Craig Scott: An (admittedly unlikely) plan to protect Canada in dangerous times

It's time for all parties to come together and form a Canadian unity government.

By: Craig Scott

It is ever clearer that Donald Trump wants his first months in office to unfold like a blitzkrieg, and that Canada, already in his line of fire, increasingly figures in his battle plans.

If we are serious about defending ourselves against that assault, we need to demonstrate that the strengths of Canada include the institutional capacity of our parliamentary system, democratic culture, and shared values.

A government of Canadian unity and resolve can put us on the right path. A grand coalition of political rivals, unified to meet the threat head-on.

I am of course aware that we are in the worst possible domestic political moment — Trump, alas, is also dangerously aware of this. A unity government is going to be extraordinarily difficult to achieve while the governing party is in turmoil and there is serious enmity among political parties.

Justin Trudeau’s much-delayed, just-announced slow exit from office has hobbled his own government. Jagmeet Singh acted precipitously by pledging to vote non-confidence in any Liberal government, even without Trudeau at its head — despite the likelihood that this would trigger an election during the early days of the next Trump administration. Pierre Poilievre is likewise irresponsibly calling for an immediate election that will coincide with Trump’s first aggressive days in office.

Meanwhile, Trudeau’s decision to prorogue in the middle of a national crisis has given the Liberals the time to run a leadership race with the transparent goal of giving that party an electoral shot, but at the cost of leaving the country at a real disadvantage for the next 10 weeks. A government that speaks and acts through Justin Trudeau is unlikely to be able to deliver the needed unified front to Trump. Nor can a dead Parliament. Neither can an untimely election.

This is where we are, and it’s not a good place to be. But we can still decide how to move forward from here. It is still not too late to forge a new path, although barely so and difficult as it will be.

We cannot afford politicians thinking of party first — the next worse thing to thinking of themselves first. Politics and the fate of countries are not predestined but deeply path-dependent. We need to deliberately change the path we are on.

Step one falls on the Liberal caucus. Its MPs can convene themselves and immediately elect an interim leader-in-Parliament to replace Trudeau. Whoever that is can become prime minister, subject to approval by the Governor-General.

It is a sine qua non that candidates to be that leader-in-Parliament may not also be running for the extra-parliamentary leadership. This both ensures that they will not be consumed by campaigning for that position and opens up the (fully constitutional) possibility that the interim PM can stay on as undistracted caretaker PM through the eventual general election campaign — with the newly chosen extra-parliamentary leader assuming the role of PM only if they win the election.

Also, when that caucus-elected leader-in-Parliament goes to the Governor-General to request to be named as PM, they will need to vouch to the Governor-General that they believe their government can command the confidence of the House. For that reason, the Liberal caucus and candidates must have interacted with other parties’ MPs and leadership to ensure a given candidate will have sufficient support beyond the Liberal MPs.

Step two. The interim leader-in-Parliament, once accepted as PM by the Governor-General, must make Parliament relevant again beyond behind-the-scenes caucusing and negotiations of MPs. They must request the rescinding of the prorogation and the reconvening of Parliament at the end of January as originally planned — although, frankly, the sooner the better. That return will produce a vote of confidence following the Throne Speech and test the support that leader has represented to the Governor-General.

Finally, step three: this new prime minister should swear in a unity cabinet. Compact negotiations will be needed to determine the numbers to join Cabinet. At the very least, the leader of each of the Conservatives, Bloc, NDP and Greens should be invited into cabinet.

If a party declines to participate in an interim government of Canadian unity, they should not be castigated for it. But the ideal of pan-partisan representation would remain. So, if Pierre Poilievre, for example, declines to cooperate, every consideration should be given to inviting well-respected former Conservative cabinet ministers who can serve in cabinet on an exceptional basis without being elected: figures like James Moore, Lisa Raitt, Rona Ambrose, and Erin O’Toole.

All of this will inevitably get bound up in negotiating some sort of acceptable understanding of when the next election will be held. It is anyone’s guess how long the initial onslaught will last, but my sense is that a unity government should ideally continue at least into late spring. This will provide for something close to half a year of stability, unity, and resolve — and, hopefully, sound collective judgment — that will serve as a foundation for whichever party or parties form the next government after the election.

Over these months, cabinet members should be, to the greatest extent possible, focused on governing and minimally preoccupied with electoral campaigning. This applies particularly to the Liberal leader-in-Parliament who is the interim prime minister.

This is so much the case that I believe it essential that, even after the Liberal party elects its new extra-parliamentary leader who could normally become PM at that point, that the leader-in-Parliament continue as PM until the end of the general election. Constitutionally, the leader of an extra-parliamentary party whose MPs provide the government in the House of Commons need not be the same person as the leader in the “party in Parliament” that bears the same name.

Furthermore, this ideal of focus and non-distraction also commends as cabinet members MPs — for example, from opposition parties — who have made known they will not be running again.

Such a unity government would hardly be an unprecedented approach.

Think back in particular to the Churchill coalition government of 1940-1945 during the Second World War. Here in Canada, we had the Borden Union government of 1917 during the First World War. Coalitional unity governments were formed in these instances even when one party had a majority of House of Commons seats.

We are entering an unprecedented period in our country’s history that requires our national government to demonstrate and benefit from — to the greatest extent possible — political unity of both parties and citizens; stability (at least for a provisional period of the first half-year of Trump’s new reign) that leads to continuity after an election; steely resolve; and the kind of rational collective judgment that can emerge when people with contrasting philosophies and experience tackle a challenge together in a common cause.

I am not alone in thinking in these terms. Even as I was finalizing this comment, the existential dimensions of the long Trump-as-threat moment that we have entered were emphasized in what appeared in my inbox on the morning of Thursday, January 9. In Le Devoir, the former leader of the Parti Québécois, Jean-François Lisée, penned a cri-de-coeur calling for us to wake up and defend Canada’s sovereignty. (Let us dispense with getting caught up in the irony of a Quebec sovereigntist raising the alarm for Canada. Lisée appears to be very sincere. Plus, it is all the more a reason to listen when a separatist makes clear they have no interest in absorption by Trump’s America, whether for values reasons alone or also because a separated Quebec has no interest in facing the U.S. without Canada beside it.)

Lisée goes so far as to advance the view that Trump could well be capable of a quick-strike invasion straight to Ottawa from Fort Drum. We cannot afford to get stuck on whether Lisée is hyper-ventilating or, rather, prescient in having the measure of the possibilities.

Most importantly, I believe Lisée to be correct in his acute worries for the future of Canada. Trump is already settled on a combined strategy of chaos and coercion in U.S. relations with Canada.

When it comes to Trump, we would do well to adopt a precautionary principle of planning for the worst-case risks, rather than reverting to classic Canadian complacency. Whether Trump’s methods are military or economic or simply the multi-front inducing and exploitation of chaos (or a combination of all the above), Canada needs to get into a frame of mind more analogous to wartime mobilization than to business-as-usual normalcy.

I am not blind to reality, and how unlikely any of the above would be. All this depends on party leadership (and/or MPs acting in concert) putting water in their wine, assuming any one of them is willing to cooperate to one extent or another.

For this to work, Trudeau and the Liberals must reconsider the prime minister’s plans to stay on another three months (or more — recall, he said he would resign “after” a new extra-parliamentary Liberal leader is chosen and did not say “immediately after”). They must end prorogation. They must accept country-first as their guide and take the lead in forming a unity cabinet. They ideally should also agree to provide advance certainty on an election period and date.

The NDP must walk back its vow to bring down the government whether or not Trudeau is PM — something the fact of a unity government should allow them to do because this will not be a Liberal-only government.

The Bloc must consider the extent to which being part of Canada in the here-and-now prevails over the state they wish to have later. They can perhaps draw on the responsible way in which they assumed the ironic role of the loyal Official Opposition in 1993-1997. In this respect, the above-discussed editorial by former PQ leader Lisée perhaps is one basis for some optimism that Yves-François Blanchet will be a voice of reason at this pivotal moment not just in Canada’s but also in Quebec’s history.

And the Conservatives should, at minimum, consider that an immediate or otherwise untimely election may not be in the country’s best interest. For example, might Pierre Poilievre be able to live with an understanding that would see an election completed in time for a newly elected PM to go to Kananaskis, Alberta, on June 15 to host the G7 Summit — with some confidence that a Canadian unity government has done its best to set the new government and new PM up for success, for the sake of Canada and all Canadians? One can hope.

It's time to jettison Canadian complacency and embrace Canadian governmental unity at a time of pending crisis. The fact that this is unlikely and difficult does not make it any less needed or warranted.

Craig Scott is a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School and served from 2012 to 2015 as an NDP MP for a Toronto riding.

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