INTRODUCING BERNIE O’TOOLE.

As the U. S. election escalated last week into clashing crescendos of style, craziness and opposing principles, the looming Canadian test of voter preferences was shaping up to be a quiet walk in the park. Which is too bad, because Canada could use a little high-level — and low-level — battle of wits and ideas. Instead, the next Canadian election is shaping up to be a contest between two major parties pushing similar ideas and slogans.

The first to stroll through the park last week was Deputy PM and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. In a speech Wednesday to something called the Toronto Global Forum, Freeland wandered through the Canadian financial garden, admiring the fall fiscal foliage, and declared it a place of peace and beauty.

Without giving any numbers or targets, Freeland described the Trudeau government’s massive COVID-19 borrowing and spending operation as sensible and prudent. “Our policies have a heart, to be sure. But they are driven just as powerfully by a prudent, dispassionate economic calculus. One that is extraordinarily important. Because the truth is that we are living through a particular moment in history when doing good — supporting each other through a hard time, is exactly what is required to do well — keeping our economy strong, as the coronavirus ravages the world.”

The fiscal expansion “will not be infinite,” cautioned Freeland. “It is limited and temporary. A smart and careful government — and those are two adjectives I would use to characterize our policy — will impose those limits upon itself, rather than waiting for the more brutal external restraints of international capital markets.”

Do any political leaders disagree with this brilliant vision of Canadian fiscal perfection? Apparently not. And certainly not the leader of the Conservative party. In his virtual speech last Friday to the Canadian Club of Toronto, Erin O’toole rose in general agreement with the Liberal plan. “We understand the need for deficit spending at a time of national emergency,” said the Tory leader.

But there’s more to O’toole’s limp Conservative counter to the Liberal fiscal expansion. In his speech, O’toole began with other points that suggest the next Canadian election will be fought over which party can

Canada could use a litt le highlevel — and low-level — batt le of wits and ideas.

drift further to the squishy left.

“I’ve come here with a message,” said O’toole. He then rattled off a series of ideological statements about jobs and wages, about the evils of corporate control and the power of political elites:

“Real wages have not risen in Canada since the 1970s.” The impression is that Canadians are no better off than they were 50 years ago, which is just leftist nonsense. Shifts in wage and inflation rates over half a century, pushed by numerous economic factors, have indeed created measurable and mysterious changes in real wages, but the idea that wages are stuck in some 1970 rut does not stand up. The nominal average wage has risen from about $ 15 an hour in 1995 to $ 28 this year, an increase of 85 per cent. Over the same time, inflation has increased 55 per cent. O’toole also said millions of workers have lost their jobs. “In fact, Canada has the highest unemployment rate in the G7.” That may be true given the COVID lockdown, which O’toole has not opposed. But then he went on to this statement:

“Even before the pandemic hit, half of Canadian families were just $ 200 away from insolvency.” That claim is based on a 2019 news story based on a survey of Canadians that clearly overstates the degree to which they carry too much debt. While debt is undeniably high among Canadians, the reasons are complex and due in large part to low interest rates.

“Middle- class Canada has been betrayed by the elites on every level: political elites, financial elites, cultural elites. These elites have only one set of values centred on unchecked globalization, political correctness while middle- class Canadians have had another set rooted in family, home and nation.” These are the kind of sentiments one expects from Bernie Sanders and other politicians on the U. S. and Canadian left. The fact is the Canadian middle class has flourished and has expanded dramatically since the 1970s, with rising incomes and living standards. According to Statistics Canada, 21.8 million Canadians earning between $45,000 and $119,000 today would be considered middle class, an increase of almost four million over the past 20 years and seven million since 1976.

Continuing in Bernie O’toole mode, the Conservative leader painted a bleak vision of Canada becoming a “nation of Uber drivers” as shareholder capitalism forced corporations to shift jobs to China “at 50 cents an hour.”

So what will be the key defining schism in Canada’s next election? The big difference between the Bernie O’toole Conservatives and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, said O’toole, is that “While the Liberals want to ‘ build back better,’ Conservatives will ‘ build back stronger, smarter, more inclusively.’ “

Now there’s a monumental clash of Canadian ideologies, a classic tough national battle that defines deep fissures in the Canadian political landscape, the wide and unbridgeable chasm between “build back better” and “build back smarter.”