And here's the minister in the morning paper writing to colleagues and asking them to deliver a list of cuts in seven weeks. The question I have is whether this is the first anyone has heard of an October deadline for a process that was announced in April. I suspect it might be. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-federal-cabinet-internal-savings/
Don't you think it might have been better reporting if you had contacted the minister before writing the stuff you got from anonymous sources in the Ottawa gulag. I won't call it lazy reporting but I do know she generally is willing to talk to people writing about her.
Good article. And it’s really to bad that Ms. Anand is so improperly treated. She is one of Mr. Trudeau’s most competent ministers. With all respect due her successor at Defense, I do not think the change is for the best of the department AND the country.
She doesn't fell mistreated at all. Disappointed in not being able to finish her work at defence but knows what the PM needs from her is important to the govt. Anita is a taskmaster and things get done; the PM knows this very well and she is also a superb fund raiser anther important requirement the party.
As great a read this is, it’s also quite depressing. It’s seems to reinforce a perception that the Prime Minister and the people around him are very insecure thinkers. A normal set of circumstances would see someone in their twilight end of service relishing in the talent around them and play them off against each other in a friendly rivalry to get the most out of them. Not Justin Trudeau. Spread your wings around him and see how long it takes to get them clipped. What a waste of human resources.
Also, a note about the alleged “search for savings” that the Finance Department is currently running. This project is handicapped right from the start because the Government has little interest in assessing programs for cost efficiencies and if they are achieving their objectives. The way to chop the lard off of programming away from the clutches of department heads is to show them that a program is redundant or not meeting its goals. I don’t know Ms. Anand, but it would seem that she has the analytical skills to do the trimming if she wants the blowback for having the guts to say no. All the best to her at Treasury.
Another example that this PM is not serious. I was pleased with Annand’s commitment to getting DND in shape...not sure about Blair, who’s another talk, talk guy!
This was my favourite line: “a steady drumbeat of validation for what’s already happened, rather than impatience to do what’s next.” Altogether too much of this coasting goes on in politics. There is such a lack of vision, and as this episode shows, little tolerance of vision either. We get the government we deserve though.
VH, you say, "We get the government we deserve though."
I respectfully claim to not be part of that "We" simply because I never voted for the charlatan occupying the PM's office. In fact, in the last federal election I absolutely refused to vote because all the parties (well, except Mad Max, but who cares about him?) were campaigning on pledges that promised to decimate my province of Alberta.
So, the charlatan in the PM's office is the responsibility of all you others who compose "We."
The ‘we’ I take as meaning the sacrosanct 905ers, the East Coast, who continually re-elect these preening, self-righteous idiots. The rest of Canada aka ‘fly over country’ doesn’t count. That much is clear. Do I feel as part of ‘their Canada?’ Definitely not. Absolutely not.
Yea TMX is so debilitating for AB. The PM has spent tax money from across the country to give you AB whiners an export PL that is not the US. The lack of critical thinking out there is astounding.
(Zero of the contracted volumes of TMX oil - accounting for near capacity flow - go to non-US markets. They go entirely to US destinations already receiving Alberta product. Why? VLCC’s and SuperMax tankers are too large for Burrard. To say nothing of the Stanley Bridge challenge. And the Panamax tankers used rarely do transpacific routes.)
The only way to not be one of Us is to renounce citizenship and leave. If you’re here, you’re one of Us Canucks, no matter how you feel about Max, Skippy or JT.
I could, of course, renounce my citizenship and leave the jurisdiction. The problem with that is that I am a senior and it simply is not practical for me to do so. So, that is point one.
Second point is that, as I see it, the best alternative is for my province and perhaps others to leave this wretched country. In such a manner I would accomplish your suggestion.
As for me being a Canuck, well, at one time I was proud of Canada but that has long ago diminished to pretty much nothingness. The fact that I am a Canadian is an accident of birth.
I may (or may not) vote in the next election; after all, I have voted in every federal, provincial and municipal election for which I have been eligible in my seventy odd years with the sole exception of the last federal election. The determining factor for me will be if any of the parties do not campaign on ideas that are oriented to the destruction of Alberta. As things stand now, the Liberals and the NDP are clearly oriented to the destruction of my province; where the CPC stands, we will see.
Only in a system in which our votes counted could any claim be justly made that "we get the government we deserve." Only 33% of voters chose the Trudeau Liberals. Now, if you add the 16% of voters who chose the Singh NDP, you get 49% of voters. Ooh, so close! But no cigar. A minority government is better than a majority government, no question. It leaves only a bare majority out in the cold, rather than the usual larger majority. But it's still not PR, it still doesn't function as well as PR does, and the majority of Canadians cannot be blamed for what results, because control is out of our hands. And Trudeau wants it that way.
Would you mind saying something about the other 80 or so countries that have PR and why it's a problem for them? Perhaps you could start with the Scandanavian countries, then move to Germany and New Zealand. Maybe wrap up with Portugal or Belgium.
You are right, there are many successful adoptions of PR, and I have not studied the issue in any depth. I do know that Israeli governments have lasted an average two years since 1948 and they are mainly coalitions that allow smaller partners, particularly the religious parties, to demand and get policies adopted that benefit their constituencies.
This is so infuriating. We're in the middle of a housing crisis, a climate crisis, a military crisis, and a healthcare crisis, all of which require hundreds of billions of dollars of spending and a major marshalling of resources to tackle. What's the response? Well, we're going to casually peek under the couch cushions to halfheartedly dredge up an arbitrary $15.4 billion in savings for no good goddam reason or vision for what is to be accomplished. Then throw some PR at the crises and hope to god that the Bad Folks don't get off the couch to vote for the Bad Guy. Oh, and make sure there's no friendly fire by sidelining the only MP who seems to know what the hell she's doing.
Did Team Trudeau learn how to govern by watching The West Wing?
I’m a fan of Carla Qualtrough and can’t figure out why she got demoted. And why nobody cares. She has - from what I can tell - a ministerial seriousness anyone would want around the table. And as I type those words, I realize that I’ve perhaps stumbled upon the very answer I was looking for - ministerial seriousness need not apply.
I had concluded that the shuffle changed nothing because Bill Blair was still in cabinet.
Now I know why Anaad is at Treasury Board. Because PMO likes neither her nor TBS. Why? Because details. Because governing.
I listened to Marc Miller on a pod last week. ‘We’ve announced some groundbreaking stuff, but getting things done has been more difficult.’ Well Minister, I got to ask, what were you expecting? When you were barking historic stuff, what if anything did the brief say about implementation. Your not the mascot at a ball game riling up the crowd. Your a Minister. Have you heard of things called ‘unintended consequences’? They use to be a big thing in Ottawa and talking about them is kinda important. Take, for example, immigration policy where a discussion of unintended consequences might touch on levels and their impact on things like housing. I see Miller’s now the immigration minister and a full week in is exactly like the ‘immigration is our advantage’ dude he replaced. Who is now the housing minister. Maybe the housing minister will get the unintended consequence brief that he should have got when he was the immigration minister? But I doubt it. PMO likes and value compliance and comms.
There’s no devil in the detail to worry about when we’re all thinking, doing and saying the same thing. What could possible go wrong.
My understanding is that, in this government, the primary function of Ministers is to communicate to the public. Knowledge of the portfolio and its files, competence in managing a department, teamwork with others, all of these are incidental. The key is to communicate to the public.
Guess which Cabinet position has the least opportunity to communicate to the public?
Damn. For an alleged feminist,Trudeau sure knows how to make sure women don’t outshine him. Which isn’t that hard to do. Anybody competent is at risk. And there’s Poilievre waiting in the wings who assumes waitresses make $60,000 annually.
One of my beefs with all reporting on numbers is the lack of context - $15 billion out of a budget of some $400 billion (3.75%) is scarcely savage. Well done to the civil service to make it so. Another win for the hordes in Ottawa.
An associated problem is reporting on expenditures - military are routinely done this way - that addresses the 'lifetime costs' of investments/operations over some 30/40 years. You get some horrific number, completely without context that gives everyone the vapours. Say, $80 billion for the new navy ships (roughly around there, the number varies) for a 30 year lifespan. Forget inflation (which is usually factored into the 'lifetime costs) - at present levels of gov't spending, we'll shovel some $12,000 billion (aka $12 trillion), of which the navy's share is 0.7% over that time frame. On top of which, the operating costs, also factored into the $80 billion, are presently paid for the current fleet. The only number of interest is the incremental operating costs of the new fleet - these won't be zero, but they won't be enormous either.
All to say, having grown up discussion about all this stuff is difficult given the way numbers are batted about.
What we absolutely have to spend money on and ASAP is defence of the Arctic and NORAD (as part of that). Sovereignty without enforcement is dependent on international kindness. Not much of that around.
OK, I’ll reach for the bait – the first paragraph needs some explaining. Or is this an invitation to marvel at your creative ambiguity?
It’s an interesting column, I’ll give you that. At a time in the dog days of summer when the Globe and Mail editors have set their columnists free to reach deep into their bag of prejudices and report on gossip, the column contains some analysis worth pondering over tonight, over drinks. But it’s tough to swallow Treasury Board as a demotion two years before an election that is going to turn at least partly on government spending.
How about a steady hand on the tiller, or, as the Brits would say, a safe pair of hands? I’m prepared to consider other evidence – but it’s not in this column. We await further thoughts.
Excel at doing vaccine procurement. Get rewarded by going in to clean up DND and then war breaks out. Act like you're taking it seriously and shake up the place a bit and get smacked down by being shuffled into Treasury Board, the funnest of the fun shops.
Hold the applause on the procurement file...if and when we get a COVID public inquiry I believe it will further expose many questionable decisions re certain major investments and purchases....all presumably made at the PMO's request but she will still bear most of the brunt of the fallout.
This column is about Anita Anand, but it was your description of Chrystia Freehand... sorry, Freeland, as "the one true minister" that caused my jaw to drop in admiration. There are a couple of pretenders to her throne, including, evidently, Joly, and perhaps another Trudeau pal, Mark Miller. It's always fun watching a cabinet when the elbows are out.
Although your analysis of political high jinks has made me depressed you have also given me a good laugh. You are clearly a man that won't be managed and know how the game works. Leadership and management skill are not necessarily qualities that successful politicians need possess. We elect these people based on sound bites and then expect them can manage cabinets and huge ministries even though almost all have no experience managing anything than a classroom or small office. It's clearly a failure to shuffle Anita Anand out of a portfolio where improvement is so badly needed - if she sticks around she would make a terrific PM. The only thing that will allow the Liberals to win again is the presence of The Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
I'd say you can be the boss if you don't work in the government, but regardless, if it isn't Gerry, then who? You've call Chrystia "the one true minister" which to me doesn't jibe with being the boss.
Freeland was the first person I thought of. Telford was the second. She's less in the public eye, but perhaps that makes her the power behind the throne.
And here's the minister in the morning paper writing to colleagues and asking them to deliver a list of cuts in seven weeks. The question I have is whether this is the first anyone has heard of an October deadline for a process that was announced in April. I suspect it might be. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-federal-cabinet-internal-savings/
Don't you think it might have been better reporting if you had contacted the minister before writing the stuff you got from anonymous sources in the Ottawa gulag. I won't call it lazy reporting but I do know she generally is willing to talk to people writing about her.
Good article. And it’s really to bad that Ms. Anand is so improperly treated. She is one of Mr. Trudeau’s most competent ministers. With all respect due her successor at Defense, I do not think the change is for the best of the department AND the country.
She doesn't fell mistreated at all. Disappointed in not being able to finish her work at defence but knows what the PM needs from her is important to the govt. Anita is a taskmaster and things get done; the PM knows this very well and she is also a superb fund raiser anther important requirement the party.
As great a read this is, it’s also quite depressing. It’s seems to reinforce a perception that the Prime Minister and the people around him are very insecure thinkers. A normal set of circumstances would see someone in their twilight end of service relishing in the talent around them and play them off against each other in a friendly rivalry to get the most out of them. Not Justin Trudeau. Spread your wings around him and see how long it takes to get them clipped. What a waste of human resources.
Also, a note about the alleged “search for savings” that the Finance Department is currently running. This project is handicapped right from the start because the Government has little interest in assessing programs for cost efficiencies and if they are achieving their objectives. The way to chop the lard off of programming away from the clutches of department heads is to show them that a program is redundant or not meeting its goals. I don’t know Ms. Anand, but it would seem that she has the analytical skills to do the trimming if she wants the blowback for having the guts to say no. All the best to her at Treasury.
Another example that this PM is not serious. I was pleased with Annand’s commitment to getting DND in shape...not sure about Blair, who’s another talk, talk guy!
This was my favourite line: “a steady drumbeat of validation for what’s already happened, rather than impatience to do what’s next.” Altogether too much of this coasting goes on in politics. There is such a lack of vision, and as this episode shows, little tolerance of vision either. We get the government we deserve though.
VH, you say, "We get the government we deserve though."
I respectfully claim to not be part of that "We" simply because I never voted for the charlatan occupying the PM's office. In fact, in the last federal election I absolutely refused to vote because all the parties (well, except Mad Max, but who cares about him?) were campaigning on pledges that promised to decimate my province of Alberta.
So, the charlatan in the PM's office is the responsibility of all you others who compose "We."
The ‘we’ I take as meaning the sacrosanct 905ers, the East Coast, who continually re-elect these preening, self-righteous idiots. The rest of Canada aka ‘fly over country’ doesn’t count. That much is clear. Do I feel as part of ‘their Canada?’ Definitely not. Absolutely not.
Yea TMX is so debilitating for AB. The PM has spent tax money from across the country to give you AB whiners an export PL that is not the US. The lack of critical thinking out there is astounding.
(Zero of the contracted volumes of TMX oil - accounting for near capacity flow - go to non-US markets. They go entirely to US destinations already receiving Alberta product. Why? VLCC’s and SuperMax tankers are too large for Burrard. To say nothing of the Stanley Bridge challenge. And the Panamax tankers used rarely do transpacific routes.)
The only way to not be one of Us is to renounce citizenship and leave. If you’re here, you’re one of Us Canucks, no matter how you feel about Max, Skippy or JT.
Well, VH, my response is somewhat nuanced.
I could, of course, renounce my citizenship and leave the jurisdiction. The problem with that is that I am a senior and it simply is not practical for me to do so. So, that is point one.
Second point is that, as I see it, the best alternative is for my province and perhaps others to leave this wretched country. In such a manner I would accomplish your suggestion.
As for me being a Canuck, well, at one time I was proud of Canada but that has long ago diminished to pretty much nothingness. The fact that I am a Canadian is an accident of birth.
I may (or may not) vote in the next election; after all, I have voted in every federal, provincial and municipal election for which I have been eligible in my seventy odd years with the sole exception of the last federal election. The determining factor for me will be if any of the parties do not campaign on ideas that are oriented to the destruction of Alberta. As things stand now, the Liberals and the NDP are clearly oriented to the destruction of my province; where the CPC stands, we will see.
Only in a system in which our votes counted could any claim be justly made that "we get the government we deserve." Only 33% of voters chose the Trudeau Liberals. Now, if you add the 16% of voters who chose the Singh NDP, you get 49% of voters. Ooh, so close! But no cigar. A minority government is better than a majority government, no question. It leaves only a bare majority out in the cold, rather than the usual larger majority. But it's still not PR, it still doesn't function as well as PR does, and the majority of Canadians cannot be blamed for what results, because control is out of our hands. And Trudeau wants it that way.
Yeah, PR is great, look at Israel - full PR - terrific!
Would you mind saying something about the other 80 or so countries that have PR and why it's a problem for them? Perhaps you could start with the Scandanavian countries, then move to Germany and New Zealand. Maybe wrap up with Portugal or Belgium.
Also: what's the problem with Israel?
You are right, there are many successful adoptions of PR, and I have not studied the issue in any depth. I do know that Israeli governments have lasted an average two years since 1948 and they are mainly coalitions that allow smaller partners, particularly the religious parties, to demand and get policies adopted that benefit their constituencies.
Average two years since 1948? I'm not sure about that. I've heard that Canada has had more frequent elections than Israel in recent decades.
This is so infuriating. We're in the middle of a housing crisis, a climate crisis, a military crisis, and a healthcare crisis, all of which require hundreds of billions of dollars of spending and a major marshalling of resources to tackle. What's the response? Well, we're going to casually peek under the couch cushions to halfheartedly dredge up an arbitrary $15.4 billion in savings for no good goddam reason or vision for what is to be accomplished. Then throw some PR at the crises and hope to god that the Bad Folks don't get off the couch to vote for the Bad Guy. Oh, and make sure there's no friendly fire by sidelining the only MP who seems to know what the hell she's doing.
Did Team Trudeau learn how to govern by watching The West Wing?
I’m a fan of Carla Qualtrough and can’t figure out why she got demoted. And why nobody cares. She has - from what I can tell - a ministerial seriousness anyone would want around the table. And as I type those words, I realize that I’ve perhaps stumbled upon the very answer I was looking for - ministerial seriousness need not apply.
I had concluded that the shuffle changed nothing because Bill Blair was still in cabinet.
Now I know why Anaad is at Treasury Board. Because PMO likes neither her nor TBS. Why? Because details. Because governing.
I listened to Marc Miller on a pod last week. ‘We’ve announced some groundbreaking stuff, but getting things done has been more difficult.’ Well Minister, I got to ask, what were you expecting? When you were barking historic stuff, what if anything did the brief say about implementation. Your not the mascot at a ball game riling up the crowd. Your a Minister. Have you heard of things called ‘unintended consequences’? They use to be a big thing in Ottawa and talking about them is kinda important. Take, for example, immigration policy where a discussion of unintended consequences might touch on levels and their impact on things like housing. I see Miller’s now the immigration minister and a full week in is exactly like the ‘immigration is our advantage’ dude he replaced. Who is now the housing minister. Maybe the housing minister will get the unintended consequence brief that he should have got when he was the immigration minister? But I doubt it. PMO likes and value compliance and comms.
There’s no devil in the detail to worry about when we’re all thinking, doing and saying the same thing. What could possible go wrong.
My understanding is that, in this government, the primary function of Ministers is to communicate to the public. Knowledge of the portfolio and its files, competence in managing a department, teamwork with others, all of these are incidental. The key is to communicate to the public.
Guess which Cabinet position has the least opportunity to communicate to the public?
It's as big a demotion as I can imagine.
Terry, calm down.
Are bans permanent?
Conceivably. This one was for 24 hours. My preference is not to discipline anyone at all, but people need to stop insulting one another here.
I'm glad that it's not permanent. Does Substack let you select different lengths of time? That's pretty good.
Damn. For an alleged feminist,Trudeau sure knows how to make sure women don’t outshine him. Which isn’t that hard to do. Anybody competent is at risk. And there’s Poilievre waiting in the wings who assumes waitresses make $60,000 annually.
One of my beefs with all reporting on numbers is the lack of context - $15 billion out of a budget of some $400 billion (3.75%) is scarcely savage. Well done to the civil service to make it so. Another win for the hordes in Ottawa.
An associated problem is reporting on expenditures - military are routinely done this way - that addresses the 'lifetime costs' of investments/operations over some 30/40 years. You get some horrific number, completely without context that gives everyone the vapours. Say, $80 billion for the new navy ships (roughly around there, the number varies) for a 30 year lifespan. Forget inflation (which is usually factored into the 'lifetime costs) - at present levels of gov't spending, we'll shovel some $12,000 billion (aka $12 trillion), of which the navy's share is 0.7% over that time frame. On top of which, the operating costs, also factored into the $80 billion, are presently paid for the current fleet. The only number of interest is the incremental operating costs of the new fleet - these won't be zero, but they won't be enormous either.
All to say, having grown up discussion about all this stuff is difficult given the way numbers are batted about.
What we absolutely have to spend money on and ASAP is defence of the Arctic and NORAD (as part of that). Sovereignty without enforcement is dependent on international kindness. Not much of that around.
OK, I’ll reach for the bait – the first paragraph needs some explaining. Or is this an invitation to marvel at your creative ambiguity?
It’s an interesting column, I’ll give you that. At a time in the dog days of summer when the Globe and Mail editors have set their columnists free to reach deep into their bag of prejudices and report on gossip, the column contains some analysis worth pondering over tonight, over drinks. But it’s tough to swallow Treasury Board as a demotion two years before an election that is going to turn at least partly on government spending.
How about a steady hand on the tiller, or, as the Brits would say, a safe pair of hands? I’m prepared to consider other evidence – but it’s not in this column. We await further thoughts.
Excel at doing vaccine procurement. Get rewarded by going in to clean up DND and then war breaks out. Act like you're taking it seriously and shake up the place a bit and get smacked down by being shuffled into Treasury Board, the funnest of the fun shops.
Hold the applause on the procurement file...if and when we get a COVID public inquiry I believe it will further expose many questionable decisions re certain major investments and purchases....all presumably made at the PMO's request but she will still bear most of the brunt of the fallout.
Even Jean Chretien was shuffled into TB on his way to leadership. I'm not suggesting AA fits that role model but it's not out of context.
exceptional
This column is about Anita Anand, but it was your description of Chrystia Freehand... sorry, Freeland, as "the one true minister" that caused my jaw to drop in admiration. There are a couple of pretenders to her throne, including, evidently, Joly, and perhaps another Trudeau pal, Mark Miller. It's always fun watching a cabinet when the elbows are out.
I think he also called her "the boss." :D
Although your analysis of political high jinks has made me depressed you have also given me a good laugh. You are clearly a man that won't be managed and know how the game works. Leadership and management skill are not necessarily qualities that successful politicians need possess. We elect these people based on sound bites and then expect them can manage cabinets and huge ministries even though almost all have no experience managing anything than a classroom or small office. It's clearly a failure to shuffle Anita Anand out of a portfolio where improvement is so badly needed - if she sticks around she would make a terrific PM. The only thing that will allow the Liberals to win again is the presence of The Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
Am I close with "Bottoms" when guessing who you might be referring as "the boss"?
You can't be the boss if you don't work in the government any more. The "Svengali Gerry" theory is entirely unpersuasive.
I'd say you can be the boss if you don't work in the government, but regardless, if it isn't Gerry, then who? You've call Chrystia "the one true minister" which to me doesn't jibe with being the boss.
I meant Telford but I don't mind if it's unclear whether I meant Telford or Freeland.
Puts me in mind of The Great Gatsby. A prism, especially designed to extract multiple interpretations
Freeland was the first person I thought of. Telford was the second. She's less in the public eye, but perhaps that makes her the power behind the throne.
"Bottoms"?
He is likely referring to Gerald Butts.
Thanks, makes sense!
🤣