Trudeau should pick up the pace
On the campaign trail, Justin Trudeau promised that, if elected, his Liberals would pursue a transformative agenda. Our democracy, citizenship, health, the strength of our unions, Canada’s relationship with its First Peoples — on these, and other issues, voters gave Trudeau a strong mandate to play an activist role.
Yet by at least one measure, the Trudeau government has hardly acted at all. In their first 18 months in office, the Liberals have displayed a remarkable legislative lethargy, passing a mere 17 government bills, the least of any new government in decades.
Some of the laws Trudeau has managed to pass are important, and will make a marked difference in people’s lives, including the expansion of the Canada Pension Plan, the creation of the Canada Child Benefit, and the legalization of assisted dying.
However, in vital areas such as democratic renewal, security policy, criminal law and indigenous issues, among others, the government has been painfully slow to act. As Trudeau approaches the second half of his mandate, the hopeful symbolism of his early days risks souring if it is not soon reflected in more, and more wide-ranging, laws and programs.
Part of the slow pace can no doubt be chalked up to inexperience. The government’s first House leader, Dominic LeBlanc, lacked the diplomatic touch required to rally support around government bills.
His replacement, Bardish Chagger, a rookie MP, is widely seen as a strange choice for a government that could use an experienced leader in Parliament, especially given some of the tricky issues on the agenda.
Part if it, too, might be the inevitable consequence of a more democratic approach to governing. There is always a tension in government between efficiency and democracy, between how quickly laws and programs can be delivered and how robust the study and debate. The Harper government chose expediency at every turn, railroading laws through Parliament and burying important changes in omnibus bills. In opposition, Trudeau promised a more democratic approach, and insofar as he has delivered, the efficiency of his government has suffered for it.
His attempt to remake the Senate as a less partisan body of true sober second thought, for instance, has freed the Upper House to slow the passage of bills, as it did with the assisted dying law and is doing again with the private member’s bill to make O Canada gender neutral. Trudeau’s admirable commitment to use fewer omnibus bills and rely less on legislative tricks has paid democratic dividends, but at a cost.
But too often with this government delays in the name of democracy seem to serve as a smokescreen to avoid tough decisions. Take just a few of the Liberal campaign promises still undelivered ostensibly because they are in some stage of consultation or review: rolling back the most egregious aspects of the Tories’ overreaching security policy and costly tough-on-crime laws; closing regressive tax loopholes that benefit the richest few at a great cost to the public purse; fixing the outdated access-to-information law to ensure transparency and accountability.
In each of these cases, the government clearly has both the evidentiary and democratic bases on which to act, so why isn’t it? How much consultation is needed before it is prepared to do as it promised?
The Trudeau government’s embrace of democratic engagement is a welcome shift after a decade of something like government-by-fiat. But this tendency to consult endlessly rather than act — to signal a commitment without delivering the substance and paying the cost — will look less and less good on the government as it ages.
The Trudeau government’s tendency to consult endlessly rather than act — to signal a commitment without delivering the substance and paying the cost — will look less and less good on the government as it ages