Was Liberals’ power bid really about the virus?

Let’s start by being charitable and assuming that Liberals in Ottawa, seized by the ravages of the coronavirus and the threat it represents to Canada’s future health and prosperity, legitimately believed they needed draconian powers to tax, spend and borrow without the hindrance of approval by Parliament.

Let’s guess that, notwithstanding the spirit of co-operation that has broken out among elected representatives of all parties, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government feared good fellowship would wane as the crisis aged, patience dwindled and the darker side of human nature poked its nasty snout into national affairs.

Sure, OK, the Tories, the

New Democrats and the separatists were ready to grant Trudeau unprecedented leeway to deal quickly with a fast-moving threat, for now. But what if they changed their minds, and the prime minister, down the road, found himself unable to act as quickly as he felt necessary without having to explain himself or justify his actions? So the Liberals slipped a few last-minute clauses into an agreement with the other parties enabling the government to hold onto powers that Conservative MP Scott Reid called it a “Henry VIII bill” in reference to the unlimited powers of a feudal monarch. If agreed, as Reid noted, it would have stripped Parliament of its normal powers between now and the end of next year, “21 months in the future, and long after the health crisis is likely to have come to an end.”

Trudeau, as he does, insisted the government had nothing but the best interests of the country in mind. “We recognize that this pandemic is moving extremely quickly and it is an exceptional situation that requires extreme flexibility and rapidity of response by governments to be able to help Canadians and react to a situation that we’ve seen is moving quickly every single day,” he said. Talks were continuing “to both get that flexibility to be able to get measures out the door and keep in place our democratic institutions and the values that are so important to us all.”

Confronted by fierce opposition, the Liberals dropped a demand for unlimited ability to raise or lower taxes at their whim until the end of 2021, though the Tories remained upset at a provision granting Finance Minister Bill Morneau bottomless borrowing authority. When the deal was eventually concluded, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer noted it included several provisions allowing for checks on the original unfettered powers Liberals sought.

Even if we suspend normal levels of skepticism for the duration of this outbreak, however, one has to wonder what Trudeau was thinking. He’d been having a fairly good crisis until now, shouldering his duties as husband and father to a virus-stricken family while appearing daily to outline government measures and offer what reassurances were possible. Then, boom! He uses the situation to demand a level of one-man rule Canadian minds could only boggle at. Not just for a few weeks until things turned back towards normality, but until the end of next year.

There are lots of reasons to tremble at what this government might get up to with that sort of spending and taxing capacity. From Day One of the Liberals’ 2015 victory they’ve ignored their own pledges about budget prudence and spending sensibility. They’ve made no effort to contain their ballooning deficits or swelling debt loads. They’ve blown past every self-imposed benchmark on restraint and quit bothering to even pretend they have a target date for returning the budget to balance.

If Morneau has shown us anything during his tenure as finance minister, it’s that he can be talked into just about any new outlay with a minimum of effort. He’s become expert at verbal gobbledygook, speaking with ease while saying nothing, leaving the most persistent interviewers grappling for any hint of his actual thoughts. Putting trust into the tandem of Trudeau and Morneau to practice discipline without Parliament or the press there to bear witness to their activities would be nothing short of irrational. Had the opposition parties given their consent, they should have been hauled up on charges of betraying their role and responsibilities as elected representatives.

To put the most cynical interpretation on the situation would note that Trudeau’s government is in a minority situation and requires support from at least one other party to stay in office. Obtaining the ability to tax, borrow and spend at will, free even of the minimal restraints placed on elected majorities, well past any date at which the virus is likely to be brought under control, would pretty much free the Liberals of any fear of being brought down. New Democrats love unrestrained spending. It would be difficult to find a spending program of which leader Jagmeet Singh disapproved. Even plans that benefitted arch foes in the corporate or business communities might be accommodated providing adequate billions were directed to long-held NDP priorities.

When Pierre Trudeau found himself reduced to a minority in 1972, having seen his majority reduced to a two-seat cushion over the Conservatives, he discovered that by placating the NDP and opening the bank vaults he could buy a lifeline for himself and his government. Two years later he won back his majority while the NDP tanked. Unfortunately, Trudeau never reined in spending, setting off the deficit spiral that climaxed in the 1995 debt crisis.

Is that what this Trudeau was up to? Or was his power grab just another example of the poor judgment he has shown at regular intervals throughout his life? Thanks to some healthy screeching from opposition benches, we might not have to find out.

THEY’VE BLOWN PAST EVERY SELF-IMPOSED BENCHMARK ON RESTRAINT.