VIDEO: Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney makes brief stop in Kelowna

Former Bank of Canada Governor and federal Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney is riding high in the polls as he visits BC.

"I am not a politician. But I have always been a pragmatist," he said, addressing a packed ballroom at the Ramada Hotel.

"So when I see something that's not working, I try to change it," said Carney, as he began his remarks.

And he began by addressing his party's biggest political liability, the carbon tax.

"If people don't buy into a policy or a change, it doesn't matter how good it is, it's not right," said Carney as he explained his approach on the issue.

"The issue wasn't, to coin a phrase, whether to 'axe the tax,' the issue was how to change it."

He reiterated his plan to see the tax on individuals and small businesses brought to a halt without abandoning the country's commitment to addressing climate change.

"We're making the large companies pay for everybody, including here in Kelowna," said Carney, who shifted quickly to the looming trade war with the United States.

"There's a lot at stake right now," he said.

And his words sounded more combative than they did conciliatory.

"They want our resources, they want our water, they want our land, they would destroy our way of life," he said.

"In America, health care is a big business, it is not a right. In America, the social safety net has huge gaping holes in it through which tens of millions of people fall every year."

"Canada will never ever be part of America in any way, shape or form," he said, raising his voice and to applause from the supporters around him.

Carney went on to offer his take on how to deal with the president.

"Can you influence Trump?" he asked the crowd, before answering his own question.

"A bit," he said as people chuckled. "A bit, and then we've got to pretend we didn't."

Still, he concedes that Canada needs to help address the fentanyl crisis on both sides of the border.

"Us doing what we can to help them with that is absolutely appropriate," said Carney.

But he said our focus needs to be on what we can change.

"What we must change is to be masters in our own house, in absolute control of our economic destiny," he said.

Carney went on to promise a balanced budget within three years, along with a middle-class tax cut and a boost for young Canadians facing a housing market that is "running away" from them.

Doubling back to the trade war, Carney said the plan is to "build."

He said he would use all of the powers of the federal government, including emergency powers, to that end.

"To accelerate the major projects that we need," he said. "In order to build this economy and take on the Americans."

Not surprisingly, Kelowna-Lake Country MP Tracy Gray is notably unimpressed.

"Carbon Tax Carney came to Kelowna," she said in a message sent to KelownaNow through the Office of the Official Opposition in Ottawa.

"To tell people they should ignore the damage caused by 9 years of the Trudeau-Carney Liberals," the message continues, "to downplay the fentanyl crisis, and to promote his new and bigger shadow carbon tax that will make Canadians even poorer."

The latest polling suggests a Carney-led Liberal Party would be running neck-and-neck against the Conservatives, a dramatic turnaround for the Grits.