IF JUSTIN TRUDEAU IS TO AVOID BEING LABELLED MR. DITHERS HE NEEDS TO SOLVE HIS LEADERSHIP DILEMMA — AN INABILITY TO MAKE DECISIONS, WRITES MICHAEL DEN TANDT
The Trudeau Liberals are determined to make no rash decision, to subject every important choice to rigorous critical tests — which is good, surely. But there’s a dawning political question: At what point does Solomonic mulling begin to look like dithering?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to Alberta, with Ottawa’s helping hand symbolically extended, will be well received. In his presser with Premier Rachel Notley on Wednesday, Trudeau sent all the right signals of federal friendship.
It will be lost on no one, though, that the concrete aid being extended is mostly in the form of $700 million in infrastructure spending that was already slated to roll out under the previous government. A proffered $250-million fiscal stabilization fund is, in the context of a provincewide economic downturn, small. And the extensions in Employment Insurance benefits that many have called for are not yet a sure thing.
This raises the question: Why not? Extending EI for Albertans in the present circumstances seems like a nobrainer. Rather than hint it’s coming, why not simply say it is and move ahead?
The same might be said of the Liberal government’s posture vis-à-vis the proposed Energy East pipeline, which has provided the opposition with fodder for days. In Alberta, and indeed in many parts of Ontario, there is a popular consensus that new pipeline capacity is needed.
There is some political opposition in Quebec, most recently in and around Montreal, but that doesn’t appear to be insurmountable. Surely, the Liberals would benefit from saying they support Energy East and want it to go ahead, subject to its meeting the necessary environmental hurdles? Why so wishy-washy? Indeed, gazing across the span of emerging policy, one perceives a distinct “on the one hand, on the other hand” tendency. The government still can’t say for certain whether it’s for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, even though International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland signed it on Canada’s behalf in New Zealand on Wednesday. The government is said to be considering potential impacts.
Huh? Since when is the federal Liberal party not solidly in favour of freer trade, which has since the early 1990s been a massive job engine for Canada? The last time this was even at issue within the party was 1993, near as I can tell.
Then, of course, there’s the government’s continuing, excruciating vacillation over the military mission in northern Iraq and Syria. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, a war hero in his own right, is being left to dangle day after day in the House of Commons, defending a policy that looks like perpetual non-decision. The mission plan is coming, and when it does, Canadians will be proud of it, he repeats. OK. But what is the policy?
When will it be unveiled? Is there any strategic or tactical rationale to pulling out the CF-18s? Wait and see is essentially the response. Meantime, the calls for certainty grow louder.
It is no secret the Liberal leadership team has long believed that among Stephen Harper’s chief managerial failings was the reactiveness of his office. It’s actually a problem that extends back well beyond Harper. Decisions that get made quickly, based on gut instinct or headlines or the need to put out the political fire of the moment, can often be quite bad decisions.
The Mike Duffy Senate mess stemmed from a series of such decisions. As part of an effort to make its decisionmaking more rigorous, the Prime Minister’s Office this week announced it has recruited Dan Gardner, author with Philip Tetlock of the 2015 non-fiction book Super-forecasting, as a consultant.
Superforecasting is a marvellous book, as much a manual for leadership as it is an exploration of political and economic soothsaying. Among its central tenets is that gut feeling, or “tip of the nose” judgment, should never be a substitute for rigorous analysis, openmindedness and critical thinking. It urges decision makers to subject their pending choices to a battery of systemic practices, including contrary opinion and uncertainty, to prevent their taking disastrous wrong turns such as, to name one example, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
But as the authors point out in Chapter 10, The Leader’s Dilemma, “leaders can’t ruminate endlessly. They need to size up the situation, make a decision, and move on.” How to prevent decision paralysis? They posit a solution that, boiled down, is to delegate. The leader sets an objective, based on an overarching vision. His or her subordinates, subject-area experts, determine the best way to achieve that end. Sounds like Trudeau’s government-by-cabinet.
It’s all well and good. But possibly there’s a happy medium between snap judgment and Hamlet-esque mulling that can look like weakness. Then-prime minister Paul Martin was nicknamed “Mr. Dithers” because of a perceived timidity in making decisions. That hurt him. It would be ironic indeed if Trudeau, the man who got his start by betting all his chips on a fist fight, were to fall prey to the same affliction.
DEFENCE MINISTER HARJIT SAJJAN, A WAR HERO IN HIS OWN RIGHT, IS BEING LEFT TO DANGLE DAY AFTER DAY IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DEFENDING A POLICY THAT LOOKS LIKE PERPETUAL NON-DECISION. — COLUMNIST MICHAEL DEN TANDT