Summer of serenity gives way to reality
PM’s agenda full of challenges
The fall parliamentary session starts Monday with the Liberals gliding toward their first anniversary in power. They are 20 points ahead of their nearest rivals in the polls and there are few signs of a pivot away from them. They have spent lavishly and pushed a progressive agenda, and urged voters to have faith their policies will produce the necessary growth to pay for the largesse.
Their government has been embraced with the intense fan frenzy normally lavished on boy bands. But if their debut was an immense success, they may soon experience the symptoms of difficult-second-album syndrome.
The government has deferred decisions on potentially divisive hot-button issues by putting them out to consultation or shunting them off to regulatory bodies. But from climate change to pot legalization, from pipelines to electoral reform, it is soon going to be forced to make choices that will upset some of its loudest advocates.
Much of the government’s early efforts tackled issues entirely within the bailiwick of the federal government — restoring the long-form census, doubling the number of family-class immigration applications and launching an inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women.
But this fall, several major policy decisions need to be taken that involve consultation with provincial governments: a new climate change plan, a fresh health accord, even decisions on pipeline infrastructure. The Liberals’ ability to manage the relationship with the provinces may ultimately determine the fate of their agenda.
The prime minister and his senior ministers have shown a remarkable capacity to build consensus when none appeared possible, such as the agreement in principle by most of the country’s finance ministers to enhance the Canada Pension Plan. But during the recent Liberal caucus retreat in Sudbury, Ont., Trudeau admitted the government faces a tough year.
Canada has to come up with a climate change plan by Nov. 7, when COP 22 meets in Morocco. There is currently no national greenhouse gas reduction plan. Canada is unlikely to meet even the modest emission targets set by the Harper government without more vigorous action.
In Paris at COP 21, Trudeau committed Canada to a more ambitious goal of limiting average temperature increases to 1.5 C. In March, premiers signed on to a communiqué that suggested a low-carbon economy would result from a broad suite of measures, including pricing carbon.
But B.C. Premier Christy Clark said that could be interpreted broadly and Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall vowed to fight the imposition of a carbon tax by Ottawa. B.C. decided not to increase its carbon tax last month in a new provincial climate change plan, maintaining a freeze that has been in place for four years.
Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has said a finalized national carbon-pricing plan will emerge this fall and that she hopes B.C. will commit to any tax increases it includes. But with a provincial election set for next May, Clark is unlikely to be enthusiastic about new federal initiatives.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s finance minister, once compared the art of taxation to plucking a goose — “obtaining the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing.” How will Trudeau react when geese attack? We may be about to find out.
The pipeline file is also set to cause the prime minister heartburn. Cabinet will decide by Christmas whether to approve the Trans Mountain pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby, B.C. The National Energy Board has give the go-ahead, subject to conditions, and the government must now decide whether it meets its enhanced criteria for social licence.
But the pipeline is hugely divisive on the Pacific coast. Approval would alienate some of Trudeau’s environmental fellow travellers, including Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, as well as First Nations.
Yet, as Postmedia reported in April, the prime minister is convinced that one of the three major pipelines being proposed must make it to one coast or another if Canada is to get a world price for its resources.
Wall has warned that national unity is at risk if the Energy East pipeline to New Brunswick is stymied by political opposition in Ontario and Quebec.
“If it doesn’t end well, I worry about unity in the country because I think in Western Canada there is a frustration that we can’t get our goods to market,” he said.
Ottawa may also be on a collision course with the provinces over the new multi-year health accord being negotiated this fall. Predictably for a federal health minister in a government that is running out of money, Jane Philpott has said she is unconvinced that putting more cash into provincial transfers is the best way to improve the healthcare system.
But the six per cent annual funding increases the provinces have enjoyed for the past 12 years end next April, after which the previous government said it would have to live on increases that match Canada’s gross domestic product growth, or three per cent — whichever is higher.
Health-care costs are rising and the population is aging, which the provinces say justifies larger transfers. Ottawa will send $36 billion to the provinces for health care this year, even as it racks up a deficit nudging $30 billion.
The Liberals reneged in the past budget on a pledge to invest an extra $3 billion in better homecare services. Philpott has suggested that money could be delivered separately from health transfers. But the provinces’ response to the suggestion of temporary, targeted funding was an unequivocal rejection. It is hard to see a way through this impasse.
Even in Parliament, where they have a comfortable majority, the Liberals will face pushback from an opposition emboldened by its success last session in staring down the controversial Motion 6, which would have allowed the government to dictate the parliamentary agenda.
Though the NDP and Conservatives will be distracted by their leadership contests, both can be expected to make vocal representation on issues such as electoral reform, where a special committee must recommend by Dec. 1 how to transform the system for electing MPs; on the legalization of marijuana, where an expert panel’s conclusion on how cannabis should be manufactured and sold legally is due in November; and on a potentially hazardous peacekeeping mission in Africa, the details of which remain unclear.
This conflation of vexations has the potential to catch the attention of people who don’t follow public affairs closely — the silent majority that has been broadly supportive of Trudeau’s quiet revolution.
It may not prove to be a winter of discontent, but clouds are looming. The glorious summer the Liberals have enjoyed may soon be a fading memory.