Firstly, please stop comparing Canadian Conservatives to Trump and Republicans. Canadian Conservatives are closer to Democrats especially in social issues.
Secondly you write "The point being, making leadership or governing all about attitude leaves the door open for a devolution into a grievance or personality cult (or both together), one that needs to feed on institutions and eroding cultural norms to survive. This is where the Republicans now find themselves and where Canadian Conservatives should never want to be."
Isn't this exactly where the Liberals are? The cult of Trudeau vs misogynists, racists and climate/vax deniers.
Also "These are complicated questions, one that will require more than a giant “Fuck you!” to “the gatekeepers” Poilievre blames for choking debate and reform." But at least he has identified the gatekeepers.
That's progress compared to the last decade.
Then "Whipping up anger is easy. Controlling it is much, much harder. The rhetoric is already getting heated; gassing it up another hundred degrees won’t create the environment we all need to think deeply about what ails us."
That was his job in opposition.
And "What we need now are leaders with empathy and humility, ones who can acknowledge our fears and difficulties without judging us too harshly for how we’ve come to hold our beliefs. We need leaders who lean away from, not into, algorithms, ones who can create space, not close it down.
If none of this sounds like Poilievre, I can’t say I disagree. "
Did you not hear his acceptance speech?
I agree with much of your "what has to be done" and "hopes" but I think he is smart enough to know his role has changed and in a strong enough position to be a leader rather than a cat herder. I just hope he doesn't underestimate Trudeau's ability to spread the same fears (abortion, guns, climate) that have worked against Scheer and O'Toole.
Who are these fictional enemies? The gatekeepers? the BoC governor? Trudeau? So should Trudeau be compared to Trump for railing against the bigots, misogynists and racists that make up the unvaccinated horde or telling Canadians to watch out for "Big Oil" or "Conservatives stand with swastikas"?
You always can be depended upon to claim that a majority of (fill in the blank) agree about whatever. If you want to convince anyone, you need to provide what poll that actually is, when it was taken, and by whom.
I remember that you have claimed to be a teacher. Do you accept this low level from your students? I never did.
He was there to represent the nurses, paramedics and other first responders, truckers and and others who had lost their jobs because they didn't get a vaccination that was rushed to market. He was there to support the Charter Right of Canadians to travel. (yes I'm fully vaccinated). I dare say more of them lost jobs than the workers in that area of Ottawa. BTW I thought they should have dispersed after the first weekend but when the government doubled down, so did they.
Had you pulled yourself away from your dirty laundry to listen to the speech, you would have learned more about the man, his family and his ideas. I was better than the politalk that Justin has made over and over and over and over...
“Trumpism” has become another one of those words (like racist or fascist) that gets tossed around without a clear definition of what it means. It’s a word used by those who just want to fling s**t and hope it sticks.
Lyle, you write, "...Trump's behaviour has been nothing short of deplorable."
I absolutely agree. But so, doggoned what? That is the US; this is Canada. Drop the US references.
Oh, and by the way, if you want the US references, remember that Hillary's "deplorables" were instrumental in actually electing Trump in 2016. My point is that to keep demonizing folks is frequently counter-productive. It is far better to engage and discuss like adults without throwing out names and descriptives that, because of their use, have become the equivalent of expletives.
30,000 words on the subject. The subject headings are "falsehoods", "focus on sentiments", "nostalgia and male bravado", "Dominance orientation", and the like.
For Fascism, most lean to the excellent essay by Umberto Eco, giving fourteen points that describe them. Or the criteria used in Chris Hedges' book, "American Fascists", which long pre-dates Trump, from 2006.
My point is that these days most people who throw the words at others are using them as missiles, without a clear understanding of what the words actually mean. And as we become enured from hearing them or seeing them so often the words start to lose their impact. The same is true for “hero” or “victim”, or for that matter “climate change”.
But thank you Lyle and Roy for the information and links.
I don't believe that the T-word was used for Poilievre before he voiced support for that convoy, without taking exception to their "MOU" calling for closing Parliament and rule by GG fiat - which alarmed many people as a call for authoritarian government.
Racist, fascist, Trump are all easily understood for what they mean. There are clear and sharp definitions of each and it has nothing to do with flinging sh*t.
It has been deemed Trump Derangement Syndrome and it is rife within those of Democrat / Liberal leanings. Symptoms are a complete break down of the mind that leads into a delusional state where no other narrative or thought can be heard. They say the origins of the syndrome started at CNN, and spread to MSNBC while then moving through the US. Due to the CBC’s CEO living in New York when the outbreak occurred, it spread through out Canada as well. It appears to be a psychological impairment which causes extreme reactions at the mention of the name. It should not be long until Big pharma will have a vaccine to help alleviate the symptoms. Unfortunately it may not stop the spread. It should be mandated for those who are vulnerable of completely losing their minds from the syndrome. Boosters every six months will ensure they are able to survive the continual reinfection and spread.
Lyle, you say, "Trumpism runs deep and wide in the Conservative Party."
Sad to say, you lost me at that point. I absolutely know people who (very much unlike me!) absolutely think Trump did "good things" for America - and that is their point of view. But, notwithstanding their opinion on American politics they are actually very moderate in Canadian terms. Strange, right?
My point is, to simply try and draw a straight line between a US example that you find odious to Canada is not at all useful. Unless, of course, you aren't interested in trying to find common ground with someone who has much the same opinion as you except for that one thing.
If DT did anything good for the US during his tenure as president and since, it would be weighed in the balance against the immense damage and insanity that riddles the US today.
And I'm not going to say anything else about it here.
MacDougall is a classic centrist conservative - despite realizing that our institutions have "shit the bed", he persists in believing that incremental reform can solve the problem and capture the benefits of gatekeeping without the disadvantages. This hypothetical program of incremental reform is fundamentally a chimera. Read Mancur Olson on distributional coalitions to find out why.
In fact, what is needed really is a giant "fuck you" to the gatekeepers, implemented in practice as elimination of government bodies where possible and mass firings where not possible. Most of our institutions have screwed up so badly that they are doing net harm: we would be better off without them. So, let's put that into practice. Get rid of the CBC - don't try to tweak it to make it beneficial, as that won't work. A central bank is necessary, you say, despite the fact that they have failed on inflation? Ok, mass firings instead, starting at the top. It is unclear which category Public Health Canada falls into right now, but probably the former - let the provinces have it.
The same goes with government supported industries. Legacy media can't survive without the $600M subsidy? So what? It's doing net harm now - let it go and save the money.
There is no lack of "experts" in the land. What is lacking is (so far) political will to do anything about the glaringly obvious problem of universal expert failure.
Does Poilievre understand all this and intend to act on it, or is his rhetoric merely a sop to people like me? That's what we will find out.
Actually, he just insults the central bank without defining what "shit the bed" even means. We were reckoned to have come out the pandemic better than the US, Britain, and most of the EU, in financial terms, so he'd first have to define exactly what shit even exists, compared to peer nations.
Why compare to peer nations? The central bank had one primary objective, price stability, and failed miserably at achieving it. Open and shut case.
I do not see why we are so caring of elite civil servants that when they have demonstrably failed at their job, we want to "treat them fairly" by saying "it wasn't their fault, so we shouldn't fire them". So what if it wasn't their fault?
Countless business owners across the country have lost their business due to covid restrictions, entirely not their fault, and yet they are out of business regardless. This complete lack of accountability for officials is exactly the cause of massive expert failure.
The BoC is responsible for price stability in general over the long term not price stability over the few seconds of the media's attention span. "Firing" the BoC chair, if it could be done, would undermine confidence in the bank and create more problems than it would resolve.
Could the BoC had more warned the government and consumers sooner? They did. So dud others. It wasn't hidden nor does It take a PhD to understand how inflation happens when you artificially pump the economy during an emergency.
Temporary inflation due to too miuch money chasing too few goods today is the unfortunate and predictable price of a soft landing for the pandemic economy.
I'm not an expert on the BoC's enabling legislation, but my understanding is that they are well offside on their statutory objectives. If, of course, they aren't, then they aren't.
Pour encourager les autres. If he could have done better, he must be fired. If he couldn't have done better, there's no downside to firing him. Why not fire him? Because it's mean to the poor baby? (Assuming that the BoC is clearly offside on its inflation target)
I suspect that your real issue is that you think that senior civil servants should be treated with vastly more care and solicitude than regular citizens. Many voters would disagree.
Agreed, today's short-term inflation is driven by a host of global issues on both the demand and supply sides of the economy. Canadian monetary policy plays a critical roll in shaping business and consumer actions that are driving the problems from our shores. Every dime Canadians spend affects tge problem. Canada is acting in concert with other states on its monetary changes. We eithall hang together or we will all hang individually. So yes local monetary policy matters.
Because economics can't have lab experiments, and must find the best strategies with "natural experiments", where two comparable economies try different strategies and have different outcomes.
Much was made of Sweden "staying open" during 2020, and the economic losses they did not suffer at the time. But their predicted growth rate for 2022 is about 2.2% now, and Canada is still figuring on over 3%. The "Swedish model" got less and less talk as the pandemic went on, and I haven't heard it mentioned in a full year.
If you want to state specifically what policies the Bank of Canada "should" have followed to achieve a better outcome than Canada got, name them, and we'll see if we can find an economy that tried that, and compare outcomes.
If Mr. Poilievre were stating, even now, what such policies should have been, then he could still be accused of 20/20 hindsight, since he had no comments about the right BoC policy in 2020 or 2021. But he is not even stating NOW what they should have been, so it's more like 5/20 hind-blindness, where, umm, something different should have been done, so it's all their fault.
Skippy cannot fire the Gov of BoC. He simply cannot. He's just mouthing off and pretending that should he become King he'll have the power to do so. But it's just one of several things he can't/shouldn't/won't/ do.
OK, I also want a list of those elite civil servants and officials. And then I also want a list of those who are just elites. I want names and their screw-ups.
Why shouldn't they be? It is never possible to tell if someone could have done a better job or not. What's the downside of firing these people when they demonstrably fail? Just because it's "mean"?
That attitude, that top officials should be treated extra nicely while regular people can suffer, is exactly why Poilievre is popular.
What I find interesting from the Poilievre campaign was how closely it resembled the early days 1989-1993 of the Reform Party. It was a belly to belly, handshake to handshake grassroots effort to get out the Conservative Party membership to elect Poilievre for leader of the Conservative Party. In doing so the Poilievre campaign group managed to sell one hell of a lot of new memberships. If they can now transform those new Conservative memberships into something more than a card in a wallet, then those boys and girls are onto something. Will Trudeau run again is an interesting question. Personally I think the liberal Party realizes that Justin is well past his "best due date". Mr. Poilievre will have to find a way to bury his "Bitcoin is the salvation for the Canadian economy" theory and retract his belief that firing the Governor of the Bank of Canada is good fiscal policy. It will be an interesting federal election campaign, if the Liberals counter Mr. Poilievre, by electing someone like Mark Carney the former Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Governor of the Bank of England to lead the Liberal Party. Poilievre vs Carney would make for some interesting national debates.
With Liberal/NDP's hyper focus on two issues, climate and social justice, they have denigrated, damaged, and continue to cause deep division with the very people who keep the country moving, fed, housed, and warm. The attacks against small businesses, miners, forrestry workers, energy industry workers, farmers, ranchers, forrestry, fishing, and construction workers, continues to erode with every action and policy they put forward. Every hit that harms the jobs and industries that are the reason for Canada position and wealth, harms every single Canadian whether they know it or not. The complete lack of reality and deep distain these elities running our Government have for those who do physical labour to produce and move products, has severly damaged the relationship with the working class people in this country. The Laurentian elites may detest the people who build the infrastructiure, feed Canadian's, move the products, and ensure the laptop class have enough energy available to work from home or in the office, but this country will fail without them. It has made and will continues to erode Canada to compete or contribute to the commodies economy, be it national or international, Socialist or Communist, even Circular or square.
All Pierre has to do is focus on our economy, the industries that the NDP/Liberal Coalition has and is working hard to continue to destroy and it will pull Canadian's out of the massive deficiet, dying economy, crumbling health care system, fleeing investment, and unemployment that the Trudeau (I dont worry about monetary policy) has put this country into. You can be very assured that the mainstream media will continue its attacks on Pierre, the Conservatives, the working class, energy industry, forrestry, and farmers, to fulfill their social and environmental agendas. The very policies their partners in Government have and continue to make will lead all Canadian's into poverty. All Canadians except those with elite status and the wealth. Technology and advancing industries will aid in taking care of climate change.
He can certainly engage this lefty with all that talk of "elites" as long as he backs it up with specifics.
Who are they? Never named, not so far.
He hasn't said the family names: Rogers, Shaw, Thompson, Irving, for instance; nor named any corporate boards like Brookfield, Magna, Weston; discussed the currently-massive profits of Exxon and BP.
"Elites", by definition, are a very small group, and you could name off whom the hell you are actually talking about, in five minutes.
The typical strategy, however (this is all-partisan) is to speak vaguely, throw out terms like "WEF" and "Davos" so you can avoid specifics, then gain power and cut the taxes and regulations on all those elites.
As long as he remains vague on "elites", you know he's working for them.
Isn't it just good strategy to not name them? Why make unnecessary powerful enemies? And why narrow down a broad term that likely holds emotional value to all his potential voters? Being vague about the term proves nothing other than he knows how to politic.
Good piece, but do fix the copy edit glitch on the last line. Surely the author doesn't want Poilievre and Trudeau to both choose grievance over action. :)
Remember in Canada, we fire governments we don't hire them. Best thing is PP to lay low and run hard on the economy during the election. Personally I hope the PCs bring back centrist government that is the Halmark of Canada. Justin's swing to the woke left (ignored by the media for a variety of reasons) is deeply concerning.
As long as he is willing to be radical after winning, that would satisfy me. Leaving the existing power structures in place to work against him (and, of course, ordinary Canadians not on the government payroll) would be a huge lost opportunity.
Andrew has given a fresh and cogent perspective on the challenges of both Poilievre and Trudeau face over the next few years leading up to what could be a pivotal election. Good piece.
On another note, I find it a bit strange that loyal Line readers must shell out bucks to the Globe and Mail to read Jen Gherson's views on the Poilievre election and what it means for Canada, when loyal Line readers get nothing. I don't expect exclusivity but aren't you undercutting your loyal - and Paying - subscribers at the Line. Asking for a friend...
Proportional representation would keep both sides out of single party government, force them into coalitions which might then undertake the in-depth policy development to address our complex, historically seated economic problems. Let's put some checks on the kind of sweeping overreach of a simple ideology like that of Thatcher and Reagan's trickle down pulpit.
Hey Phil, PR wouldn't give us a Pierre or a Justin with too much power.
We'd be more stable.. it's less than a year since our last election and their are rumblings of another.
Do you want wingnut parties without any power via PR or PMs pandering to these parties in their winner-take-all, big-tent? You pick. PR differs from mere minority government.
Besides FPTP mixes up minority and majority.
Trudeau and Harper only represented 39% of the vote in their majority government. Trudeau and Singh represent 50% together, in minority.
A PR majority means a majority of votes not seats.
In Canada, most of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons is 'nutters actually getting seats.' Many Conservative MPs are "anti-science, xenophobic," religious extremists. First-Past-the-Post increases the likelihood of nutters being elected because it creates 'safe' electoral districts for parties. PR, especially, STV creates a competitive environment for all seats and no seats are safe for any party.
Nutters are citizens, too. They should be represented in their legislatures in proportion to their numbers. PR systems tend ensure all citizens are represented in proportion to their percentage of citizens. And, that's a good thing.
Electoral systems should not be expected to deprive citizens of rights. First-Past-the-Post does deprive citizens of their right to be equally and effectively represented in their legislatures. And, FPtP makes it possible that whole parties of nutters, like today's Conservative Party, could form a majority government. See the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom for historical examples of nutter governments elected under First-Past-the-Past.
Instead of the clapping seals on the backbench like bunions on a ship, multiple parties take space in a PR parliament.
You say PR elects more nutters. Not to all voters. Just like our House of Commons gives space to WEF and WHO conspiracy theorists like MP Leslyn Lewis.
Remember Bernier was a high level CPC MP who lost the leadership by not so much...Some consider him extreme but others don't.
Houses of democracy are better if they house nutters and all. Proportional representation limits the impact of someone from far outside the mainstream. Please see the blog post I used in a previous post for great analysis of the differences in polarization and extremism in PR and winner-take-all (FPTP)systems
Poilievre is using the FPTP, big-tent party to house these Bernier believers and to pander to them. He needs their votes to jump the low bar for majority government.
In a PR system, the seats going to "nutters" closely match their voter support. That's fair.
You gotta know that big-tent parties house "nutters" and bench warmers and that Poilievre needs and is courting on the nutter vote to step over the low bar to majority government.
Would you rather have the nutters contained in a small caucus that is not part of government or as part of a big-tent party government demanding its pound of flesh?
We get nutters too. We only see them once they are voted in and get in front of a camera. And some gets voted in again and again.
Who was that old Con who had a camera pen which he had on whenever a woman came near him because he don't know what they might accuse him of? Alberta dude I think. I remember a cowboy hat.
It's hard to disagree with "motherhood" statements. So yes, we should prioritize action over grievance, empathy over anger, reflection over rage, and so on.
However, it seems to me that the main problem lies with the Canadian electorate. Our "leaders" are just following the voters and giving them what they want. That would be simplistic solutions to complex problems, black-and-white positions on complex issues, emotional reactions to intellectual challenges. That's what wins elections. So that's what the politicians offer.
An illustration of this is the phenomenon of populism. At root, populism is what happens when ordinary people try to have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. It resembles democracy in action. But we upper classes don't like what the people want. We think that they are ill-informed and misguided, if not worse. So we don't like direct democracy (e.g. referendums) and cling to our system of gatekeepers. (Yes, Mr. Poilievre is right about the existence of the gatekeepers. But he is probably wrong about the desirability of eliminating them.)
One final example. All the parties talk about the importance of the grass roots members. Some, such as the CPC, even have formal processes to have the local EDAs formulate and vote on policies which are supposed to be binding on the Party leadership. But the Party leadership then proceeds to ignore the grass roots policy developments and substitute their own.
All parties censor candidates selected by the local EDAs, deemed unsuitable. All party leaderships parachute in their own preferred candidates.
And then some are surprised that the public is alienated from the political process.
If our leaders were just following the voters lead and giving them what they want, why do we have all the gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair?
You say that it is the ordinary people that want a say in the decisions that affect their lives and that "we" (the upper classes) don't like that. That's a very strange comment. Populism does not care for democracy, they want what they want and they want it now, and to hell with people that disagree with them. They blame the shadowy elites, who were voted in as government by ordinary people. Remember the MOU and the flags and the speeches?
Upper-class is as vague as elite is. It's a term that is tossed around by people who are jealous or bitter or have a grudge or feel they have been unfairly treated and they want everyone to know about it. We all feel like that on occasion but some take it to extremes and face off with government ministers in public spouting threats and foul language (because they have rights!). Some do much worse. It is not democracy in action. Ordinary people are not ill-informed or misguided for the most part. A small loud segment is. A very small percentage is even worse. And some of your elites fall into ill-informed and misguided territory. If that makes me part of the upper class (finally!) then so be it. I refuse to celebrate or coddle stupidity and willful ignorance.
Direct democracy is much more than referendums and gatekeepers and protests.All of which I believe in. Democracy at it's most simplest is an agreement between the people and their elected representatives until the next election where we can vote for someone else if we so choose.
It's the grass roots that pay cash to their parties and votes for them every time no matter what the party has done for them. Is our FPTP or party system perfect? I'd say no, but it's also not a totalitarian dictatorship bent on mind control and overthrowing our bodily autonomy to do something. I really can't see why they'd bother. Standing on the street corner demanding things change is not the way to effect change.
I think politics is like rhubarb, you are either into it or not at all.
Pat and Lyle both banned for a week for resorting to personal attacks. Shutting comments down on this one early. It’s drawing weird replies.
Firstly, please stop comparing Canadian Conservatives to Trump and Republicans. Canadian Conservatives are closer to Democrats especially in social issues.
Secondly you write "The point being, making leadership or governing all about attitude leaves the door open for a devolution into a grievance or personality cult (or both together), one that needs to feed on institutions and eroding cultural norms to survive. This is where the Republicans now find themselves and where Canadian Conservatives should never want to be."
Isn't this exactly where the Liberals are? The cult of Trudeau vs misogynists, racists and climate/vax deniers.
Also "These are complicated questions, one that will require more than a giant “Fuck you!” to “the gatekeepers” Poilievre blames for choking debate and reform." But at least he has identified the gatekeepers.
That's progress compared to the last decade.
Then "Whipping up anger is easy. Controlling it is much, much harder. The rhetoric is already getting heated; gassing it up another hundred degrees won’t create the environment we all need to think deeply about what ails us."
That was his job in opposition.
And "What we need now are leaders with empathy and humility, ones who can acknowledge our fears and difficulties without judging us too harshly for how we’ve come to hold our beliefs. We need leaders who lean away from, not into, algorithms, ones who can create space, not close it down.
If none of this sounds like Poilievre, I can’t say I disagree. "
Did you not hear his acceptance speech?
I agree with much of your "what has to be done" and "hopes" but I think he is smart enough to know his role has changed and in a strong enough position to be a leader rather than a cat herder. I just hope he doesn't underestimate Trudeau's ability to spread the same fears (abortion, guns, climate) that have worked against Scheer and O'Toole.
Any group of any political polarization may be compared to the Trump Republicans to whatever extent they rail against fictional enemies.
Who are these fictional enemies? The gatekeepers? the BoC governor? Trudeau? So should Trudeau be compared to Trump for railing against the bigots, misogynists and racists that make up the unvaccinated horde or telling Canadians to watch out for "Big Oil" or "Conservatives stand with swastikas"?
Nope, I didn't hear Skippy's acceptance speech. I had to do laundry :)
Oh! More respectful for the Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. No more peepee?
Typical Liberal - full of smear and too lazy to watch and listen to what your hated target actually says.
Knock it off.
By God, I think you may actually be a senior civil servant.
You always can be depended upon to claim that a majority of (fill in the blank) agree about whatever. If you want to convince anyone, you need to provide what poll that actually is, when it was taken, and by whom.
I remember that you have claimed to be a teacher. Do you accept this low level from your students? I never did.
A solid majority ... of Cons, no one else.
Calm sober demeanor ... PP? When has he ever been calm and sober? (I am not implying he is a drunk)
Familiarity breed contempt ... Agreed, we have been watching PP for years and what you see is what you get ... in spades.
He was there to represent the nurses, paramedics and other first responders, truckers and and others who had lost their jobs because they didn't get a vaccination that was rushed to market. He was there to support the Charter Right of Canadians to travel. (yes I'm fully vaccinated). I dare say more of them lost jobs than the workers in that area of Ottawa. BTW I thought they should have dispersed after the first weekend but when the government doubled down, so did they.
Had you pulled yourself away from your dirty laundry to listen to the speech, you would have learned more about the man, his family and his ideas. I was better than the politalk that Justin has made over and over and over and over...
“Trumpism” has become another one of those words (like racist or fascist) that gets tossed around without a clear definition of what it means. It’s a word used by those who just want to fling s**t and hope it sticks.
Trumpist is code for deplorables …
What the left don’t understand is that when they use this term they are stoking the flames.
Lyle, you write, "...Trump's behaviour has been nothing short of deplorable."
I absolutely agree. But so, doggoned what? That is the US; this is Canada. Drop the US references.
Oh, and by the way, if you want the US references, remember that Hillary's "deplorables" were instrumental in actually electing Trump in 2016. My point is that to keep demonizing folks is frequently counter-productive. It is far better to engage and discuss like adults without throwing out names and descriptives that, because of their use, have become the equivalent of expletives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpism
30,000 words on the subject. The subject headings are "falsehoods", "focus on sentiments", "nostalgia and male bravado", "Dominance orientation", and the like.
For Fascism, most lean to the excellent essay by Umberto Eco, giving fourteen points that describe them. Or the criteria used in Chris Hedges' book, "American Fascists", which long pre-dates Trump, from 2006.
My point is that these days most people who throw the words at others are using them as missiles, without a clear understanding of what the words actually mean. And as we become enured from hearing them or seeing them so often the words start to lose their impact. The same is true for “hero” or “victim”, or for that matter “climate change”.
But thank you Lyle and Roy for the information and links.
I don't believe that the T-word was used for Poilievre before he voiced support for that convoy, without taking exception to their "MOU" calling for closing Parliament and rule by GG fiat - which alarmed many people as a call for authoritarian government.
Racist, fascist, Trump are all easily understood for what they mean. There are clear and sharp definitions of each and it has nothing to do with flinging sh*t.
It has been deemed Trump Derangement Syndrome and it is rife within those of Democrat / Liberal leanings. Symptoms are a complete break down of the mind that leads into a delusional state where no other narrative or thought can be heard. They say the origins of the syndrome started at CNN, and spread to MSNBC while then moving through the US. Due to the CBC’s CEO living in New York when the outbreak occurred, it spread through out Canada as well. It appears to be a psychological impairment which causes extreme reactions at the mention of the name. It should not be long until Big pharma will have a vaccine to help alleviate the symptoms. Unfortunately it may not stop the spread. It should be mandated for those who are vulnerable of completely losing their minds from the syndrome. Boosters every six months will ensure they are able to survive the continual reinfection and spread.
😄
Lyle, you say, "Trumpism runs deep and wide in the Conservative Party."
Sad to say, you lost me at that point. I absolutely know people who (very much unlike me!) absolutely think Trump did "good things" for America - and that is their point of view. But, notwithstanding their opinion on American politics they are actually very moderate in Canadian terms. Strange, right?
My point is, to simply try and draw a straight line between a US example that you find odious to Canada is not at all useful. Unless, of course, you aren't interested in trying to find common ground with someone who has much the same opinion as you except for that one thing.
If DT did anything good for the US during his tenure as president and since, it would be weighed in the balance against the immense damage and insanity that riddles the US today.
And I'm not going to say anything else about it here.
MacDougall is a classic centrist conservative - despite realizing that our institutions have "shit the bed", he persists in believing that incremental reform can solve the problem and capture the benefits of gatekeeping without the disadvantages. This hypothetical program of incremental reform is fundamentally a chimera. Read Mancur Olson on distributional coalitions to find out why.
In fact, what is needed really is a giant "fuck you" to the gatekeepers, implemented in practice as elimination of government bodies where possible and mass firings where not possible. Most of our institutions have screwed up so badly that they are doing net harm: we would be better off without them. So, let's put that into practice. Get rid of the CBC - don't try to tweak it to make it beneficial, as that won't work. A central bank is necessary, you say, despite the fact that they have failed on inflation? Ok, mass firings instead, starting at the top. It is unclear which category Public Health Canada falls into right now, but probably the former - let the provinces have it.
The same goes with government supported industries. Legacy media can't survive without the $600M subsidy? So what? It's doing net harm now - let it go and save the money.
There is no lack of "experts" in the land. What is lacking is (so far) political will to do anything about the glaringly obvious problem of universal expert failure.
Does Poilievre understand all this and intend to act on it, or is his rhetoric merely a sop to people like me? That's what we will find out.
Actually, he just insults the central bank without defining what "shit the bed" even means. We were reckoned to have come out the pandemic better than the US, Britain, and most of the EU, in financial terms, so he'd first have to define exactly what shit even exists, compared to peer nations.
Why compare to peer nations? The central bank had one primary objective, price stability, and failed miserably at achieving it. Open and shut case.
I do not see why we are so caring of elite civil servants that when they have demonstrably failed at their job, we want to "treat them fairly" by saying "it wasn't their fault, so we shouldn't fire them". So what if it wasn't their fault?
Countless business owners across the country have lost their business due to covid restrictions, entirely not their fault, and yet they are out of business regardless. This complete lack of accountability for officials is exactly the cause of massive expert failure.
The BoC is responsible for price stability in general over the long term not price stability over the few seconds of the media's attention span. "Firing" the BoC chair, if it could be done, would undermine confidence in the bank and create more problems than it would resolve.
Could the BoC had more warned the government and consumers sooner? They did. So dud others. It wasn't hidden nor does It take a PhD to understand how inflation happens when you artificially pump the economy during an emergency.
Temporary inflation due to too miuch money chasing too few goods today is the unfortunate and predictable price of a soft landing for the pandemic economy.
I'm not an expert on the BoC's enabling legislation, but my understanding is that they are well offside on their statutory objectives. If, of course, they aren't, then they aren't.
Pour encourager les autres. If he could have done better, he must be fired. If he couldn't have done better, there's no downside to firing him. Why not fire him? Because it's mean to the poor baby? (Assuming that the BoC is clearly offside on its inflation target)
I suspect that your real issue is that you think that senior civil servants should be treated with vastly more care and solicitude than regular citizens. Many voters would disagree.
Agreed, today's short-term inflation is driven by a host of global issues on both the demand and supply sides of the economy. Canadian monetary policy plays a critical roll in shaping business and consumer actions that are driving the problems from our shores. Every dime Canadians spend affects tge problem. Canada is acting in concert with other states on its monetary changes. We eithall hang together or we will all hang individually. So yes local monetary policy matters.
"Why compare to peer nations?"
Because economics can't have lab experiments, and must find the best strategies with "natural experiments", where two comparable economies try different strategies and have different outcomes.
Much was made of Sweden "staying open" during 2020, and the economic losses they did not suffer at the time. But their predicted growth rate for 2022 is about 2.2% now, and Canada is still figuring on over 3%. The "Swedish model" got less and less talk as the pandemic went on, and I haven't heard it mentioned in a full year.
If you want to state specifically what policies the Bank of Canada "should" have followed to achieve a better outcome than Canada got, name them, and we'll see if we can find an economy that tried that, and compare outcomes.
If Mr. Poilievre were stating, even now, what such policies should have been, then he could still be accused of 20/20 hindsight, since he had no comments about the right BoC policy in 2020 or 2021. But he is not even stating NOW what they should have been, so it's more like 5/20 hind-blindness, where, umm, something different should have been done, so it's all their fault.
Poilievre absolutely should not be stating what policies the Bank should have followed. That would be interfering.
He should just say "you failed according to your job criteria. You're fired." It's the governor's job to figure out how to succeed.
And if nobody could have succeeded, so what? What's the harm in unfairly firing one top civil servant?
He's not in government, so he can only comment, not interfere. You, positively, can say what they should have done, if you're sure they were wrong.
And, I'm pretty sure that nobody can interfere in the BoC policies of 2020 and 2021, without serious causality violations of the spacetime continuum.
Skippy cannot fire the Gov of BoC. He simply cannot. He's just mouthing off and pretending that should he become King he'll have the power to do so. But it's just one of several things he can't/shouldn't/won't/ do.
He had a statutory requirement to keep inflation between 1.5% and 3.5%. He failed massively.
The bitcoin boys are c******g their jeans they are so excited about Skippy.
How long before PP says "test new things!"?
OK, I also want a list of those elite civil servants and officials. And then I also want a list of those who are just elites. I want names and their screw-ups.
(Mark, life is not fair)
Why shouldn't they be? It is never possible to tell if someone could have done a better job or not. What's the downside of firing these people when they demonstrably fail? Just because it's "mean"?
That attitude, that top officials should be treated extra nicely while regular people can suffer, is exactly why Poilievre is popular.
Who said "mean" about the Gov of BoC? When did they say it? To whom?
He dramatically failed to achieve his primary objective, price stability.
We need to be able to fire officials for failure alone, not just crime.
I know! Let's burn it all down and then salt where it stood. That'll fix 'em!
I'm still waiting for a list of gatekeepers from the Cons. Specific itemized lists of the gatekeepers and why they must go.
What I find interesting from the Poilievre campaign was how closely it resembled the early days 1989-1993 of the Reform Party. It was a belly to belly, handshake to handshake grassroots effort to get out the Conservative Party membership to elect Poilievre for leader of the Conservative Party. In doing so the Poilievre campaign group managed to sell one hell of a lot of new memberships. If they can now transform those new Conservative memberships into something more than a card in a wallet, then those boys and girls are onto something. Will Trudeau run again is an interesting question. Personally I think the liberal Party realizes that Justin is well past his "best due date". Mr. Poilievre will have to find a way to bury his "Bitcoin is the salvation for the Canadian economy" theory and retract his belief that firing the Governor of the Bank of Canada is good fiscal policy. It will be an interesting federal election campaign, if the Liberals counter Mr. Poilievre, by electing someone like Mark Carney the former Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Governor of the Bank of England to lead the Liberal Party. Poilievre vs Carney would make for some interesting national debates.
With Liberal/NDP's hyper focus on two issues, climate and social justice, they have denigrated, damaged, and continue to cause deep division with the very people who keep the country moving, fed, housed, and warm. The attacks against small businesses, miners, forrestry workers, energy industry workers, farmers, ranchers, forrestry, fishing, and construction workers, continues to erode with every action and policy they put forward. Every hit that harms the jobs and industries that are the reason for Canada position and wealth, harms every single Canadian whether they know it or not. The complete lack of reality and deep distain these elities running our Government have for those who do physical labour to produce and move products, has severly damaged the relationship with the working class people in this country. The Laurentian elites may detest the people who build the infrastructiure, feed Canadian's, move the products, and ensure the laptop class have enough energy available to work from home or in the office, but this country will fail without them. It has made and will continues to erode Canada to compete or contribute to the commodies economy, be it national or international, Socialist or Communist, even Circular or square.
All Pierre has to do is focus on our economy, the industries that the NDP/Liberal Coalition has and is working hard to continue to destroy and it will pull Canadian's out of the massive deficiet, dying economy, crumbling health care system, fleeing investment, and unemployment that the Trudeau (I dont worry about monetary policy) has put this country into. You can be very assured that the mainstream media will continue its attacks on Pierre, the Conservatives, the working class, energy industry, forrestry, and farmers, to fulfill their social and environmental agendas. The very policies their partners in Government have and continue to make will lead all Canadian's into poverty. All Canadians except those with elite status and the wealth. Technology and advancing industries will aid in taking care of climate change.
He can certainly engage this lefty with all that talk of "elites" as long as he backs it up with specifics.
Who are they? Never named, not so far.
He hasn't said the family names: Rogers, Shaw, Thompson, Irving, for instance; nor named any corporate boards like Brookfield, Magna, Weston; discussed the currently-massive profits of Exxon and BP.
"Elites", by definition, are a very small group, and you could name off whom the hell you are actually talking about, in five minutes.
The typical strategy, however (this is all-partisan) is to speak vaguely, throw out terms like "WEF" and "Davos" so you can avoid specifics, then gain power and cut the taxes and regulations on all those elites.
As long as he remains vague on "elites", you know he's working for them.
Isn't it just good strategy to not name them? Why make unnecessary powerful enemies? And why narrow down a broad term that likely holds emotional value to all his potential voters? Being vague about the term proves nothing other than he knows how to politic.
I’m not sure it matters. The real ‘elites’ already know to whom he is referring. It’s not as if we have a lot of them.
That is all that PP knows ... how to politic. He's been at it much longer than JT. Now let's talk lumber, wood, 2x4s.
Good piece, but do fix the copy edit glitch on the last line. Surely the author doesn't want Poilievre and Trudeau to both choose grievance over action. :)
NO SUCH ERROR EXISTED OR EVER EXISTED.
(My bad.)
So refreshing to read a balanced analysis
Remember in Canada, we fire governments we don't hire them. Best thing is PP to lay low and run hard on the economy during the election. Personally I hope the PCs bring back centrist government that is the Halmark of Canada. Justin's swing to the woke left (ignored by the media for a variety of reasons) is deeply concerning.
As long as he is willing to be radical after winning, that would satisfy me. Leaving the existing power structures in place to work against him (and, of course, ordinary Canadians not on the government payroll) would be a huge lost opportunity.
Andrew has given a fresh and cogent perspective on the challenges of both Poilievre and Trudeau face over the next few years leading up to what could be a pivotal election. Good piece.
On another note, I find it a bit strange that loyal Line readers must shell out bucks to the Globe and Mail to read Jen Gherson's views on the Poilievre election and what it means for Canada, when loyal Line readers get nothing. I don't expect exclusivity but aren't you undercutting your loyal - and Paying - subscribers at the Line. Asking for a friend...
I flatly refuse to pay to get past the GlowBalls paywall.
I guess all the Line and Globe subscribers are gonna come out of the wood work.
I think the podcast and dispatch covered all the bases. The column was good, too.
Neat to see how journalists always have something additional to offer after their main work.
Well, that's a damn fine article. Kudos.
Proportional representation would keep both sides out of single party government, force them into coalitions which might then undertake the in-depth policy development to address our complex, historically seated economic problems. Let's put some checks on the kind of sweeping overreach of a simple ideology like that of Thatcher and Reagan's trickle down pulpit.
PR would give us what we have now and have gad generally since 2008 plus the addition of some serious wingnut parties to boot.
Hey Phil, PR wouldn't give us a Pierre or a Justin with too much power.
We'd be more stable.. it's less than a year since our last election and their are rumblings of another.
Do you want wingnut parties without any power via PR or PMs pandering to these parties in their winner-take-all, big-tent? You pick. PR differs from mere minority government.
Besides FPTP mixes up minority and majority.
Trudeau and Harper only represented 39% of the vote in their majority government. Trudeau and Singh represent 50% together, in minority.
A PR majority means a majority of votes not seats.
Conservatives are howling bloody murder about a so- called coalition. The NDP have a confidence and supply agreement not a coalition.
Please read this comparison on how PR and winner-take-all (FPTP) systems absorb extremists and de-fang extremist, populist leaders like Poilievre.
Extremists, polarization and first-past-the-post https://www.fairvote.ca/04/09/2022/extremists-polarization-and-first-past-the-post/
In Canada, most of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons is 'nutters actually getting seats.' Many Conservative MPs are "anti-science, xenophobic," religious extremists. First-Past-the-Post increases the likelihood of nutters being elected because it creates 'safe' electoral districts for parties. PR, especially, STV creates a competitive environment for all seats and no seats are safe for any party.
Nutters are citizens, too. They should be represented in their legislatures in proportion to their numbers. PR systems tend ensure all citizens are represented in proportion to their percentage of citizens. And, that's a good thing.
Electoral systems should not be expected to deprive citizens of rights. First-Past-the-Post does deprive citizens of their right to be equally and effectively represented in their legislatures. And, FPtP makes it possible that whole parties of nutters, like today's Conservative Party, could form a majority government. See the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom for historical examples of nutter governments elected under First-Past-the-Past.
Instead of the clapping seals on the backbench like bunions on a ship, multiple parties take space in a PR parliament.
You say PR elects more nutters. Not to all voters. Just like our House of Commons gives space to WEF and WHO conspiracy theorists like MP Leslyn Lewis.
Remember Bernier was a high level CPC MP who lost the leadership by not so much...Some consider him extreme but others don't.
Houses of democracy are better if they house nutters and all. Proportional representation limits the impact of someone from far outside the mainstream. Please see the blog post I used in a previous post for great analysis of the differences in polarization and extremism in PR and winner-take-all (FPTP)systems
Poilievre is using the FPTP, big-tent party to house these Bernier believers and to pander to them. He needs their votes to jump the low bar for majority government.
In a PR system, the seats going to "nutters" closely match their voter support. That's fair.
You gotta know that big-tent parties house "nutters" and bench warmers and that Poilievre needs and is courting on the nutter vote to step over the low bar to majority government.
Would you rather have the nutters contained in a small caucus that is not part of government or as part of a big-tent party government demanding its pound of flesh?
We get nutters too. We only see them once they are voted in and get in front of a camera. And some gets voted in again and again.
Who was that old Con who had a camera pen which he had on whenever a woman came near him because he don't know what they might accuse him of? Alberta dude I think. I remember a cowboy hat.
A real coalition would see some NDP cabinet ministers and more joint leadership on multiple files.
Superb piece, Mr McDougall, though I fear you underestimate a tad how far things have gone in the CPC
Loved this! I am holding my breath, hoping that PP will rise to the ocassion and address the issues outlined in this article.
Breathe Susan, breathe. Nice cleansing breaths.
Sound commentary.
It's hard to disagree with "motherhood" statements. So yes, we should prioritize action over grievance, empathy over anger, reflection over rage, and so on.
However, it seems to me that the main problem lies with the Canadian electorate. Our "leaders" are just following the voters and giving them what they want. That would be simplistic solutions to complex problems, black-and-white positions on complex issues, emotional reactions to intellectual challenges. That's what wins elections. So that's what the politicians offer.
An illustration of this is the phenomenon of populism. At root, populism is what happens when ordinary people try to have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. It resembles democracy in action. But we upper classes don't like what the people want. We think that they are ill-informed and misguided, if not worse. So we don't like direct democracy (e.g. referendums) and cling to our system of gatekeepers. (Yes, Mr. Poilievre is right about the existence of the gatekeepers. But he is probably wrong about the desirability of eliminating them.)
One final example. All the parties talk about the importance of the grass roots members. Some, such as the CPC, even have formal processes to have the local EDAs formulate and vote on policies which are supposed to be binding on the Party leadership. But the Party leadership then proceeds to ignore the grass roots policy developments and substitute their own.
All parties censor candidates selected by the local EDAs, deemed unsuitable. All party leaderships parachute in their own preferred candidates.
And then some are surprised that the public is alienated from the political process.
Maybe "parenthood" than "motherhood" statements.
If our leaders were just following the voters lead and giving them what they want, why do we have all the gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair?
You say that it is the ordinary people that want a say in the decisions that affect their lives and that "we" (the upper classes) don't like that. That's a very strange comment. Populism does not care for democracy, they want what they want and they want it now, and to hell with people that disagree with them. They blame the shadowy elites, who were voted in as government by ordinary people. Remember the MOU and the flags and the speeches?
Upper-class is as vague as elite is. It's a term that is tossed around by people who are jealous or bitter or have a grudge or feel they have been unfairly treated and they want everyone to know about it. We all feel like that on occasion but some take it to extremes and face off with government ministers in public spouting threats and foul language (because they have rights!). Some do much worse. It is not democracy in action. Ordinary people are not ill-informed or misguided for the most part. A small loud segment is. A very small percentage is even worse. And some of your elites fall into ill-informed and misguided territory. If that makes me part of the upper class (finally!) then so be it. I refuse to celebrate or coddle stupidity and willful ignorance.
Direct democracy is much more than referendums and gatekeepers and protests.All of which I believe in. Democracy at it's most simplest is an agreement between the people and their elected representatives until the next election where we can vote for someone else if we so choose.
It's the grass roots that pay cash to their parties and votes for them every time no matter what the party has done for them. Is our FPTP or party system perfect? I'd say no, but it's also not a totalitarian dictatorship bent on mind control and overthrowing our bodily autonomy to do something. I really can't see why they'd bother. Standing on the street corner demanding things change is not the way to effect change.
I think politics is like rhubarb, you are either into it or not at all.