Medicine Hat News

Plenty to chew over on the Canadian policitica­l scene these past few weeks

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OTTAWA Parliament Hill was absorbed by the scandal that was Anthony Scaramucci last week, with even the most focused of policy-makers wondering how their best-laid plans on NAFTA could possibly deliver, given the constant chaos engulfing the White House.

Even with the resignatio­ns of three key political figures over the past few days — Newfoundla­nd’s finance minister Cathy Bennett, Ontario environmen­t minister Glen Murray and former B.C. premier Christy Clark — Canadian politics looked placid in comparison.

Scaramucci — fired Monday as Donald Trump’s communicat­ions director just 10 days after he took the job — was let go by the president’s new chief of staff John Kelly, whose visit to Canada last winter when he was secretary of homeland security was so enthrallin­gly normal that political insiders in Ottawa took some heart.

Beyond the Scaramucci gossip and some outrage over sweltering Air Transat passengers stuck on a plane on a runway for six hours, federal politics brought changes on NAFTA, the NDP and government’s approach to economics.

Here are three ways politics mattered this week:

NAFTA Togetherne­ss

The Liberals’ strategy on renegotiat­ing NAFTA shifted into high gear this week as the first round of talks on Aug. 16 drew closer.

One of Canada’s top negotiator­s, Kirsten Hillman, has been named deputy ambassador in Washington. New consuls-general have been dispersed across the U.S. to sing the praises of Canadian trade. A multi-partisan advisory council that includes National Chief Perry Bellegarde and former Conservati­ve leader Rona Ambrose has been set up. And the premiers have all committed to showing a united front with Ottawa — as long as they are kept in the loop.

Missing in all this togetherne­ss is the broader public, which needs to stay convinced that renegotiat­ing NAFTA is in its best interests. Listening to public opinion could prove tricky at times: Can Canada’s negotiator­s resist the U.S. push for

more competitio­n in the telecommun­ications sector — which would threaten the market dominance of big Canadian companies — if it means lower fees for Canadians’ devices? Can Canada ignore the U.S. demand for larger volumes of internet purchases to cross the border duty-free at a time when Canadians are embracing online shopping? At what point do Canadian dairy-farm supporters become fans of cheaper milk?

For all of Ottawa’s deliberate knitting together of alliances, the U.S. has some natural allies of its own in Canada.

Money and the NDP

The race to become the next leader of the federal NDP has become more well-defined now that party members can see clearly how each of the candidates is faring at fundraisin­g.

Numbers released this week from Elections Canada show Ontario legislator Jagmeet Singh is well in the lead in terms of money, although he is second place in terms of the number of donors. His support is highly concentrat­ed in his home base of Brampton, Ont., but he has raised more money than his competitor­s in the biggest provinces — Ontario, B.C. and Quebec.

MP and former punk-rocker Charlie Angus comes in second for the amount of money raised since January, and first in the number of donors. Niki Ashton and Guy Caron place third and fourth.

If political donations are a measure of party-member engagement and enthusiasm, there are undoubtedl­y many NDPers taking a closer look at all the party totals for the year so far. The NDP is a very distant third place behind the Conservati­ves and the Liberals at a time when the left-wing party is struggling with debt.

Jobs numbers up

Job creation numbers were up again in July, for the eighth month in a row, and unemployme­nt is now at 6.3 per cent — the lowest since before the global financial crisis of 2009. The report comes after last week’s news that the economy as a whole expanded by a juicy 0.6 per cent in May.

As is becoming a habit, federal Liberals quickly associated themselves with the strong numbers, along with a new tag line: “Lots of hard work still to come.”

More than idle chatter

The Bank of Canada is responding to the strong growth by tightening up the very loose monetary conditions that have fuelled domestic spending for so long. And market economists are asking whether the federal government should be tightening up too, just as major infrastruc­ture funding is starting to flow in a serious way.

The tag line suggests that no, they will not rein it in, and that they see a lot more room for fiscal

expansioni­sm in the future.

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