Politics During a National Emergency

For many the notion that politics should be put aside during a national emergency is considered a truism.  However, there are actually very few who actually believe that.

For the most part that idea often depends on who is in power.  If the party you like is in power then any politics that challenges that party during the emergency is tantamount to treason.  

Of course, objectively politics is not off limits during a national emergency.  Indeed, if done right it can actually be beneficial to the nation going through the emergency as it can force the government in power to constantly improve its approach to mitigating or resolving the emergency.  I would point out that Federal elections were held in Canada during both World Wars and the governments of day, during those periods, both had to endure political crises.

Which brings me to the current situation in Canada during the COVID 19 pandemic.  One political reality during such emergencies is the government sucks up most of the political oxygen.  This is particularly true in the current situation with the Prime Minister and the Premiers having daily briefings.  They are front and centre each day, usually without the bother of the opposition parties or the usual trivial issues that opposition parties and the media like to focus on and blow out of proportion during normal times.

That leave the opposition parties in a bit of a pickle.  In that situation the opposition parties have a choice.  Try to be visible or try to be relevant.  Being visible is just that.  Try to bring some attention to your party even for a little bit so as to remind voters that you are still there.  It often has to take the form or partisanship, which can backfire badly during a national emergency.  Being relevant is actually contributing to resolving the national emergency.  Unfortunately, being relevant usually means that an opposition party has to work with and assist the governing party, which usually results in the governing party receiving all of the credit while the contribution of the opposition party is not as noticed.

Being visible is easy, particularly in the era of social media.  Being relevant is much harder because it usually involves behind the scenes actions and can be thankless in the end.

So with that in mind what have our federal Opposition Parties chosen?

Looking at the Conservatives and the NDP I would say that they have chosen to be visible instead of relevant.  At the beginning they really could not do anything.  However, as the situation has progressed they are attempting to be more visible by attacking the government.  Some of their attacks are targeting holes in the government response but they are doing it is such a way that what they are saying can be dismissed as partisanship.  As well, their desire to attack the government is getting in the way of logic.  Who would have thought that the Conservative Party of Canada would announce that they are going to vote against a wage subsidy for businesses unless the government drops the Carbon Tax?  A political party that is supposed to be pro-business is going to vote against a proposal to assist business, during a catastrophic national economic emergency, in order to attempt (and fail) to have a signature government policy reversed.  

Then there is the NDP.  It is trying to be visible by attacking the government for things it cannot change.  As with the Conservatives the NDP attacks do not pass the logic test.  The NDP demanding a rent holiday seems to make sense, on the surface if, like the NDP, you consider all landlords to be large faceless corporations,  However not all landlords are corporate entities so a rent holiday could actually hurt alot of small landlords.  In short, the issue the NDP brings up is a legitimate one but it is much more complex and nuanced that will require much more complex solutions than the one they are pushing.  

Then there is the media, a defacto opposition to the government.  Polling has indicated that Justin Trudeau's middling approval ratings coming out of the last election have skyrocketed into 2015 territory again with the commensurate rise of the Liberal Party in the polls.  Some polling companies have indicated that if an election were held today the Liberals would cruise to a comfortable majority government.  That just cannot be for our corporate media.  They have been working very hard since 2004 to bring the Liberals down and their steady hand during this emergency is putting a real damper on that effort.  So, they are starting to try to find ways to undermine the government's popularity and they are doing it the way they have always done it, by setting up straw men and then knocking them down.  A few weeks ago I wrote a post that praised the media during the beginning of the COVID 19 emergency.  I had a notion back then that they would revert to form and I was right.  If this does not convince the government to find a way to break up the virtual media monopoly in this country I do not know what will.  It is easy to do really.  Start taxing foreign owned media companies, like Postmedia, like they are actually foreign owned instead of like they are Canadian owned, as Stephen Harper decided to do years ago.  That should cause those owners to shed the otherwise money losing media companies which will be bought up by others in Canada, although not as a whole like now but in pieces, leading to a diversity of voices again in our media.

One cannot talk about the Opposition without looking at the Bloc Quebecois.  They have decided to be relevant instead of just visible.  By all accounts the economic relief package passed last week was passed because the Bloc worked with the government behind the scenes to improve the bill.  The same looks like it is going to happen the next time Parliament is recalled.  The Bloc is not nearly as visible as the other Opposition Parties but their contribution is actually helping to improve the government's response to the multi-faceted problems the current national emergency presents.  For now the Bloc is reaping some benefit from it if you believe the polls.  It would appear their stock is rising in Quebec, the only part of the country they care about and it could be because of their approach to dealing with the government.  

Of course, for both the Bloc and the Liberals their current rise in the polls could become a fall at any time.  The psyches of Canadians are very fragile right now so their opinion of any political party could change on a dime at any time.

Politics during a national emergency is normal.  However, the backdrop of a national emergency increases the political risk for all parties playing that game.  It will magnify both the positive and the negative actions of political parties.  As well, the sheer magnitude of this particular emergency could cause voters, with otherwise short memories, to remember both actions that help and harm years down the line when they go to the polls.  The very big challenge for opposition parties is to attempt make certain what little attention they do receive during the national emergency will be remembered as helpful. It is early yet but so far I would say that two out of three of them have not succeeded in meeting that objective.