Think big, and ahead

Maybe it comes from the school of thought that “every cloud has a silver lining.”

Maybe it’s along the lines of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

And maybe, it’s a slice of that valuable entrepreneurial worldview that sees change not just as a threat, but as an opportunity.

Many people in this country are looking at the current COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to make Canada a better, stronger place. And the time for that discussion, frankly, is now.

Last weekend, former prime minister Brian Mulroney spelled out some new directions this country could be taking after the pandemic: action to deal with systemic racism generally, and injustices faced by Indigenous peoples in particular, are a key element in his plan. Mulroney also proposes a considerable increase in both the number of immigrants Canada accepts — a plan that would double the country’s population to 75 million — and methods to increase Canada’s productivity.

Elements of that plan seem unusual, coming from a political leader once seen as sitting on the right-leaning side of the Canadian political spectrum — and you can pretty much be assured many of Mulroney’s solutions are not things the current Conservative party might embrace.

But maybe, just maybe, it’s time for Canadians to look beyond the confined policy silos of our major federal political parties, and start looking for a unified set of possible solutions for what comes next.

What comes next certainly appears to be significantly different from what we’re used to — and addressing it is not as simple as picking from the current policy books of the existing political players. We need more than a Liberal playbook, or that of the Conservatives or the New Democrats.

We need a national direction that will take advantage of opportunities and use Canadian skills and abilities in the best way possible. We have to plan and prepare for changing resource demands — like the decline of oil — and find ways forward.

Change is coming — because the world is changing, and some of the biggest changes are clearly coming to the United States, a customer, neighbour and partner we have depended on for generations. If we aren’t ready for that change, you can be assured that something will be imposed upon us by circumstance, and that is not the way to make the best of plans.

As Mulroney wrote, “Our approach should be driven by the hard reality that, in a POSTCOVID world, two fundamental pillars that have influenced Canada’s success to date — a privileged relationship with the U.S. and our ‘middle power’ reliance on key multilateral institutions — are no longer assured. We need to navigate smartly and more nimbly to advance Canadian interests in what promises to be a more tumultuous, unpredictable world.”

Let’s get started.