hard work. You have to relate to others in a certain way to get ahead.

Many of us experience barriers doing that. Physically, we might not move or talk the same way, might not hear in the same way. Mentally or emotionally, we might have a different set of experiences to draw upon to find common ground. In essence, ease of moving through the world generally means being able to act the same way that most people around you do.

So, let’s not fault Mark Carney for that, for his ease. And we of course don’t discount his hard work. The question is more how does he relate to those who don’t have that ease of moving through the world. And yes, I know the question that precedes that really is… does it matter?

Do we need a Prime Minister who has some kind of understanding of what it’s like to live with different experiences?

There are some retail politicians whose relatability, or capacity to understand, seems fundamental on that level. I’m thinking now of those city representatives who attended the tenant meeting we had in my rental building a few weeks back. The building is being torn down and redeveloped and we have certain legal rights. Those city representatives (though not elected) should have some understanding of what it’s like to move without ease in the world. But do we really need that in a Prime Minister?

There are lots of long-form interviews you can find online where Mark Carney speaks at length about policy and global economics in mind-numbing detail (in one, which I might talk about in a future post, he seems to talk over the head even of the person who’s interviewing him). Mark Carney as a political candidate is a kind of stripped down version of this person, who’s always chatting with his own people.

A video circulated this weekend of Carney chatting with volunteers in his Nepean riding. He made a visit to the home of some folks celebrating Eid al-Fitr and helped pack boxes for a local food bank. So, what is this for, exactly? Is there a worry that the people of Nepean would think he wouldn’t be in favour of donating to a food bank if they didn’t see him doing it in a campaign video?

I met Justin Trudeau in 2006. I was driven to a kind of political enthusiasm by the Liberal party leadership candidacy of Michael Ignatieff (remember him?). Although I’d not been a party member, I was living in Ottawa at the time and applied to volunteer at the leadership convention where Ignatieff famously lost to Stephane Dion.

I was tasked with handing out information packets, but only to certain people (maybe registered delegates or formal observers). So when Justin Trudeau approached my table, and kindly, and without a shred of ego, asked what he needed to do, I just handed him a packet. I was breaking the rules, because Justin wasn’t a delegate. But I recognized him. And his humility and kindness to me, deferring to my knowledge as the person with the packets, led me to make a small little exception in his favour, without him even knowing.

There are people who are born rich or connected, but still have trouble moving through the world. Their other advantages can make up for the awkwardness. Then you’ve got the opposite, like Mark Carney. Then you’ve got people born not with ease, nor with wealth or connection. Should our Prime Minister relate to us?

I don’t know, but I do think those efforts are part of what drove a lot of Justin Trudeau’s leadership, and it wore people down by the end. In Carney we’ll get a policy wonk. But maybe that’s ok. He doesn’t have to pack food for the food bank as long as he remembers that there are Canadians who actually depend on it to survive.