HAPPY NEW YEAR, POLITICIANS

What could possibly go wrong?

Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbours, and let every new year find you a better man.” We can’t think of better New Year’s advice for … Donald Trump.

But since we’re Canadian, it’s best we focus on our own priorities for Confederation’s sesquicentennial year. Plus, we’re residents of the country’s most politically obsessed city. So here are a few challenges (and opportunities) for our three levels of government in 2017:

THE NATIONAL CAPITAL

Local politicians spent 2016 trying to extinguish the flames of several hot files. Some will flare anew in 2017.

Start with the Civic hospital site. People who live, drive or work near Dow’s Lake and the eastern part of the Central Experiment Farm are just getting used to the idea that heavy construction and busier traffic patterns lie ahead, though not in this calendar year. But expect some gnashing of teeth as the design and planning process begins on what could become a spectacular health-care facility.

Then there’s LeBreton Flats. It took the National Capital Commission more than 20 meetings with Eugene Melnyk’s RendezVous LeBreton group to determine that the two bodies could officially negotiate to develop the site. Clearly, the hard part is just starting.

At some future date, Ottawa will boast a new central library. Council must still approve the recommended site this coming year. But it’s unlikely foes of the proposed location west of Bronson Avenue have closed the book on this yet.

There will also be work on the Zibi project at Chaudière and Albert Islands. However, the developer wants cleanup costs from taxpayers, and further tangles loom as indigenous groups not represented by the Algonquins of Ontario continue to seek more say on these lands.

Across from Parliament Hill, meanwhile, the former U.S. embassy sits empty, awaiting a role that could enhance the capital. Expect an announcement in 2017 — and expect not everyone will be happy with it, naturally.

The Ottawa Police Service will introduce its new deployment model in January and Chief Charles Bordeleau wants no repeat of 2016’s high homicide levels. Sometime this coming year, he may also find himself dealing directly with fallout from proposed federal legislation to legalize marijuana. It may be that the Wild West of Weed has only begun — during a year when thousands more tourists and visitors than usual will pour into our city.

THE PROVINCE

Premier Kathleen Wynne starts 2017 with a personal approval rating of only 14 per cent and her party is losing the fundraising battle to Patrick Brown’s Progressive Conservatives, while the premier took the flak on cashfor-access events.

Her popularity could plummet further. Thanks to the government’s cap-and-trade climate change plan, the cost of gasoline and home heating rises Jan. 1. The pay-now, maybe-get-reductions-later initiative is a hard sell for people struggling to pay bills, especially when they are already angry about electricity costs. An electricity bill reduction equivalent to the provincial sales tax will help, but won’t entirely close the gap.

The Liberals have talked for years about eliminating the provincial deficit by 201718. The government’s fiscal credibility now hangs on that pledge: The budget that must achieve it is only about three months away. It will need to show not just balance, but a surplus to pay for the 2018 election’s inevitable campaign promises.

The Liberals’ inability so far to reach a deal with the province’s doctors, coupled with recurring horror stories about homecare shortages, is unsettling, particularly now that physicians are raising the spectre of job action. Ontarians shouldn’t cross their fingers that any relief is coming from the federal government either, which has dug in its heels during talks on transfer payments.

And there is the jails file. It matters to Ontarians, and to Ottawans, that people held in our provincial jails be treated humanely, though not coddled. The file has now passed through the hands of three different ministers in less than a year.

THE NATION

The challenges facing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau start with the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump in January. Trump sees the world, trade, aid and humanitarianism very differently from the Liberals. Through our joint history, presidents and prime ministers have often pursued different tracks; we’re about to see how deftly Trudeau can tiptoe around this particular elephant.

Starting with foreign policy. Outgoing President Barack Obama this week launched a diplomatic grenade into world affairs by imposing stern sanctions on Russia, based on evidence of interference in the U.S. election. Deserved or not, it’s a political punch at Trump, who intends closer relations with Vladimir Putin. How this superpower relationship plays out will challenge all of America’s NATO allies.

Trump himself has flung down the gauntlet with his staunch defence of Israel after the United Nations Security Council condemned its settlements policy. As he pursues a Security Council seat, works with the General Assembly on Syria and carefully scrutinizes Canada’s military role both in Iraq and with NATO, our prime minister will find his manoeuvring room narrowing. At home, and closely related to all this, he’ll be under intense pressure to deal more effectively with defence policy and procurement, files on which the government made little real progress in 2016.

On the domestic front, Trudeau must quickly sort out the electoral reform file, currently bobbing in an ocean of opprobrium, if only so it doesn’t distract him from the rest of his agenda.

Legalization of marijuana draws closer, now that an expert panel has reported. With illegal pot shops continuing to take root, sorting out the law has become more urgent. The other tripwire is 2017’s examination of widening access to assisted dying. And relations with the provinces over health care are far from settled.

The Liberals promised a big deficit in their first budget — and delivered one with a vengeance. This year, we need to see clearly the gains in infrastructure from all this spending, and to see what the next budget does to help the economy.

Politically, Trudeau must take a page from Kathleen Wynne’s unhappy experience and come up with a more convincing plan to confront accusations of cash-for-access at the federal level. He says he is doing nothing unethical, but over time this problem could erode his sunny-ways image.

As Franklin said, “Let every year find you a better man.” And, because it’s 2017, let’s be better women too.