Give the Grits an ‘A’ for effort
Taking stock of the Liberals, six months into their extended experiment in social harvesting
NATIONAL POST
OTTAWA — The Liberal party’s philosophical underpinnings beyond trying to extend their six months in power to a thousand years of pre-eminence is to run a government that benefits its citizens.
While the preceding ministry believed that all governments, including its own, couldn’t run a two-house paper route, the Liberals are men and women of systems.
They believe they can arrange the pieces on the chessboard and overcome Adam Smith’s “principles of motion” that produce such unintended consequences as waste and mismanagement.
Canadians appreciate that the people who are running the government are people who believe in government, its proponents say.
The changes in style are obvious. Justin Trudeau is leading a government that celebrates the Royal Proclamation of 1763, not the War of 1812; that is more enthusiastic about putting Nellie McClung on banknotes than Sir John A. Macdonald.
The environment, youth, inclusion and diversity will be the foundations on which Canada’s 150th birthday is celebrated. Trudeau has gone global, using
magazine and his audience with President Barack Obama to tell the world that Canada is a kinder, gentler, more welcoming place under his watch.
The changes in substance are less readily apparent.
Liberals have always had good intentions but the reality is that government service delivery has often been poor, nasty, brutish and slow.
These Grits are different, they say.
The Syrian refugee intake is offered as a microcosm of the new approach: stick to what was promised in the platform, then be bold but flexible when it comes to implementation.
Six months into their extended experiment in social harvesting, the Trudeau government has picked much of the low-hanging fruit early initiatives that were entirely within their own domain and didn’t cost any money, such as a cabinet filled with an equal number of men and women.
In a number of cases, such as the reinstated Court Challenges Program and the mandatory longform census, the Liberals resurrected initiatives killed by the Conservatives.
In a number of others, there were dumb bureaucratic and legislative changes, promised to demographic groups during the election campaign, and delivered in a cynical exchange of votes for costly, often misguided, policy.
Into this group would fall a doubling of the number of grandparents and parents to be reunited with recent immigrants; restoring eligibility for Old Age Security back to 65; the expansion of employment insurance coverage; and, the reopening of Veterans Affairs offices.
The budget offered the new government the opportunity to do what all Liberal governments attempt but rarely succeed: the imposition of a progressive income system to take from the rich and give to the poor, in the form of the middle-income tax cut, the upper-income tax hike and the new Canada Child Benefit.
The Trudeau government has been active in introducing its agenda, particularly in light of complaints early in the new year that it lacked capacity because it still hadn’t staffed up ministerial offices.
The burr under the saddle of most critics is how the Liberals intend to pay for it all, particularly with the renewal of the health accord looming.
But the government is less fixated on how it will pay for the services it delivers, than it is on how well it delivers them.
The loss of fiscal credibility over such trifles as a $30-billion deficit is shrugged off as the price of a progressive agenda that tries to take the fear and inequality out of everyday life.
The major challenge in the pseudoscience known as “deliverology” is the federal government’s inability to implement much of its agenda unilaterally.
From its infrastructure spending to its health-care agenda, it is a funding agent, transferring money to other levels of government.
What is becoming clear, however, is that it will not be a passive funding agent, content to simply write cheques and step back.
In this, the vitality and good cheer of the new prime minister may be the difference between getting things done and not.
From pipelines to a climatechange agreement, Trudeau has facilitated conversations by bringing premiers together around the same table.
No consensus on how to price carbon has yet emerged but the wonder is that all the premiers now agree carbon should be priced.
Six months is too short a time to judge whether the Trudeau government will deliver. Policy complexities, technological change and shrinking budgets will all conspire against it. The length of broken and undelivered promises is becoming a point of comment.
But, if this government has not yet set the track record for accomplishment, then like a fleshy, redfaced child pulling up the rear in the 100-metre dash, it deserves an “A” for effort.