I'm probably breaking some rule of the Substackers' Guild by saying this out loud, but two hours after I hit Send on this post, I've already sold enough new subscriptions to substantially cover the (reasonably generous) freelance payment I'm sending Usher's way. Surprising and ambitious moves here are almost always rewarded by readers, and I thank you all for that.
Don't look so surprised. I followed you here from Macleans' for exactly this kind of content, and I suspect a lot of your other subscribers did too. We're more than getting our money's worth!
And if you want to continue with the guest articles, I doubt many of us will complain...
Usher is a mensch. He's a great example of someone who took his relatively specific expertise and saw so many interesting vantage points concerning strategy, innovation, and institutions. You and him were some of two early yet thoughtful critics of the government's 'industrial/innovation policy' if I recall!
He deserves to more widely read outside of higher ed policy and I hope this helps him do so.
Alex is a friend and is brilliant. But I think he’s wrong.
I’m a Conservative partisan, but I can point to six things Canada has done since the mid-2000s that have been enormously important, big and multi-partisan.
1. Child benefits under Harper, edited to the Canada Child Benefit under Trudeau and then the Child Care deals have not quite eliminated child poverty in Canada, but driven it deep underground. They have also driven economic growth via rising female participation rates.
2. We came through the 2008-09 Global financial crisis in better shape than nearly any comparable country. You can thank Harper for this… or you can thank Chretien and Martin. In any event, it was remarkable.
3. Quebec separatism has been driven underground. I credit Harper’s view of federalism for this. We almost lost the country in 1995. There’s no risk of that today. Trudeau’s federalism (carbon pricing and child care, for example) are much less intrusive into provinces than anything pre-Haper.
4. We have a national carbon price regime, created first in Alberta, then BC, eventually in Quebec and Ontario. It was a bottom-up developed policy that is now in force across the country. It may be fragile, but I’d not bet on its defenestration, particularly at the industrial level. Canada is a global leader on climate, and its not just Truduea’s doing (though it is that, too).
5. The federal and provincial reactions to COVID were remarkable, and remarkably correct. One premier lost his job over it (hi Jason Kenney), but the rest are riding high. CERB was a lifetime-level policy achievement worth celebrating.
6. We renegotiated Free Trade with the orange orangutang (a multi-partisan effort, I would argue). This is way bigger than most folks realize. And its fun that the party of John Turner led the charge.
I’m sure I could come up with a few more… and I’d not bet against us getting to a multi-partisan solution on housing. Call me an optimist.
I’d happily turn this all into a guest column, no charge.
I think these are mostly examples of the lack of ambition that Alex bemoans. Most of these are programs run by the CRA because that’s the only competent government agency. Doing a little tax credit cup game is fiddling around the margins; not ambitious change.
The child tax credit is fine, but the skyrocketing cost of housing and education has swallowed that up. We haven’t had significant sustained financing of affordable housing for four decades. Universities and colleges have turned to international students to shore up their finances.
We came through the financial crisis thanks to a $100+ billion bailout, and didn’t make any reforms to the banking system. When the pandemic hit, we bailed out the banks again. The bailout money went into mortgage bonds which supercharged mortgage lending, driving up home prices. When the market crashes again, we’re going to bail out the banks again. No ambition to fix things. Number go up good.
Quebec separatism is mostly gone, but western separatism is on the rise. The notwithstanding clause is becoming a routine part of provincial legislation.
The carbon tax is a perfect example of a lame solution from economists who don’t understand production. Decarbonizing the energy system is going to take massive public investment and positive action to deploy new technology. Otherwise, heavy industry will just move somewhere else. My consumer choices can’t make 1000 degree industrial steam green.
CERB was another tax agency triumph, which was good, but exposed the rot in our EI system which didn’t get fixed. COVID shattered the health care system, and we did not do a whole lot to shore that up. Instead of making a big push to train new healthcare staff, we just depleted the ones we have.
This is a failure of imagination. Instead of fixing problems or leading the way to a brighter future, our leaders give us a cheque. Here, you fuckin figure it out; doing stuff is too hard.
I tend to think that in order to make progress on unpopular issues, we're going to need cross-partisan consensus. As a Liberal, I really appreciate your ongoing efforts to persuade Conservatives that (a) we need to reduce emissions, and (b) carbon pricing is the most cost-effective way to do so. As climate change gets worse in places like Europe, I think we'll face increasing pressure from our allies and trading partners to reduce our emissions.
Similarly the war in Ukraine means that our European allies are increasing their military spending, and we'll face pressure from them to do so as well. But without cross-partisan consensus, it'll be difficult for that to happen.
On housing, I agree that things look promising. The federal Conservatives and Liberals now agree that we have a terrible shortage of market housing (not just non-market housing), and that municipal restrictions are a key bottleneck. Since September, the federal housing minister has been negotiating directly with municipalities to unlock more housing, using Housing Accelerator funding with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. (As Steve Lafleur puts it, Sean Fraser realized that he could use the Housing Accelerator carrot as a stick.)
One area where we lack consensus, as Alex Usher points out, is fiscal policy. With an overheated economy and tight monetary policy, we really need to tighten fiscal policy as well (beyond the tightening that we get from the Covid support programs phasing out). That means raising taxes and/or cutting spending, i.e. reducing deficits. But it's hard to see the Conservatives supporting tax increases, or the Liberals and NDP supporting significant spending cuts. (Barring a repeat of the 1990s.)
Canada is a global leader on climate, and its not just Truduea’s doing (though it is that, too).
With all due respect, Ken, I submit you have it wrong on the climate issue.
It is true that the Great Climate Warrior has been unrelenting in firing up the jumbo jets to roar off to distant climes since the beginning of the Long National Nightmare in October 2015. Or even to fly from one end of Montreal to the other.
And thanks to those trips that have seem him flit to and fro like a post-Modernist Tinkerbelle, he is undoubtedly responsible for more GHG emissions that any of his predecessors.
However, the last I checked, the object of the exercise is not to add CO2 to the atmosphere but to reduce it.
You may be neglecting the 40,000,000:1 ratio between the emissions of a government employee and the whole nation. Of course, leaders may set a standard of just heavily using air travel, but the "Jet Set" have been making heavy oil consumption look cool for 60 years; PMs are just one of them.
I would love to see such leadership, but it would show up most-easily in European leaders taking their electric trains to summits across Europe, rather than jets.
But when I went looking for a politician that had taken a train, even between Paris/Berlin/London, I came up dry. I'm not sure that any world leader is running a carbon-light travel schedule.
Thank-you, I was going to write that, and toss in:
"graded best G7 economy coming out of the pandemic", and
"tops all those lists of great places to live" and
"did it while taking in more immigrants than anybody".
...with a few invidious comparisons to Brexit and GOP-in-disarray. (Not to mention, the Japanese dress more properly than anybody, but are also an icon for dull-zombie economy.)
That read like the replies I used to do at The Line, before it got too repetitive, saying all that every time there was another "Everything is Broken" post. About weekly. I could have sworn some of those were from you - did I bring you around?
By what measure is Canada a global leader on climate?
Climate commissioner DeMarco made these comments last year:
"Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992, making it the worst performer of all G7 nations since that time. As I noted in the fall, Canada has consistently failed to meet its climate targets despite numerous plans and commitments."
"We cannot afford a fourth decade of failure on climate action."
The Climate Action Tracker project considers Canada's efforts "Highly Insufficient," worse than, e.g., the US, the UK, and Australia.
The Climate Change Performance Index ranks Canada 58th, rating our performance "very low."
Canada has missed every emissions reduction target it has ever set. DeMarco says we will miss our 2030 goal too, based on the Liberals' latest plan, and I doubt that will change with the stripe of government.
Maybe we lead in hot air, but that's the opposite of what the climate needs.
1. Wasn’t it Pierre who was running about the country looking for parents so they wouldn’t miss out on the very very special Child Benefit deal? Because knocking on doors was the best way to do this?
2. I will not thank Harper for not bunging up 2008. He and Flaherty had plans and were just lucky they didn’t implement them.
3. Maybe.
4. Yes.
5. Very much, yes.
6. And now everyone can call it by different acronyms.
I'm hearing from enough people who think Alex is too critical, and me too when I'm the one writing here, that I think I owe everyone a fairly meaty "solutions" column. I'll aim to produce that next week. Obviously there's no way to fix the country in 2,000 words, but maybe we can make a start of it.
Agreed. "Fundamentally the problem is us. Canadians." is much too on the nose for the “pure fleece”, those who have been cocooned all of their lives in the comforts of the liberal social democratic state, and now feel a sense of entitlement to contentment. No matter what political leaders say or do, the “pure fleece” believe their entitlements will persist.
Since they have never known anything but comfort, they can’t imagine anything different, so don’t make much of an effort to assess the implications of what our grifters-on-the-hill actually say.
If you’ve lived in a police state, seen war, hunger and misery, you tend not to be so cavalier, and to parse more carefully what it is the politicians are saying, and keeping silent about.
It’s the multiculturalism we all agreed that we wanted. Not the melting pot that discourages what people have to offer besides being a cog in the works. Our way is much better.
I wouldn't say "we all" agreed, but, I mean, a Trudeau has been elected prime minister in seven of the eight elections that one has sought the office, and an overwhelming majority of Canadians (most Liberals, most people to the left of the Liberals, and a not-insignificant number of Conservatives) have typically been on board with multiculturalism. I'm a white guy. Lots of people who look like me came to this place, brought their culture with them, and spoke a language the people who lived here couldn't understand. I find it hard to claim the moral high ground here.
Don’t quibble over “we all”. I was referring to Canadians in a most general way and also to the Canadians who were proud of our multiculturalism long before JT was old enough to vote, as you should well know. Are you younger than JT?
Try to not divide everyone into parties or tribes or labels of right or left or whatever. “Trudeau" is not a label though people try hard to make it so. Seven of eight elections (that one has sought the office), what a silly twisty factoid. What does this factoid have to do with multiculturalism?
The fact that you want to share that you are a white guy but look like a lot of immigrants is baffling to me. Yes, people who emigrate bring various amounts of their culture with them. Is that wrong? What culture do you celebrate or ignore?
Why do you want to claim the moral high ground or not? Against whom?
I think we got our wires crossed here somehow - I was 100% agreeing with, co-signing, and amplifying your comment, and disagreeing with Louise's. A strong majority of Canadians support multiculturalism as a core facet of the Canadian identity, including me and most of my generation. (Yes, I'm a decade and change younger than the PM.)
(1) A long-standing problem: inattention to our environment. George F. Kennan, writing in 1951:
"But I sometimes wonder whether in this respect a democracy is not uncomfortably similar to one of those prehistoric monsters with a body as long as this room and a brain the size of a pin: he lies there in his comfortable primeval mud and pays little attention to his environment; he is slow to wrath—in fact, you practically have to whack his tail off to make him aware that his interests are being disturbed; but, once he grasps this, he lays about him with such blind determination that he not only destroys his adversary but largely wrecks his native habitat."
In Canada I think this lack of attention is particularly acute.
(2) Another long-standing problem: "cognitive capture" by US discourse, on both left and right. We import a lot of our thinking directly from the US. I remember a local political debate during the 2021 federal election where candidates were talking about cutting our "bloated" military budget to free up money for domestic spending. I was amazed by the air of unreality.
(3) A new problem: technological change means that the communications environment (a key part of government) is much, much faster and more demanding. The communication part of government seems to have swelled while other parts have atrophied - this isn't coincidental, since politicians' attention is limited. As described by Brian Kelcey: https://twitter.com/stateofthecity/status/1484928614927896582?s=20
I've taken advantage of this new environment myself, using Reddit to mobilize support for a non-market housing project in Vancouver that was encountering significant opposition. Initially there were 27 comments opposed, with only three in support; in less than 24 hours, more than 800 people wrote in support. From the point of view of the city, this probably looks something like a digital mob. https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/14xqpdr/more_housing_650_nonmarket_apartments_in_false/
(4) Limits of the civil service. In his comments on receiving the Donner Prize for "The Machinery of Government," Joseph Heath observed that in today's much more demanding political environment, politicians are forced to take a much more "hands off" approach to governing. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so this vacuum is filled by the civil service. But the civil service is much better at continuity - "keeping the show on the road" - than making significant changes. That requires political direction and cover. Problem is, we're now faced with big challenges that will require big changes.
(5) Political staffers. Chantal Hebert observed that Harper's ban on political staffers (people supporting a minister in a political role, not a civil-service role) lobbying government for five years is a major handicap. It's extremely difficult to recruit experienced staffers.
In Ontario, Ryan Amato (Steve Clark's chief of staff) seems to have been running the Greenbelt removals single-handedly. The integrity commissioner's report describes his role in detail. https://morehousing.ca/greenbelt
Definitely not too critical, either of you. I do think most are a bit peeved because you have yet to lay out some solutions that they will cheerfully dis until the cows come home.
If we read through Alex’s piece carefully, he has implied solutions to many problems. But the naysayers are just that...solution adverse!
I’m awaiting your next column eagerly and I won’t be two days late reading it.
1) Auction crown land in BC, Ontario and Quebec. The ratio of crown to private ownership is currently ~96%, ~85% and ~87% respectfully. Building the structure of a house is expensive but so is the land under it. This is a government made problem. The original crown land ratios were never meant to be static and have stalled since the 70s.
2) Address the always growing sedimentary layers of additional bylaws, building codes and engineering unions only benefiting consultants
3) Promote Canadian energy (Nat gas and nuclear) as an offset to Canadas annual carbon production. Ie bilateral multi-decade agreements with Germany, Japan and China to decrease their coal consumption
4) Address the Indian act, specifically make them less beholden to the federal government and create financial facilities that allow them to leverage their lands to raise capital for major stakes in large investment projects such as utilities.
5) hit the 2% of GDP NATO commitment and restore the international communities trust in Canada as a Peace keeper nation. Canada had the 3rd largest navy at the second world war. We are a long ways from that
I just drove across Canada and THIS was exactly what everyone, left center or right, was talking about....where are the next leaders who can dole out hard medicine instead of fizzy water....where did the research facility go that would have made Canada the center of the pandemic solutions...where the hell did the military go...is anybody home?
Am hearing this from friends and acquaintances across the political spectrum as well. I also hear from those same folks that, when that “next leader” sticks their head out of the trench, it tends to get removed pretty quickly (Jim Prentice in AB being the most quoted example), whether by the voting public or partisans that benefit from the status quo leaders preaching simplistic solutions. Will be interesting to read Paul’s solutions piece. Goodness knows we need them.
For me, this all ties in with Paul's series on changes in the media landscape, plus with David Moscrop's work, particularly the provocatively-titled-but-not-all-that-provocative "Too Dumb For Democracy?"
We have more choices now than ever before, more content to consume, shorter attention spans, and, despite what one guy would tell you, fewer gatekeepers than ever before. In the federal election of 1984 (I wasn't around), Canadians got to choose between Brian Mulroney and John Turner, which I'm sure seemed like a stark choice at the time, but in 2023, those two guys seem like the exact same guy---the guy you had to be in order for the establishment to take you seriously as a prime ministerial candidate. Nowadays, the floodgates are open, and most people simply don't have the capacity to engage with the issues. Politicians either offer simplistic solutions or no solutions, and whoever yells loudest wins. And it's not like there's a plethora of serious, thoughtful candidates who people are simply refusing to vote for---our modern politics dissuades nuance. I don't know what we're supposed to do. Good piece, though.
Fleece is the fuzzy framing we can all lean into... I recall hanging around Frankfurt Airport in the mid-2000s, waiting for a Canadian delegation. As soon as a legion of fleece-wearers appeared, I knew the flight from Toronto had deplaned; you certainly wouldn't mistake our folk for the Milan flight contingent.
Agree he should be free to share his wrong opinions, but it would have been so much better without the gratuitous clickbait WAR ON FLEECE content. What's next, a national campaign against plaid??!
Canadians have stopped loading the dishwasher properly. The lazy and chaotic put-things-wherever-you-feel-like approach favoured by Millennials is inhibiting the proper flow of soapy water, JUST LIKE IDEAS ARE NOT FLOWING PROPERLY THROUGH OUR ATROPHYING AND RISK-SHY INSTITUTIONS
Kids don't like to eat sandwich crusts anymore, JUST LIKE CANADIANS DON'T LIKE FIBRE AND HARD TRUTHS ABOUT FISCAL CAPACITY
There are times when I hear echoes of Trump's "we don't win anymore" message in the "we aren't serious anymore" message that's popular amongst Paul's commentariat - a nostalgia for bygone days that are bygone for a reason. As I was saying upthread, there was a day when Canadians had prime ministers like Brian Mulroney, and they did a pretty good job at their job, which was "to serve Canadians who were a lot like Brian Mulroney". In 2023, more voices are heard - more people exercise more influence. And as ideology becomes more polarized both from and about those marginalized people, old-fashioned notions of competence become secondary. Of course they do.
Inhibiting the proper flow of soapy water comes from adding laundry detergent rather than dishwashing detergent to the machine. The improper flow causes large amounts of soap bubbles to pour out of the machine and cascade all across the kitchen floor ankle-deep.
This in turn causes much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and many sodden towels, but the floor has never been so clean.
Are our institutions atrophying and risk-averse or are we insisting that they are? Kids have never liked sandwich crusts but they get over it.
Yeah... that was inspired. We are so comfortably cocooned in the stuff, we didn't even notice the extent to which it had became a Canadian trope. Maple syrup, bacon, poutine, Western alienation, CBC, fleece...
Fabulous column. It's great to see responsibility for public sector failures aimed where it belongs: with us. We make a lot of choices as citizens, voters, taxpayers and it's time we adulted up to recognizing the consequences of our choices, particularly when they're convenient, comfortable or lazy.
We were told by federal and provincial govts that cutting taxes, firing nurses and teachers and starving universities would solve all problems -- and we bought it. Harris and Harper got re-elected and no government since has dared to say we have to pay to fix things.
Julie, I do not dispute that Harper (I do not live in ON so I will not comment on Mike) could have done better; but then that is certainly true of us all.
Now, having said that Harper (again, no comment on Mike) could have done better, his successor has been spending his time, his rhetoric, his costuming and, particularly, particularly, OUR dollars on far too many frivolous items so that we have almost no resources to devote to the essentials, current and future.
I remember Harper and Harris but I’m in BC. So it was Harper and BC Lib, Gordon Campbell (LINO) who sacked everyone, privatized many, broke unions, sold ferries, defunded the disabled, kept the minimum wage at $10 for 10 years and was rewarded by Steve with the position of Canadian High Commissioner to the UK. Plum job for a guy who had to quit as Premier at 9% approval.
Now I understand what Alex was tweeting on about a couple of days ago. A hit, a palpable hit, say I. If we abandon fleece, then what kind of body armour is recommended in the hard times ahead, I wonder?! Paul, you have been on a roll lately - interviews with Paul Gross and Tim Ash have been superb. Now a guest post by one of our most sardonic and smart bloggers and ever-mercurial Canadian sumo fanatic. The challenge for all of us as always, moving from words to action...But the thinking is great. Thanks Paul and Alex.
Well, we've had 30 or 40 years of being told by politicians and academics and business leaders that public servants are incompetent and lazy, and governments should get out of monetary policy and business regulation and industrial/agricultural policy and delivery of services.
Economists told us for decades that a very weird definition of efficiency is the only worthwhile goal of a nation, so don't build things anymore if the Chinese can do it more efficiently. Giant monopolies are efficient according to that framework, so say goodbye small nimble companies.
We've had business consultants and business schools tell us that making money is the only thing a business should do, so it doesn't matter if the business is an extractive scam or production moves overseas. Workers are employed by a web of subcontractors so they don't get too uppity.
Most organizations are very top heavy because we've been told that that's super efficient, but in reality, we have giant lumbering bureaucracies that suppress any initiative that tries to think near the edge of the box.
So we end up with a political class that doesn't understand production or political economy and outsources that part of their brain to economists who also don't understand production or political economy. We have a banking sector that has grown fat on two decades of government mortgage subsidies and really doesn't like to get involved with business investment. Corporate absentee owner smother innovation and risk taking and refuse to build up the next generation of skilled workers. The start-up world is thick with brilliant people who are building the next generation of porn delivery or surveillance advertising.
What were we told to do during the pandemic? Just stay home, don't do anything. Trust the experts. No mobilization of volunteers, no Rosie The Mask Maker ("We can do it!"), just shut up and stay at home. Jeff Bezos will deliver your gruel.
So yeah, this isn't surprising in the least. Build a culture of risk taking and craftsmanship and ownership and responsibility, and that's the society you will get. Build a culture of buck-passing and algorithmic management and elitism and absentee ownership, and that's the society you will get.
I must admit I love this and agree with everything (and your writing, Paul, on the same theme). The question remains, however - what will it take to get us out of our fleece and into our Lululemon active apparel? Time to stretch and sweat a bit, methinks, as a nation.
I own no fleece, and as I was listening to Ontario Today’s phone in earlier today about health care, I was thinking more or less what this column says. Until Canadians are prepared to become and vote for the sort of leaders who will tell us the truth--health care is expensive, defence is expensive, you can’t have it all AND lower taxes--we are going backwards as a country. The current crop of ersatz leaders aren’t going to tell us anything we don’t want to hear, and nor should they, for they would be punished at the ballot box.
Absent from the article was an acknowledgement that the best governments know how to stay out of the way. They don't create wealth and rarely innovate. Going back a century, good government was small government.
When adults once ruled in Ottawa, we had prudent fiscal management, a much smaller civil service and less ideological driven policy. Basic blocking and tackling fundamentals have grown to massive overreach. Across so many critical sectors, it has been death by bureaucrat.
The CPR was bailed out by the government twice. The St Lawrence Seaway was a huge government project. World wars? The electrical grid? Western settlement was a government-backed endeavour. New France was a pitiful trading post for decades until the government of France poured resources into it. The Hudson's Bay Company was a government-backed project.
What big national achievement was the sole product of private investors efficiently allocating capital?
You're talking about capital projects sponsored by the Federal government. That is a completely separate subject from the bloated, expensive and inefficient civil service which inflicts itself on Canadians, daily. But, since you raised the subject, for every successful example you cite there are far more that resemble the Eglinton Cross Town.
The Eglinton Crosstown is designed and built by a consortium of private companies. The government agency that owns the project has purposely avoided direct management of the project because of this idea that government can’t do anything. Private companies are so darn efficient that they’ll do it properly. Of course, the most efficient thing for a private company to do is cut corners and leave the street dug up for a decade and insist on more money when things go badly. The consortium is actually suing Metrolinx because they’ve been too hands-off.
This was the same model that built the highly unsuccessful Ottawa LRT.
The key is to have competent people in government looking out for the public inerest.
The reality that governments can't manage projects is fully seen in the Eglinton Crosstown which is now 12 years into a costly and long delayed completion. Metrolinx, commonly regarded as an organizational fiasco, selected the plan, chose the contractors, negotiated the contracts and has overall responsibility for the public funds. If you believe the private consortium is to blame, where are the legal or contractual remedies that any prudent negotiator would have included? We may have had it at some point in the past but competence in government is now a dangerous illusion.
I am still thinking about Alex's thesis (and Ken Boessenkool's counter). My question remains whether the difficulty with trade-offs (the penchant for fleece) is uniquely (or especially) Canadian. Here's a passage about UK politics, from a very entertaining review I read this morning, about how governments use and misuse statistics. The review and passage is by John Lanchester, from the LRB of Sept. 21:
"The big failure in the UK comes when it is clear what needs to be done, but politicians lack the courage to do it, because they are frightened of the electorate. Those voters in turn are reluctant to go along with any policy that imposes costs on them, however much those policies would be for the greater good."
Too many Canadians for too long have enjoyed, and have come to expect the accompanying comfort of fleece as being "normal"; all the while not realizing how badly, as a country and as individuals, we have been "fleeced".
Who is this "we" that "got lazy"? I found this a grumpy and superficial analysis, myself, that skips over some of the fast, or efficient, things government has done: CERB, negotiating with Trump, reducing child poverty etc, admittedly as a byproduct of pandemic benefits. As to the general complaint against governments, bureaucracy, politicians _ everyone, I guess, including citizens _ I'm not sure he has made a convincing case that things are any worse now than they have always been. Indeed, for many older Canadians they are arguably better. And what are the "necessary hard decisions" on housing, defence, foreign policy etc (although climate change isn't included) that are required. It sounds like looming pain and punishment for the middle class and those working hard to join in. Which will accomplish what again?
I don’t give this government too much credit for blasting through revenue year over year. With the stroke of a pen, Government proved it can reallocate money through CERB, enhanced monthly payments to reduce child poverty, dental care or a soon to be announced pharmacare program. That’s easy governing.
These initiatives are beggar thy neighbour policies when the same government decides to restrict development of key sectors of the economy through excessive regulatory burden and fixation on climate action at the expense of a burgeoning economy. The Liberals bought a pipeline to save face but with a commitment to the safe transfer of oil to tidewater private sector money would have finished it.
Justin Trudeau dithered for years, trying not to buy the fighter jets he cancelled in 2015. Perhaps a hard decision there is to stay out of the road and allow the procurement process to proceed, instead of having our military using worn out equipment.
At this point of Ottawa dysfunction, an election is needed to give Canadians a chance to clean house and build an economy to pay for all the locked in benefits.
I'm probably breaking some rule of the Substackers' Guild by saying this out loud, but two hours after I hit Send on this post, I've already sold enough new subscriptions to substantially cover the (reasonably generous) freelance payment I'm sending Usher's way. Surprising and ambitious moves here are almost always rewarded by readers, and I thank you all for that.
Don't look so surprised. I followed you here from Macleans' for exactly this kind of content, and I suspect a lot of your other subscribers did too. We're more than getting our money's worth!
And if you want to continue with the guest articles, I doubt many of us will complain...
Usher is a mensch. He's a great example of someone who took his relatively specific expertise and saw so many interesting vantage points concerning strategy, innovation, and institutions. You and him were some of two early yet thoughtful critics of the government's 'industrial/innovation policy' if I recall!
He deserves to more widely read outside of higher ed policy and I hope this helps him do so.
Alex is a friend and is brilliant. But I think he’s wrong.
I’m a Conservative partisan, but I can point to six things Canada has done since the mid-2000s that have been enormously important, big and multi-partisan.
1. Child benefits under Harper, edited to the Canada Child Benefit under Trudeau and then the Child Care deals have not quite eliminated child poverty in Canada, but driven it deep underground. They have also driven economic growth via rising female participation rates.
2. We came through the 2008-09 Global financial crisis in better shape than nearly any comparable country. You can thank Harper for this… or you can thank Chretien and Martin. In any event, it was remarkable.
3. Quebec separatism has been driven underground. I credit Harper’s view of federalism for this. We almost lost the country in 1995. There’s no risk of that today. Trudeau’s federalism (carbon pricing and child care, for example) are much less intrusive into provinces than anything pre-Haper.
4. We have a national carbon price regime, created first in Alberta, then BC, eventually in Quebec and Ontario. It was a bottom-up developed policy that is now in force across the country. It may be fragile, but I’d not bet on its defenestration, particularly at the industrial level. Canada is a global leader on climate, and its not just Truduea’s doing (though it is that, too).
5. The federal and provincial reactions to COVID were remarkable, and remarkably correct. One premier lost his job over it (hi Jason Kenney), but the rest are riding high. CERB was a lifetime-level policy achievement worth celebrating.
6. We renegotiated Free Trade with the orange orangutang (a multi-partisan effort, I would argue). This is way bigger than most folks realize. And its fun that the party of John Turner led the charge.
I’m sure I could come up with a few more… and I’d not bet against us getting to a multi-partisan solution on housing. Call me an optimist.
I’d happily turn this all into a guest column, no charge.
I think these are mostly examples of the lack of ambition that Alex bemoans. Most of these are programs run by the CRA because that’s the only competent government agency. Doing a little tax credit cup game is fiddling around the margins; not ambitious change.
The child tax credit is fine, but the skyrocketing cost of housing and education has swallowed that up. We haven’t had significant sustained financing of affordable housing for four decades. Universities and colleges have turned to international students to shore up their finances.
We came through the financial crisis thanks to a $100+ billion bailout, and didn’t make any reforms to the banking system. When the pandemic hit, we bailed out the banks again. The bailout money went into mortgage bonds which supercharged mortgage lending, driving up home prices. When the market crashes again, we’re going to bail out the banks again. No ambition to fix things. Number go up good.
Quebec separatism is mostly gone, but western separatism is on the rise. The notwithstanding clause is becoming a routine part of provincial legislation.
The carbon tax is a perfect example of a lame solution from economists who don’t understand production. Decarbonizing the energy system is going to take massive public investment and positive action to deploy new technology. Otherwise, heavy industry will just move somewhere else. My consumer choices can’t make 1000 degree industrial steam green.
CERB was another tax agency triumph, which was good, but exposed the rot in our EI system which didn’t get fixed. COVID shattered the health care system, and we did not do a whole lot to shore that up. Instead of making a big push to train new healthcare staff, we just depleted the ones we have.
This is a failure of imagination. Instead of fixing problems or leading the way to a brighter future, our leaders give us a cheque. Here, you fuckin figure it out; doing stuff is too hard.
I tend to think that in order to make progress on unpopular issues, we're going to need cross-partisan consensus. As a Liberal, I really appreciate your ongoing efforts to persuade Conservatives that (a) we need to reduce emissions, and (b) carbon pricing is the most cost-effective way to do so. As climate change gets worse in places like Europe, I think we'll face increasing pressure from our allies and trading partners to reduce our emissions.
Similarly the war in Ukraine means that our European allies are increasing their military spending, and we'll face pressure from them to do so as well. But without cross-partisan consensus, it'll be difficult for that to happen.
On housing, I agree that things look promising. The federal Conservatives and Liberals now agree that we have a terrible shortage of market housing (not just non-market housing), and that municipal restrictions are a key bottleneck. Since September, the federal housing minister has been negotiating directly with municipalities to unlock more housing, using Housing Accelerator funding with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. (As Steve Lafleur puts it, Sean Fraser realized that he could use the Housing Accelerator carrot as a stick.)
One area where we lack consensus, as Alex Usher points out, is fiscal policy. With an overheated economy and tight monetary policy, we really need to tighten fiscal policy as well (beyond the tightening that we get from the Covid support programs phasing out). That means raising taxes and/or cutting spending, i.e. reducing deficits. But it's hard to see the Conservatives supporting tax increases, or the Liberals and NDP supporting significant spending cuts. (Barring a repeat of the 1990s.)
Canada is a global leader on climate, and its not just Truduea’s doing (though it is that, too).
With all due respect, Ken, I submit you have it wrong on the climate issue.
It is true that the Great Climate Warrior has been unrelenting in firing up the jumbo jets to roar off to distant climes since the beginning of the Long National Nightmare in October 2015. Or even to fly from one end of Montreal to the other.
And thanks to those trips that have seem him flit to and fro like a post-Modernist Tinkerbelle, he is undoubtedly responsible for more GHG emissions that any of his predecessors.
However, the last I checked, the object of the exercise is not to add CO2 to the atmosphere but to reduce it.
I rest my case.
You may be neglecting the 40,000,000:1 ratio between the emissions of a government employee and the whole nation. Of course, leaders may set a standard of just heavily using air travel, but the "Jet Set" have been making heavy oil consumption look cool for 60 years; PMs are just one of them.
True leaders lead by example.
I would love to see such leadership, but it would show up most-easily in European leaders taking their electric trains to summits across Europe, rather than jets.
But when I went looking for a politician that had taken a train, even between Paris/Berlin/London, I came up dry. I'm not sure that any world leader is running a carbon-light travel schedule.
Canada is a leader on climate change, yes. Thanks to the tar sands, we produce massive emissions relative to our size.
Thank-you, I was going to write that, and toss in:
"graded best G7 economy coming out of the pandemic", and
"tops all those lists of great places to live" and
"did it while taking in more immigrants than anybody".
...with a few invidious comparisons to Brexit and GOP-in-disarray. (Not to mention, the Japanese dress more properly than anybody, but are also an icon for dull-zombie economy.)
That read like the replies I used to do at The Line, before it got too repetitive, saying all that every time there was another "Everything is Broken" post. About weekly. I could have sworn some of those were from you - did I bring you around?
Point #4 may need a rethink from where we have ended up in April 2024.
By what measure is Canada a global leader on climate?
Climate commissioner DeMarco made these comments last year:
"Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992, making it the worst performer of all G7 nations since that time. As I noted in the fall, Canada has consistently failed to meet its climate targets despite numerous plans and commitments."
"We cannot afford a fourth decade of failure on climate action."
The Climate Action Tracker project considers Canada's efforts "Highly Insufficient," worse than, e.g., the US, the UK, and Australia.
The Climate Change Performance Index ranks Canada 58th, rating our performance "very low."
Canada has missed every emissions reduction target it has ever set. DeMarco says we will miss our 2030 goal too, based on the Liberals' latest plan, and I doubt that will change with the stripe of government.
Maybe we lead in hot air, but that's the opposite of what the climate needs.
1. Wasn’t it Pierre who was running about the country looking for parents so they wouldn’t miss out on the very very special Child Benefit deal? Because knocking on doors was the best way to do this?
2. I will not thank Harper for not bunging up 2008. He and Flaherty had plans and were just lucky they didn’t implement them.
3. Maybe.
4. Yes.
5. Very much, yes.
6. And now everyone can call it by different acronyms.
Thanks Ken, you are always fun to have around.
With this column, your continuing great efforts and the excellent podcasts you are going from strength to strength. Happy to be a subscriber.
Thank you, Paul. Alex is worth every looney you send him.
I'm hearing from enough people who think Alex is too critical, and me too when I'm the one writing here, that I think I owe everyone a fairly meaty "solutions" column. I'll aim to produce that next week. Obviously there's no way to fix the country in 2,000 words, but maybe we can make a start of it.
No, Alex is not too critical. He has captured the essence of our problem - "fundamentally the problem is us. Canadians."
Agreed. "Fundamentally the problem is us. Canadians." is much too on the nose for the “pure fleece”, those who have been cocooned all of their lives in the comforts of the liberal social democratic state, and now feel a sense of entitlement to contentment. No matter what political leaders say or do, the “pure fleece” believe their entitlements will persist.
Since they have never known anything but comfort, they can’t imagine anything different, so don’t make much of an effort to assess the implications of what our grifters-on-the-hill actually say.
If you’ve lived in a police state, seen war, hunger and misery, you tend not to be so cavalier, and to parse more carefully what it is the politicians are saying, and keeping silent about.
Not nearly enough of this in Canada today.
It’s the multiculturalism we all agreed that we wanted. Not the melting pot that discourages what people have to offer besides being a cog in the works. Our way is much better.
I wouldn't say "we all" agreed, but, I mean, a Trudeau has been elected prime minister in seven of the eight elections that one has sought the office, and an overwhelming majority of Canadians (most Liberals, most people to the left of the Liberals, and a not-insignificant number of Conservatives) have typically been on board with multiculturalism. I'm a white guy. Lots of people who look like me came to this place, brought their culture with them, and spoke a language the people who lived here couldn't understand. I find it hard to claim the moral high ground here.
Don’t quibble over “we all”. I was referring to Canadians in a most general way and also to the Canadians who were proud of our multiculturalism long before JT was old enough to vote, as you should well know. Are you younger than JT?
Try to not divide everyone into parties or tribes or labels of right or left or whatever. “Trudeau" is not a label though people try hard to make it so. Seven of eight elections (that one has sought the office), what a silly twisty factoid. What does this factoid have to do with multiculturalism?
The fact that you want to share that you are a white guy but look like a lot of immigrants is baffling to me. Yes, people who emigrate bring various amounts of their culture with them. Is that wrong? What culture do you celebrate or ignore?
Why do you want to claim the moral high ground or not? Against whom?
I think we got our wires crossed here somehow - I was 100% agreeing with, co-signing, and amplifying your comment, and disagreeing with Louise's. A strong majority of Canadians support multiculturalism as a core facet of the Canadian identity, including me and most of my generation. (Yes, I'm a decade and change younger than the PM.)
Some observations.
(1) A long-standing problem: inattention to our environment. George F. Kennan, writing in 1951:
"But I sometimes wonder whether in this respect a democracy is not uncomfortably similar to one of those prehistoric monsters with a body as long as this room and a brain the size of a pin: he lies there in his comfortable primeval mud and pays little attention to his environment; he is slow to wrath—in fact, you practically have to whack his tail off to make him aware that his interests are being disturbed; but, once he grasps this, he lays about him with such blind determination that he not only destroys his adversary but largely wrecks his native habitat."
In Canada I think this lack of attention is particularly acute.
(2) Another long-standing problem: "cognitive capture" by US discourse, on both left and right. We import a lot of our thinking directly from the US. I remember a local political debate during the 2021 federal election where candidates were talking about cutting our "bloated" military budget to free up money for domestic spending. I was amazed by the air of unreality.
(3) A new problem: technological change means that the communications environment (a key part of government) is much, much faster and more demanding. The communication part of government seems to have swelled while other parts have atrophied - this isn't coincidental, since politicians' attention is limited. As described by Brian Kelcey: https://twitter.com/stateofthecity/status/1484928614927896582?s=20
I've taken advantage of this new environment myself, using Reddit to mobilize support for a non-market housing project in Vancouver that was encountering significant opposition. Initially there were 27 comments opposed, with only three in support; in less than 24 hours, more than 800 people wrote in support. From the point of view of the city, this probably looks something like a digital mob. https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/14xqpdr/more_housing_650_nonmarket_apartments_in_false/
(4) Limits of the civil service. In his comments on receiving the Donner Prize for "The Machinery of Government," Joseph Heath observed that in today's much more demanding political environment, politicians are forced to take a much more "hands off" approach to governing. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so this vacuum is filled by the civil service. But the civil service is much better at continuity - "keeping the show on the road" - than making significant changes. That requires political direction and cover. Problem is, we're now faced with big challenges that will require big changes.
(5) Political staffers. Chantal Hebert observed that Harper's ban on political staffers (people supporting a minister in a political role, not a civil-service role) lobbying government for five years is a major handicap. It's extremely difficult to recruit experienced staffers.
In Ontario, Ryan Amato (Steve Clark's chief of staff) seems to have been running the Greenbelt removals single-handedly. The integrity commissioner's report describes his role in detail. https://morehousing.ca/greenbelt
Definitely not too critical, either of you. I do think most are a bit peeved because you have yet to lay out some solutions that they will cheerfully dis until the cows come home.
If we read through Alex’s piece carefully, he has implied solutions to many problems. But the naysayers are just that...solution adverse!
I’m awaiting your next column eagerly and I won’t be two days late reading it.
1) Auction crown land in BC, Ontario and Quebec. The ratio of crown to private ownership is currently ~96%, ~85% and ~87% respectfully. Building the structure of a house is expensive but so is the land under it. This is a government made problem. The original crown land ratios were never meant to be static and have stalled since the 70s.
2) Address the always growing sedimentary layers of additional bylaws, building codes and engineering unions only benefiting consultants
3) Promote Canadian energy (Nat gas and nuclear) as an offset to Canadas annual carbon production. Ie bilateral multi-decade agreements with Germany, Japan and China to decrease their coal consumption
4) Address the Indian act, specifically make them less beholden to the federal government and create financial facilities that allow them to leverage their lands to raise capital for major stakes in large investment projects such as utilities.
5) hit the 2% of GDP NATO commitment and restore the international communities trust in Canada as a Peace keeper nation. Canada had the 3rd largest navy at the second world war. We are a long ways from that
I just drove across Canada and THIS was exactly what everyone, left center or right, was talking about....where are the next leaders who can dole out hard medicine instead of fizzy water....where did the research facility go that would have made Canada the center of the pandemic solutions...where the hell did the military go...is anybody home?
Am hearing this from friends and acquaintances across the political spectrum as well. I also hear from those same folks that, when that “next leader” sticks their head out of the trench, it tends to get removed pretty quickly (Jim Prentice in AB being the most quoted example), whether by the voting public or partisans that benefit from the status quo leaders preaching simplistic solutions. Will be interesting to read Paul’s solutions piece. Goodness knows we need them.
For me, this all ties in with Paul's series on changes in the media landscape, plus with David Moscrop's work, particularly the provocatively-titled-but-not-all-that-provocative "Too Dumb For Democracy?"
We have more choices now than ever before, more content to consume, shorter attention spans, and, despite what one guy would tell you, fewer gatekeepers than ever before. In the federal election of 1984 (I wasn't around), Canadians got to choose between Brian Mulroney and John Turner, which I'm sure seemed like a stark choice at the time, but in 2023, those two guys seem like the exact same guy---the guy you had to be in order for the establishment to take you seriously as a prime ministerial candidate. Nowadays, the floodgates are open, and most people simply don't have the capacity to engage with the issues. Politicians either offer simplistic solutions or no solutions, and whoever yells loudest wins. And it's not like there's a plethora of serious, thoughtful candidates who people are simply refusing to vote for---our modern politics dissuades nuance. I don't know what we're supposed to do. Good piece, though.
holy toledo this is good.
ARE YOU SAYING MY STUFF ISN'T GOOD VASS
I love all your stuff. But the fleece opener? The coziness, ambivalence. It hit!
OK, not gonna lie, I almost took the fleece frame out. Then I reminded myself, it's his column, not mine.
Fleece frame? I love J. Geils!
Thursday morning was a hot flash-factor
That was the first album I ever bought. We're all betraying our age.
Fleece is the fuzzy framing we can all lean into... I recall hanging around Frankfurt Airport in the mid-2000s, waiting for a Canadian delegation. As soon as a legion of fleece-wearers appeared, I knew the flight from Toronto had deplaned; you certainly wouldn't mistake our folk for the Milan flight contingent.
Agree he should be free to share his wrong opinions, but it would have been so much better without the gratuitous clickbait WAR ON FLEECE content. What's next, a national campaign against plaid??!
Alternative frames:
Canadians have stopped loading the dishwasher properly. The lazy and chaotic put-things-wherever-you-feel-like approach favoured by Millennials is inhibiting the proper flow of soapy water, JUST LIKE IDEAS ARE NOT FLOWING PROPERLY THROUGH OUR ATROPHYING AND RISK-SHY INSTITUTIONS
Kids don't like to eat sandwich crusts anymore, JUST LIKE CANADIANS DON'T LIKE FIBRE AND HARD TRUTHS ABOUT FISCAL CAPACITY
Hilarious.
There are times when I hear echoes of Trump's "we don't win anymore" message in the "we aren't serious anymore" message that's popular amongst Paul's commentariat - a nostalgia for bygone days that are bygone for a reason. As I was saying upthread, there was a day when Canadians had prime ministers like Brian Mulroney, and they did a pretty good job at their job, which was "to serve Canadians who were a lot like Brian Mulroney". In 2023, more voices are heard - more people exercise more influence. And as ideology becomes more polarized both from and about those marginalized people, old-fashioned notions of competence become secondary. Of course they do.
Inhibiting the proper flow of soapy water comes from adding laundry detergent rather than dishwashing detergent to the machine. The improper flow causes large amounts of soap bubbles to pour out of the machine and cascade all across the kitchen floor ankle-deep.
This in turn causes much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and many sodden towels, but the floor has never been so clean.
Are our institutions atrophying and risk-averse or are we insisting that they are? Kids have never liked sandwich crusts but they get over it.
Yeah... that was inspired. We are so comfortably cocooned in the stuff, we didn't even notice the extent to which it had became a Canadian trope. Maple syrup, bacon, poutine, Western alienation, CBC, fleece...
Fabulous column. It's great to see responsibility for public sector failures aimed where it belongs: with us. We make a lot of choices as citizens, voters, taxpayers and it's time we adulted up to recognizing the consequences of our choices, particularly when they're convenient, comfortable or lazy.
We were told by federal and provincial govts that cutting taxes, firing nurses and teachers and starving universities would solve all problems -- and we bought it. Harris and Harper got re-elected and no government since has dared to say we have to pay to fix things.
Julie, I do not dispute that Harper (I do not live in ON so I will not comment on Mike) could have done better; but then that is certainly true of us all.
Now, having said that Harper (again, no comment on Mike) could have done better, his successor has been spending his time, his rhetoric, his costuming and, particularly, particularly, OUR dollars on far too many frivolous items so that we have almost no resources to devote to the essentials, current and future.
I remember Harper and Harris but I’m in BC. So it was Harper and BC Lib, Gordon Campbell (LINO) who sacked everyone, privatized many, broke unions, sold ferries, defunded the disabled, kept the minimum wage at $10 for 10 years and was rewarded by Steve with the position of Canadian High Commissioner to the UK. Plum job for a guy who had to quit as Premier at 9% approval.
Now I understand what Alex was tweeting on about a couple of days ago. A hit, a palpable hit, say I. If we abandon fleece, then what kind of body armour is recommended in the hard times ahead, I wonder?! Paul, you have been on a roll lately - interviews with Paul Gross and Tim Ash have been superb. Now a guest post by one of our most sardonic and smart bloggers and ever-mercurial Canadian sumo fanatic. The challenge for all of us as always, moving from words to action...But the thinking is great. Thanks Paul and Alex.
Well, we've had 30 or 40 years of being told by politicians and academics and business leaders that public servants are incompetent and lazy, and governments should get out of monetary policy and business regulation and industrial/agricultural policy and delivery of services.
Economists told us for decades that a very weird definition of efficiency is the only worthwhile goal of a nation, so don't build things anymore if the Chinese can do it more efficiently. Giant monopolies are efficient according to that framework, so say goodbye small nimble companies.
We've had business consultants and business schools tell us that making money is the only thing a business should do, so it doesn't matter if the business is an extractive scam or production moves overseas. Workers are employed by a web of subcontractors so they don't get too uppity.
Most organizations are very top heavy because we've been told that that's super efficient, but in reality, we have giant lumbering bureaucracies that suppress any initiative that tries to think near the edge of the box.
So we end up with a political class that doesn't understand production or political economy and outsources that part of their brain to economists who also don't understand production or political economy. We have a banking sector that has grown fat on two decades of government mortgage subsidies and really doesn't like to get involved with business investment. Corporate absentee owner smother innovation and risk taking and refuse to build up the next generation of skilled workers. The start-up world is thick with brilliant people who are building the next generation of porn delivery or surveillance advertising.
What were we told to do during the pandemic? Just stay home, don't do anything. Trust the experts. No mobilization of volunteers, no Rosie The Mask Maker ("We can do it!"), just shut up and stay at home. Jeff Bezos will deliver your gruel.
So yeah, this isn't surprising in the least. Build a culture of risk taking and craftsmanship and ownership and responsibility, and that's the society you will get. Build a culture of buck-passing and algorithmic management and elitism and absentee ownership, and that's the society you will get.
I must admit I love this and agree with everything (and your writing, Paul, on the same theme). The question remains, however - what will it take to get us out of our fleece and into our Lululemon active apparel? Time to stretch and sweat a bit, methinks, as a nation.
I own no fleece, and as I was listening to Ontario Today’s phone in earlier today about health care, I was thinking more or less what this column says. Until Canadians are prepared to become and vote for the sort of leaders who will tell us the truth--health care is expensive, defence is expensive, you can’t have it all AND lower taxes--we are going backwards as a country. The current crop of ersatz leaders aren’t going to tell us anything we don’t want to hear, and nor should they, for they would be punished at the ballot box.
No doubt it would help if our electoral system actually gave us the government we collectively voted for.
Absent from the article was an acknowledgement that the best governments know how to stay out of the way. They don't create wealth and rarely innovate. Going back a century, good government was small government.
When adults once ruled in Ottawa, we had prudent fiscal management, a much smaller civil service and less ideological driven policy. Basic blocking and tackling fundamentals have grown to massive overreach. Across so many critical sectors, it has been death by bureaucrat.
When exactly was this golden age of small government?
I didn't describe it as golden age. More of a period where moderate resources limited the damage they could inflict.
When was that period?
The CPR was bailed out by the government twice. The St Lawrence Seaway was a huge government project. World wars? The electrical grid? Western settlement was a government-backed endeavour. New France was a pitiful trading post for decades until the government of France poured resources into it. The Hudson's Bay Company was a government-backed project.
What big national achievement was the sole product of private investors efficiently allocating capital?
You're talking about capital projects sponsored by the Federal government. That is a completely separate subject from the bloated, expensive and inefficient civil service which inflicts itself on Canadians, daily. But, since you raised the subject, for every successful example you cite there are far more that resemble the Eglinton Cross Town.
The Eglinton Crosstown is designed and built by a consortium of private companies. The government agency that owns the project has purposely avoided direct management of the project because of this idea that government can’t do anything. Private companies are so darn efficient that they’ll do it properly. Of course, the most efficient thing for a private company to do is cut corners and leave the street dug up for a decade and insist on more money when things go badly. The consortium is actually suing Metrolinx because they’ve been too hands-off.
This was the same model that built the highly unsuccessful Ottawa LRT.
The key is to have competent people in government looking out for the public inerest.
The reality that governments can't manage projects is fully seen in the Eglinton Crosstown which is now 12 years into a costly and long delayed completion. Metrolinx, commonly regarded as an organizational fiasco, selected the plan, chose the contractors, negotiated the contracts and has overall responsibility for the public funds. If you believe the private consortium is to blame, where are the legal or contractual remedies that any prudent negotiator would have included? We may have had it at some point in the past but competence in government is now a dangerous illusion.
I am still thinking about Alex's thesis (and Ken Boessenkool's counter). My question remains whether the difficulty with trade-offs (the penchant for fleece) is uniquely (or especially) Canadian. Here's a passage about UK politics, from a very entertaining review I read this morning, about how governments use and misuse statistics. The review and passage is by John Lanchester, from the LRB of Sept. 21:
"The big failure in the UK comes when it is clear what needs to be done, but politicians lack the courage to do it, because they are frightened of the electorate. Those voters in turn are reluctant to go along with any policy that imposes costs on them, however much those policies would be for the greater good."
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n18/john-lanchester/get-a-rabbit
A great link and very interesting. TY!
Too many Canadians for too long have enjoyed, and have come to expect the accompanying comfort of fleece as being "normal"; all the while not realizing how badly, as a country and as individuals, we have been "fleeced".
Very timely column. So, what do we do about it? I hope, Paul, you’ll be exploring solutions/next steps in the coming weeks.
Who is this "we" that "got lazy"? I found this a grumpy and superficial analysis, myself, that skips over some of the fast, or efficient, things government has done: CERB, negotiating with Trump, reducing child poverty etc, admittedly as a byproduct of pandemic benefits. As to the general complaint against governments, bureaucracy, politicians _ everyone, I guess, including citizens _ I'm not sure he has made a convincing case that things are any worse now than they have always been. Indeed, for many older Canadians they are arguably better. And what are the "necessary hard decisions" on housing, defence, foreign policy etc (although climate change isn't included) that are required. It sounds like looming pain and punishment for the middle class and those working hard to join in. Which will accomplish what again?
I don’t give this government too much credit for blasting through revenue year over year. With the stroke of a pen, Government proved it can reallocate money through CERB, enhanced monthly payments to reduce child poverty, dental care or a soon to be announced pharmacare program. That’s easy governing.
These initiatives are beggar thy neighbour policies when the same government decides to restrict development of key sectors of the economy through excessive regulatory burden and fixation on climate action at the expense of a burgeoning economy. The Liberals bought a pipeline to save face but with a commitment to the safe transfer of oil to tidewater private sector money would have finished it.
Justin Trudeau dithered for years, trying not to buy the fighter jets he cancelled in 2015. Perhaps a hard decision there is to stay out of the road and allow the procurement process to proceed, instead of having our military using worn out equipment.
At this point of Ottawa dysfunction, an election is needed to give Canadians a chance to clean house and build an economy to pay for all the locked in benefits.