WHAT CANADA NEEDS IS A NEW NATIONAL POLICY

Macdonald’s vision an inspiration in a post-pandemic world, Asher Honickman and Ben Woodfinden say.

While we are still in the midst of a global pandemic, discussion has increasingly turned to what the post-pandemic world, and specifically what the post-pandemic economic recovery, is going to look like. Some have argued for a permanent universal basic income, while others have called for a rapid transition to a green economy. But while government can and should play a role in this recovery, the debt that has been accrued to keep the economy on life support during the pandemic must temper our expectations.

Canada is fractured and divided, and the world outside our borders is changing rapidly. Our economic recovery needs to address these serious challenges, focusing on a renewal of our national ties and bonds, while avoiding utopian, transformative schemes. What Canada needs is a New National Policy.

When our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, introduced the National Policy in the 1870s, its goal was both economic and political. Confederation was still in its infancy, and Macdonald’s goal was to help build a national economy for a new nation.

This included policies to help develop a Canadian manufacturing base to make Canada less reliant on the much bigger (and then highly protectionist) United States. The National Policy also encouraged immigration and settlement in Western Canada and the construction of a transcontinental rail line to link Canada from coast to coast.

What is called for today is something similar in spirit — a new economic vision designed to unite Canada and Canadians and restore our competitiveness on the world stage.

The proposed New National

Policy channels the spirit of Macdonald not as a Conservative, but as Canada’s pivotal founding father. It is a vision that reflects the changing global and national conditions that confront Canada today, challenges that must be addressed in the post-pandemic recovery. From Western alienation and increasing national divides, to the changing geopolitical landscape, the challenges facing Canada require a bold post-pandemic recovery program centred on national unity, economic resiliency and greater industrial independence.

A 21st-century New National Policy would prioritize finally lifting the restrictions on trade within our borders. The Canadian Constitution guarantees free trade between provinces, and yet a vast patchwork of restrictions and protectionist measures at the provincial level means that it is sometimes easier to trade with other countries than it is with other provinces. Parliament can and should take the lead in bringing this national embarrassment to an end by enacting a law guaranteeing the free movement of people and goods (except certain specified controlled substances) across provincial borders. To the extent provinces maintain their conflicting legislation, the federal law would trump.

A concerted effort must also be made to build national infrastructure and transportation links that can bring us closer together. While an energy transition is underway, realists know that oil is not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, and the construction of pipelines that enable Albertan oil to get to market during this transition would help to ease national tensions and divides.

But the building of national infrastructure must extend beyond pipelines. As Scott Gilmore has rightly observed, Canada is “a nation of strangers.” We tend not to travel or vacation within our own vast continental nation. At least one reason for this is that domestic travel, especially airfare, is extremely expensive, and just as it can be easier for Canadian companies to trade with other countries, so too is it often cheaper to fly to other countries. Prioritizing and finding ways to create fast affordable travel within Canada, mainly through deregulation, would help reduce these barriers and transplant the spirit of Macdonald’s transcontinental rail lines into the 21st century.

A New National Policy would move beyond the tired old tropes and debates about governments versus markets, and instead understand the role that government must sometimes play to help ensure that markets remain effective and secure. This won’t sit well with purists on either the left or right, but targeted state support to help development in certain sectors is necessary for Canada to compete on the global stage, especially in a world in which nations are increasingly retreating inward. As Sean Speer and Sam Duncan eloquently and forcefully argued in a recent article, Canada needs a new industrial policy.

This is not a case for “anti-capitalist conservatism,” as has been argued, but for limited and prudential government activity to protect and preserve a viable market economy.

The most obvious area where this is needed is in rethinking our relationship with China.

The global pandemic has exposed why we need to decouple ourselves from China, an unreliable and aspiring totalitarian regime, and ensure greater self-sufficiency overall through a strategic onshoring of certain supply chains and manufacturing. One obvious example is in the manufacturing of essential medical equipment and supplies, another is the need for state support to ensure the development of telecommunications infrastructure and technology so that Canada is not forced to rely on Chinese companies like Huawei.

But a breakaway from China and a refocused independent industrial policy should certainly not mean embracing isolationism. Canada is a trading nation, and just as it is vital that we renew trading and economic ties within our nation, we must renew our economic ties with our friends and allies, including and especially our fellow Commonwealth nations.

Similarly, ensuring that Canada continues to attract the best and the brightest from around the world requires we remain open and encourage talented people to move here and ultimately become Canadians. This requires not just good immigration policy, but also an appealing vision that inspires people to come here. A New National Policy could provide just this sort of motivating vision, just as Macdonald’s National Policy did in the late 19th century, by showcasing a Canada that aspires not merely for pleasantness, but for greatness.

The post-pandemic world and recovery is going to require boldness and bravery from our current and aspiring leaders.

A New National Policy could provide just that, channelling the spirit of our forefathers into a Made in Canada 21st-century policy. More than that, it offers a hopeful but achievable vision of the future in which Canada has healed divisions, proven resilient in the face of new global challenges, and assumed a leadership role among the community of nation states.

National Post

Asher Honickman is a partner at Matthews Abogado LLP and president of Advocates for the Rule of Law, a registered charity. Ben Woodfinden is a doctoral student and political theorist at Mcgill University in Montreal.