Planting seeds for the next election

In his tête à tête with Greta Thunberg, Justin Trudeau vowed that in 10 years his government would plant two-billion trees (one for every conflict-of-interest violation racked up by the Liberals?). A vision of Canada as a vast arboretum.

To date: no trees, at all, have been planted. Not a twig. The Thunberg-Trudeau Accord stands in abatement. I call attention to this not to mark arboreal infidelity on the prime minister's part. Rather, to note that in defiance of the common proverb, you can't see the wood because there are no trees.

Seamus O'Regan, the nomad of the Trudeau cabinet — wandering restlessly from portfolio to portfolio leaving “not a rack behind” — is the chosen arborist for this greening of the land. O'Regan admits zero new roots have found ground thus far, no budding saplings have been anchored in sod and clay, not a willow, not a larch, not an oak has been planted, but he is studying the whole business.

We haven't heard from dear Greta, grim maiden of global gloom, for some time now. She has not — so far — called down thunderbolts on the PM for the lapse in fresh conifer and deciduous sprawl. But count on it, she has noticed and is not pleased. Greta is somewhere revving up the “how dare you” machine, and it is only a matter of time before she looses her atomic death stare on those who say and yet do not do.

On other fronts it is interesting to listen from the side as the Liberals approach their throne speech. It isn't clear whether it will be delivered al fresco, in a kind of spaced patio setting under the Tent of Commons. Or whether simple guilt and shame will induce the prime minister to have it read, where it has always been read, in our long idle and vacated House of Commons.

What is clear is how shifting are the messages that it may contain.

Just two weeks ago the alarum went out that COVID-19 was an “opportunity” for something like an entire reorienting of government to go full green. How the response to a world plague invites the construction of windmills and solar panels, more gasoline taxes, and of course strict new regulations on every motorized operation was a question early posed. How does a green binge relate to viral infection?

The prime minister was talking big then, of a new Canada, and this new Canada was all for global-warming commitments. He was quite abuzz with the reforging of Confederation: “This is our chance to build a more resilient Canada, a Canada that is healthier and safer, greener and more competitive, a Canada that is more welcoming and more fair.”

They didn't talk that ambitiously even in 1867 when the canvas was empty. Chrystia Freeland, first mate of the SS Trudeau, was even more febrile. She insisted the recovery had to be green, equitable and inclusive, as opposed to, I presume, some other colour, inequitable and exclusive. All Canadians, she insisted, “know” the recovery has to be green.

Latterly the revolutionary goals and the great green centrality of any recovery effort are not as visible. We hear that the Liberal caucus retreat came all out for a guaranteed annual income. Again, I'm not exactly sure how that ties in with viruses and infection, the state of long-term care, and the devising of precautionary measures should the plague return, or a new one emerge. A universal basic income is however a very bright, shiny bauble. It's been the NDP's version of the Holy Grail since Tommy Douglas was a schoolboy.

Does the fact we have an almost $400-billion deficit and $1.2 trillion in debt suggest at all that perhaps this is not the right moment to head into the vaults again and enact the most gigantic splurge in our history on a vast experiment in social welfare? With debt and deficit and the outlay for guaranteed annual incomes, will there be any money, anywhere, for anything else? At this rate, Canada will have to borrow money just to borrow money. Or the bond houses will look at Canada, faint, and when they come to again, shoo us out of the markets as the spendthrifts and wastrels of the international scene.

Now of course there is nothing to say that the government isn't going ahead with both grandiose schemes, a remaking of the Canadian economy into a green factory (end of oil and gas) and a guaranteed annual income.

Once Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland drop out of the Confederation (as they surely will if this is the plan), Mr. Trudeau will have only seven provinces and the territories to service; the tree planting would take place over a smaller landscape, forest density would thereby be greater, and that would lead to efficiencies.

A plan of that scale would, I think, inevitably call for a quick election. A prospect Trudeau, in that charmingly gnomic way he has, just a few days ago gave more than a hint. After saying he “did not want an election,” he went to note that “saying holding an election is irresponsible is itself irresponsible.”

He could have had a job at ancient Delphi when the oracle was issuing his etudes in ambiguity. So, do we conclude, it's “irresponsible” NOT to hold an election? Whatever the choice, the NDP's Jagmeet Singh will be on board. Mr. Singh has become the hood ornament of the minority Liberal juggernaut.

Tell you what. If the Ottawa watchers catch Seamus O'Regan getting into his limousine holding a green brin bag full of acorns, my money is on an election — built around a guaranteed annual income, a brand-new full-green economy, a national forest canopy, and a new Ferrari for everyone over 18.

The latter, just to sweeten the pot.

THEY DIDN'T TALK THAT AMBITIOUSLY EVEN IN 1867.