It’s time for Liberals to show some substance
T hree months in, the governing style of Justin Trudeau’s government is coming into focus. It is one part not being Stephen Harper, one part symbolic gesture, one part wriggling out of campaign promises, and one part saying yes to everybody. You thought the Harper government was all about the permanent campaign? Get used to it.
For a government that makes much of its progressive, forward-looking credentials, the Trudeau crew are unusually obsessed with digging up the recent past. The platform itself was filled with promises ( my colleague, Bill Watson, puts the number at 50) to reverse this or that Conservative initiative. Some of these were well- considered —restoring the long-form census, forswearing the use of omnibus bills — others, such as abolishing incomesplitting, less so. But what was common to all was their relentless symbolic focus, achieving maximum political mileage for least expense.
That trend has continued in office. From dropping highly charged legal appeals — the niqab case being the most famous example — to repealing laws that had become lightning rods for favoured client groups (e.g. bills requiring greater transparency in the affairs of unions and native bands) to such relatively minor irritants as the monument to the victims of Communism in Ottawa or the “Mother Canada” statue in Cape Breton, the Trudeau government has at all times been at pains to remind voters of the differences between itself and the government that preceded it, at least so long as this does not require much actual change in direction.
The lengths to which it is prepared to go in this regard are best illustrated in the continuing silliness over the mission against ISIS. The platform was unequivocal on this point: “We will end Canada’s combat mission in Iraq.” More specifically, the Liberals had promised to withdraw Canada’s CF- 18 fighter jets from the mission, though from the time they made the promise they have yet to make any serious attempt to explain why: why others should fight in the region while we do not; why flying combat sorties is not where our“competitive ad vantage” lies, though our pilots are among the world’s most skilled and our allies have specifically requested they continue; nor any other of the host of questions it raised.
But of course they haven’t; of course they can’ t. The truth is the policy was solely intended to distinguish them from the other parties, neither so gun g-ho as the Conservatives nor so cravenly pacifist as the NDP. Which is why when what the Liberals are pleased to call their new “policy” is announced next week, it will look like such ludicrous mush: withdrawing our own fighter jets ( on precisely the schedule the mission was originally projected to end), but leaving in place the planes that refuel and guide those of other nations; doubling the number of “trainers,” whose actual work of painting targets for bombing runs looks a lot like combat; perhaps even sending an army battalion.
This tendency—to announce policy first, then figure out the consequences later; top refer show to substance—is by now established as this government’ s modus operandi. Is it to be supposed that the “evidencebased” party had any research to support its claim to be able to safely admit 25,000 Syrian refugees under government sponsorship by December? Was there any basis whatever to the party’s claim that raising the rate of tax on incomes above $200,000 by three percentage points would raise precisely the same sum ($3 billion) as cutting the middle tax bracket by a point and a half — and not, as is now admitted, at least $ 2 billion less?
Of course not: they gave each about the same amount of thought as Trudeau did in announcing, on the day the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was released, that he would implement all 94 of its recommendations. Which is about twice as much thought as he and his advisers gave to the implications of abolishing party caucuses in the Senate, resulting in its current state of more or less total confusion and paralysis. Or, f or that matter, than they gave to their pipeline policy.
It was great fun being in opposition, when it was possible to favour building pipeline sin general, save for any that happened to be proposed ( the exception was Keystone, which had the great political virtue of being on foreign soil), supporting established regulatory processes while insisting on the need to obtain “social licence” and promising aboriginal groups a veto. But now the Liberals are in government, and the party’s position is murkier than ever, the prime minister reduced to pleading with warring provincial politicians to get along.
Ah well. Perhaps it can all be held together with promises of more cash to everyone: more for public- sector unions ( the Tories’ attempt to dial back the banking of sick days is the latest reversal), more for cities ( is there a transit plan so ill- advised this government will not under write it ?), more for provinces, more for aboriginal groups. It’s a particularly appealing strategy when you have effectively abolished the budget constraint: after first freeing themselves, at some political risk, from the stricture against running deficits, the Liberals found it comparatively easy to sail past the platform’ s commitment to deficits of no more than $ 10 billion a year.
We’re now led to believe the bottom line is a continually declining debt- to- GDP ratio, but there’s no particular reason to think the Liberals will be any more bound by this constraint than they were the others. I’ m sure they’re not completely happy about it, but in the end the show must go on.