Mr. Bernier goes to Calgary

In the mid to late '90s I played the political game in this town (Ottawa) being a member's assistant for a Liberal MP in the Chretien government.  During that time I met other assistants from MPs of the other parties.  I have kept in touch with a few.

I had occasion to have lunch with one of them a few days ago.  When I knew him on The Hill he was working for a Reform MP.  He came with the wave of Reformers that arrived after the 1993 election.

Inevitably we talked politics and I mentioned my theory that Mr. Bernier would be campaigning in the Conservative ridings of Quebec and Ontario leaving the Liberal and NDP ridings alone.  His response was "that is what Preston Manning did to Kim Campbell so I would expect the same from Mr. Bernier."  He went on to explain that Mr. Manning was not trying to win the 1993 election because he knew he could not.  Instead he was trying for official party status and nothing more.  The fact he went on to become the Leader of the Official Opposition was a bonus.  Mr. Manning achieved this by focusing his campaign on ridings that tended to generally vote PC.  He left the Liberal and NDP ridings alone. 

My friend agreed with me that Mr. Bernier is not setting his sights on winning the election and that his ambitions are a little smaller and that he would probably pursue a similar strategy to what Mr. Manning did in 1993.

There are some key differences.  Mr. Manning had a true national party with a large enough budget to conduct a national campaign.  Mr. Bernier will be campaigning on a shoe string and will probably not have the ability to criss-cross the country searching for votes.  However, Mr. Manning's base was in Alberta.  He did not have a base in Ontario or Quebec going into the 1993 election.  Mr. Bernier, on the other hand, has a base in Quebec and he should have enough money to criss-cross that province and Ontario looking for votes. 

If he is even remotely successful he will steal enough votes in Conservative ridings in those provinces to not only deny Mr. Scheer victory but to greatly reduce the number of seats currently held by the Conservative Party of Canada.

I asked my friend what he thought of Mr. Bernier's chances of achieving his objectives.  He stated that they were not high but he also stated that they said the same thing about Preston Manning's chances in 1993.  He did agree with me that Mr. Bernier would probably not win more than his own seat and maybe a couple more around Quebec City.  But he also agreed with me that Mr. Bernier could take enough votes, that would normally go to the Conservatives, to allow the Liberals to take a bunch of close races.  He mentioned some long held Conservative ridings in Ontario that were vulnerable to a "Bernier insurgency".

All of that to say that it would appear that Mr. Bernier is beginning to implement this strategy judging by the news report I saw today.  He is in Calgary where he is not criticising the Trudeau government.  He is trolling for Conservative voters instead.  I suspect we will be seeing more of the same as the next few months unfold.  

A Promise Broken

It has been identified by many commentators that middle-aged to old, low educated, white men seem to be very angry and that anger is leading to some very undesirable outcomes like the election of Donald Trump, Brexit and the resurgence of racism and bigotry in society at large.

There is a fair amount of analysis out there as to why this is.  Alot of it is accurate and alot of it does partly explain why they are so angry but one thing that seems to be missing is the explanation that if you are a white male who was born between 1950 and 1975 a promise was made to you when you were a kid and that promise has been broken.

When I was a young teenager, in the late '70s, I remember having a conservation with one of my father's friends about my plans for the future.  I do not remember the details of all of the conversation but he did say to me "You are white and you have your health so you will be OK".  I do not know why that statement stands out for me.  It just does.

However, it does explain why the old white guys are so angry.  From about 1950 to the mid to late '80s white men were essentially told that if they finished high school and kept their noses clean there would be good well paying jobs waiting for them.  They would be able to make a living and start a family with few problems.  The promise made sense because they were witnessing it with their own fathers, who were the only breadwinners but who were able to raise families on that one income.  No other demographic was made this promise of course.  

Around about the early 1990's that promise was broken.  Globalization took those jobs away.  What jobs were replaced were replaced by low paying jobs or jobs that required much more education than highschool to qualify for.  White men who made life decisions trusting that the promise would be honoured were left high and dry.

At the same time things began to change in society at large.  The seeds planted during the civil rights movement began to grow and no longer were white men given first crack at all of the good jobs.  Men of colour and women began pushing their way into jobs that were exclusively the domain of white men just a few short years previously.  

That is when the anger of the white man began.  Thirty years of conservative economic orthodoxy have allowed it to fester and to grow until it has finally come to a head.  All it took was a catalyst to make that anger boil over and create the issues we are now observing.

It is interesting that the ones who broke the promise are the ones who identified and then exploited the anger they created to advance their interests.  It is also interesting that the very changes in society they fought against are now being used by them to misdirect the anger they created away from them.

Old, low educated, white men are not the only demographic who are struggling but they are the only demographic that was promised a good life if they made certain life choices.  They held up their end of the bargain but were then cheated out of that good life.  That is probably the biggest reason why they are so angry and resentful and that is why they support those who claim they will take the country back to the way it was, to make the country "great again".  When they here that they hear that the promise made to them so many years ago will be honoured. 

Rachel Notley was Bob Raed

I am a little late in commenting on the defeat of Rachel Notley's government in Alberta but then again this comment really does not have a time limit because I am not going to comment on the actual defeat.

Instead what I will be commenting on is Ms. Notley's similar rise and fall to Bob Rae's NDP government in Ontario in the 1990s.  Both were surprising and unlikely victories and both of them failed to win a second mandate.

Not a profound observation but what I find really interesting about both is how each governed.  In both cases they were elected because the electorate was really fed up with the usual governing parties and in both cases the two victorious NDPs went on to govern just like the usual governing parties.  They were given historical mandates and instead of governing like NDPs they governed like parties they defeated.

Both Bob Rae and Rachel Notley did enact policies and laws that were near and dear to the NDP but they only did so around the edges.  With regard to the fundamental way in which Ontario and Alberta were governed neither of them attempted to change it.  Instead, Bob Rae suddenly become concerned with deficits and did all sort of things to attempt to bring it down, during a recession, truly an impossible task.  Which of course set him up for failure.  Rachel Notley became just as obsessed with the oil industry and pipelines as the previous Alberta government despite the fact that their troubles were not hurting the overall economic health of her province.

In both case they could have pursued truly different ways of dealing with the issues facing their provinces and in both cases they just did what their opponents would have done.

I understand the reason why.  Governments get elected to get elected again.  So, they try not to rock the boat.  However, in these two cases they should have known that their chances of being reelected were slim out of the gate and acted accordingly.

With that in mind both could have taken more risks and pursued policies that would have allowed them to make their marks on their provinces.  Certainly they would have probably still lost their second elections but they probably would not just be remembered as lessons of why you should not elect NDP governments.

The Government Backlash Against Fake News

This week the Trudeau government came out with a Digital Charter which has one objective of holding social media companies accountable for allowing misinformation to propogate through their websites.  Other governments are looking at ways of doing the same thing and some countries such as Singapore have actually passed laws to meet that objective.

This has lead to something of a backlash from some circles that the governments are attempting to criminalize free speech and political dissent.

To which I ask what do you expect?  As I mentioned here propaganda, of which fake news is the latest manifestation, is a direct threat to democracy.  In the past we could always count on the Main Stream Media to fact check the assertions of propogandists but they have completely shirked that role in the last couple of decades and in some cases have become the source of the propoganda.

Someone has to look out for our democracies.  Governments have been extremely patient, asking the social media companies to clean up their act for many years.  They have not listened and the media are not doing their job so it falls upon the government to try to at least reduce the amount of acidic misinformation out there.

Of course, having governments do this is problematic.  The opportunities for abuse and a further reduction of our democratic rights are apparent.  However, while propaganda and misinformation is a long-term danger to our democracy it is becoming a much more immediate threat to governments so it should surprise no one that they are beginning to take action.

I really do not blame the social media companies.  They are in the business to make money and the more traffic they have on their sites the more money they make.  I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the MSM.  They have been in the position to counter all of the misinformation that has been circulating out there for quite some time but they have not attempted to do so.  It was only a matter of time before something gave.

It remains to be seen where all of this ends up.

The SNC Lavalin "Scandal"

I generally ignore political "scandal" as I find them frightfully boring.  As well, I also find the coverage of this "scandal" to be yet another example of just how out-of-touch the political classes of the Western world really are with ordinary citizens.  As a result, I was not going to bother commenting on the current controversy swirling around the Trudeau government.  Then Ms. Philpott resigned her cabinet position and the media lost what was left of their collective minds.  Reading the reaction today I could only think "Holy Hyperbole Batman".

So I decided to give in a make a comment.  I would suggest you prepare yourself because this post is going to be a long one even by my standards.

To listen to the media you would think that this "scandal" is the end of the Liberal government.  What rubbish.  Although the media would love to believe otherwise it will probably not register with most voters.  It will certainly register with those already opposed to the Liberals.  Those who support the Liberals will not let it change their minds and swing voters will probably not care either for the simple reason that the cause of the "scandal" really does not make sense to them.  Really, if you are going to push a scandal then push one that does not involve such esoteric concepts as Deferred Prosecution Agreements and whether a certain company should receive one.  No one cares.  Ordinary people have ordinary problems to deal with.  Hearing about how and when DPA's should be used and whether they should have been used in this case is not something ordinary people are going to become too worked up about.

Some would say that it is not just about DPA's that it is about judicial independance.  Fine, but that still will not impact most people at a visceral level and that is the level you must find in order for a "scandal" to have any lasting impact.  Some would say that the governments of Paul Martin and Stephen Harper were brought down by scandal.  They would be right but those scandals involved money, something everybody can relate to and understand.  

I would point out that Stephen Harper in particular had to deal with many scandals, while governing as a minority government, including being found in contempt of Parliament and that did not prevent him from winning a majority government in 2011.  Only after it was revealed that one of his staff gave $90,000 to a Senator did a scandal do lasting damage.  Money talks and so far no one has made any allegations that the current "scandal" involves money.

Some would also argue that this "scandal" has lead to the resignations of two government ministers.  So what, alot of scandals lead to the resignation of ministers.  It is not an uncommon occurence when controversy begins to swirl around a government.  But wait, the resignations implicate the Prime Minister himself.  Again, that is not uncommon.  Most of the time when a Minister resigns it is after the PM has been defending him/her for some time, making whatever wrong the Minister did a problem for the PM.  The fact that these two ministers stated they do not have confidence in Mr. Trudeau is a different twist but it does not take away from the basic reality.

Some would further argue that the polls are stating the exact opposite of what I am saying.  The problem with that argument is two fold.  First if polls were predictive a Clinton would be sitting in the White House.  Second, the media does not use polls to inform people of what is really happening in country.  They use them to advance or reinforce a narrative.  The current narrative is the Liberals are in big trouble so they are going to use the polls the "prove" that.

In actual fact the Liberals are not in big trouble.  For certain they have had a tough month but the Liberals are still the prohibitive favourate to win the election in October and the most probably outcome is a Liberal majority government.  There are three reason for this.

Reason One, historical voting patterns:  Since 1919, one hundred years ago, there have only been two occasions when a first term majority government was not reelected in the subsequent election.  They would be the Conservative governments of RB Bennet and John Diefenbaker.  In all other cases a first term majority government has been reelected, most of the time to another majority government.

Further in that same time period the Liberals have tended to govern for extended periods of time. Once they governed for almost 25 straight years and the last time we had a Liberal government they governed for 13 years.

Some would guffaw at this assertion but this pattern has endured for 4 generations and a profound change in the demographics of the country.  It has shown no signs, in any of the most recent Federal elections, of changing.  It would appear Canadians tend to give new governments the benefit of the doubt during their second election, most of the time.  The Harper Conservatives benefitted from it so the Liberals probably will as well.

Finally, there is a 50 year voting pattern in Ontario where the voters of that province vote opposite to the government sitting in Queens Park.  If there is a Liberal government in Queens Park, Ontario voters tend to vote Conservative at the Federal level.  If the provincial government is Conservative they tend to elect Federal Liberals.  

Just on that alone the Liberals would be in good shape but there is couple of other reasons.

Reason Two, the Liberals are opposed by four parties, five in Quebec.   Having a fractured opposition is always a big advantage to the imcumbant party and the opposition is very fractured at the moment.

Further their two main opponents have their own very serious problems.  As I have indicated in this space before the conservatives in the country suffer from a profound weakness even when they are only represented by one party.  If you add another conservative party to the mix that weakness is increased.  I, of course, speak of Mr. Bernier.  Some have argued that Mr. Bernier is not a threat to the Conservatives because he has no hope of winning the election.  The problem with that argument is Mr. Bernier does not want win the election he wants electoral credibility.  He wants to be the right wing version of the Green Party.  If he can win his own seat, maybe win a couple more and garner around 5% of the vote he will gain that credibility.  He is not going to get that from the Liberals or the NDP.  His policies and political instincts will drive them away.  His only hope is to target Conservative voters.  Most of the time the Conservative Party does not have to worry about its right flank.  Mr. Harper won the 2008 and 2011 elections by starting the campaigns throwing red meat at his base to keep them happy and then pivoting to appealing to centrist voters.  Mr. Scheer may not have that luxury.  If he follows the same strategy the pivot will be noticed and exploited by Mr. Bernier.  That is the reason why Mr. Scheer has been consorting with alt-right types.  They make up a small part of his base but if the Conservative have any chance of winning an election they have to keep their base intact.  If is splits, even a little bit, they lose and perhaps lose big.

The NDP are not in any better shape.  They went all in during the 2015 election spending to the limit without having the funds to do so.  As a result they accrued a very large debt, which has not yet been paid off.  Their fundraising has lagged significantly behind the other two parties so they will have even less cash on hand going into the next election than they did in 2015.  Mr. Singh will have a choice. Spend to the limit with the faint hope that they can win the election and risk bankrupting the Party.  Or he can conduct a much more subdued save the furniture campaign, saving his money up for 2023, when the desire for change may be high enough for the NDP go get more bang for its buck.

Since the creation of the CCF another historical voting pattern has been the Conservatives only win an election when the NDP does well.  The NDP will probably not do very well this time which means the Conservatives will probably not do very well either.  And that is before taking into account any impact Mr. Bernier might have on the Conservative vote.

Reason three, despite all of the fireworks of the past month the Liberals have not looked uncomfortable.  Indeed, they have not looked uncomfortable since the beginning of the 2015 election.  Some would say I am wrong, based on what the media is telling us but look deeper.  Have the Liberals tried to change the channel on this "scandal"?  Have they done anything differently that what they have done in the past?

I will give you an example of what I mean.  When the Senate Expense Scandal broke the Harper government did the usual things that governments do when a scandal breaks.  We have been seeing it the past few weeks with the Liberals.  As the scandal continued to unfold the Liberals started gaining in the public polls.  I dismissed them at that time but then the Conservatives began to act differently.  Before long they did the following in no particular order

• Prorogued Parliament
• brought down not one but two "election" budgets in a row.
• launched yet another series of attack ads against Mr. Trudeau, focusing on his hair for some reason.
• launched the Canada Action Plan advertizing campaign, which was extremely partisan, using $750 million in government money between 2013 and the 2015 election.
• Stephen Harper went around the country announcing spending on a whole host of projects.  I read one analysis where, in a two year span, he made the same spending announcement 6 times, although the promised money never made it into a government budget and the spending never actually took place.

Political parties have units within them that have the job of continually taking the pulse of the electorate.  They use polling, but for gaining actual information, as well as other data sources to accurately assess their level of support down to the riding level.  From 2013 to the 2015 election I would bet a fair amount of money that the Conservatives were seeing that the Liberals were advancing into areas that were then held by Conservatives.  That was why took all of the above steps.  Mr. Harper used every tool in the government tool box to try to reverse that trend.  They never did which is why Mr. Harper never pivoted to appealing to centrists during the 2015 election.

We are not seeing the same thing from the Liberal during this "scandal", probably because their internal data is not showing a significant erosion of their support.  Except for the expected short term crisis management efforts it has been business as usual for them.  Heck, Mr. Butts is going to speak.  I would have expected that after the testimony of Ms. Wilson-Raybould they would have taken steps to move on.  After all, once her testimony was done there was not much else for the media to talk about and after a two week Parliamentary break the "scandal" would be in the rear view mirror.  Mr. Butts might have resigned his government job but I would bet that he has been in regular contact with the Prime Minister. If the Liberals were really feeling threatened by the "scandal" Mr. Butts would not be testifying tomorrow.

The media should be ignored when it comes to whether a government is in trouble.  They will only look at what is in front of them and they will not look at the big picture.  They will focus on a knot in a tree, shaped like the Virgin Mary, while ignoring Scarlett Johannson making out with Sasquach two trees over and completely ignoring the sun shining down on the forest as a whole.  

I am certain that many people in the PMO have had a rather stressful February but there is minimal danger of the Liberals being defeated in October at this time.  That could change in the next eight months but I would not count on it if you happen to dislike the current government.

I Bet the National Energy Program is Looking Pretty Good Right Now

The National Energy Program or NEP is a four letter word in Alberta.  It was an attempt by the government of Pierre Trudeau to make certain the exploitation of Alberta's oil wealth benefitted the largest number of Canadians.

This all came to my mind when it was announced last week that the government of Alberta was imposing mandatory production cuts on the oil industry as a result of the exceedingly low price for bitumen. It is causing all sorts of problems for the companies that produce it.  The blame for this situation is the glut of easier to exploit and cleaner oil on the market.  This has forced down the price of all oil, not just bitumen.  But with bitumen not really being oil, requiring a very expensive process to convert it into something that can actually be refined into a finished petroleum product, it took a particularly big hit in the world markets.  The blame also lies at the feet of a succession of Alberta governments, including the current one, who did not plan for the inevitable busts that always happen after booms.  They did not save for a rainy day or attempt to diversify their economy when oil was selling at a high price so when the price of oil collapsed they were left holding an empty bag.

Of course, no one in Alberta is going to take any responsibility for their situation.  Instead they are going to blame everybody but themselves.  The Federal government is a handy scapegoat because it has always been a handy scapegoat for provincial governments that have shit the bed.  The conventional wisdom is if the Federal government would have done what was needed, earlier, to have a pipeline built to the BC coast all of this would have been prevented.  That is wrong of course.  Bitumen is not in high demand because there are cheaper alternatives out there.  Having an additional pipeline would not change that fact.

This brings me back to the NEP.  Essentially the NEP was designed to assist Alberta to exploit its oil wealth, including its vast reserves of Tar Sands oil, process and refine it and then get it to market.  The Federal government put together a program that provided Federal funds to develop the technology to develop Tar Sands oil and convert it into something that could be refined.  It included funds and fast track approvals for refineries so that the processed bitumen could be refined in Canada.  It included funds and fast track approvals for pipelines heading East, South and WEST so that the refined products could be sent to market.  Canada being what it is all of this would have started in Alberta but eventually other provinces would get their cut, which would have made the oil industry in this country a national industry instead of just a provincial one.  That would have given Canadians in all regions of the country a stake in the health of the industry, which could only have benefitted Albertans.

The only catch for all of this was the program required oil companies to sell to Canadians at a price lower than the market price.  Not so low that they could not make a profit and not so low that Alberta would not be able to make money on the exploitation of their resources but low enough to make certain that all Canadians could catch a break on the price of the petroleum products that they consumed.  And this only applied to oil being sold to fellow Canadians.  Any oil being exported could be sold at the world price.

The response of Albertans.  "Let those f$%*&!#g Easteners freeze to death in the dark".  They went crazy, voted out Mr. Trudeau Sr. and voted in Brian Mulroney who immediately canceled the NEP when he attained power.  They then went on to squander two opportunities to leverage their oil wealth into improving and diversifying their economy.

Looking at the current troubles in the Alberta oil industry and the causes of it has to be said that if the NEP would have been implemented as envisioned the Alberta government probably would not have had to interfere in the oil market last week.

But they did and now I am an Easterner who is nice and warm typing away in a well lit room, watching the troubles of Albertans, who just cannot find any sympathy for their troubles, no matter how much a try to find it.  This all could have been prevented by Albertans over 30 years ago but for their continuing shortsightedness and greed.  They gave into both and are now paying the price and I am fine with that.

First Rate Country with a Fourth Rate Business Class

A few times in this space I have made the statement in the title of this post when describing Canada.  I go into detail of what I mean here.

This was brought back to my mind again in the past couple of weeks because of the ongoing "crisis" in Alberta and the announced closure of GM plant in Oshawa.  Both are situations that demonstrate the lack of vision, courage and business acumen of the Canadian business class.

The situation in both places has been well documented in other spaces so I will not go into great detail about them here.

The business community and many conservative commentators in this country look longingly at the dynamic US economy and would like to be able to create such an economy here.  They point to the low personal and business taxes and less regulation in the US and state that if Canada were to follow that path Canada could have an economy like theirs.

The situation in Alberta and Oshawa puts paid to that assertion.

First, the Tar Sands were only developed because the Federal government of Pierre Trudeau spent a tremendous amount of federal money to move the development along.  No private business in Canada would take the risk in attempting to develop it themselves.  Contrast that with the US.  The rise of shale oil in the US market, which has contributed to the depression of the price of Alberta oil, was exploited by private businesses with private money.  Little or no public funds were used.  I dare say that if the Tar Sands had been located just a couple of hundred kilometres below the 49th parallel they would have been exploited by private industry, without any public funds, and the companies that exploited it would be pulling the stuff from the ground and shipping it for processing at processing plants and refineries that they owned, not to establishments in another country that they did not own.

Second, it is more than even money that nothing developed in Canada will replace the GM plant after it closes.  Maybe another car company, from another foreign country will decide it is a good space to build their cars, but if that does not happen that site will be largely abandoned.  No Canadian company will have the vision or the courage to take advantage of that space. 

The US economy is the way it is because entrepeneurs who are not adverse to taking risks are pervasive in the economy.  Many more fail than succeed but enough succeed to sustain that economy and help it grow.  Contrast that with the Canada, where the business class is the exact opposite of their American counterparts.  Canada could eliminate all taxes and regulations and the Canadian economy would still not be as dynamic as the US economy because the Canadian business class would not have the courage and motivation to take advantage of it to leverage the windfall into increased economic activity and greater wealth.

As I have stated in this state before if the Canadian business class had any kind of business acumen Canada would be punching well above its weight in the international economy.  We are blessed with a tremendous bounty of natural resources and an educated and capable work force.  A business class that could actually live up to that name would have taken full advantage of these two facts long ago to make themselves and Canada much wealthier than they already are.  They would have allowed the Canadian economy to realize its full potential and we would all be much better off as a result.

Alberta and Oshawa further proves that this is a pipe dream.  

We have not seen as much progress as we thought

I few nights ago I watched the movie "Selma" on TV.  I originally saw it when it came out in theatres a few years ago but this second watching made realize something.

In the movie the open depiction of racism and bigotry is prevalent, as it was in many parts of the United States in the 1960s.  So it seemed to accurately depict that period in time.

Since then it has been accepted wisdom that the level of racism and bigotry that we saw during that period has been greatly reduced.  We have come along way from then and only a few pockets of the US still hold those views and most of them are in the most backward parts of the South.  The rest of the people in the US have become much more tolerant of people of colour.

Watching the US, and Canada for that matter, it would seem that the accepted wisdom is wrong.  Racism and bigotry has raised its ugly head again with a vengeance.  For almost 50 years social convention has forced those who are racist and bigoted to keep their opinions to themselves.  However, with an openly racist and bigoted President these people have been released to spout their hate and vitriol again.  As well, if you look where this is coming from it is much more widespread than just a few pockets in the most backward parts of the South.

Although the situation in Canada is not a extreme is in the US the same forces are at work.  If anybody thinks that the general acceptance of Faith Goldy running for mayor of Toronto, using an opening racist election platform, is not similar to what we are seeing in the US they are not paying attention.

Fifty years ago governments made great efforts to suppress the black vote and blacks were in great danger of being killed because of the colour of their skin.  Fast forward to 2018 and several state governments in the US enacted harsh election laws which were designed to suppress the black vote and it is almost a weekly occurrence that a black man is killed by a white police officer.

The so called progress that we have seen since the 1960s, with regard to race relations in North America, is a mirage, a fantasy.  It does not exist.  The same attitudes that plagued that sad decade never went away.  They were just hidden and they are now coming out of hiding.

It is not really about the Carbon Tax

In a previous post I wrote about the breakdown of the current economic orthodoxy that has informed economic and political debate in the Western world for over three decades.  I call it the Conservative Consensus.

In Canada that Consensus was set in stone in 1993 when the Progressive Conservative government of Kim Campbell/Brian Mulroney was destroyed at the polls.  One of the contributing factors to that destruction was the introduction of the GST.  Ironically, the Liberals would be the greatest benefactor to this but it had a lasting chilling effect on effective fiscal policy until 2015.

In Canada, I would say that election was the one that cemented the Conservative Consensus in place.  From that point conservatives framed the debate on what were the acceptable fiscal tools and their position that lowering taxes and decreasing government spending become the default and only suitable position of all governments, regardless of their political stripe.

As I stated in that previous post conservative elements of our societies took full advantage of this situation to eventually land at the position that tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, at the expense of ordinary people, was the best fiscal policy.  Their position was essentially that ordinary people needed to make these sacrifices for the greater good.  And these ordinary people ate it up.

Then along came Mr. Trudeau who campaigned in the last election on a platform that included increasing taxes for the wealthy and the introduction of a Carbon Tax.  He won that election and he kept both of those promises.

So for the first time in three decades a political party has strayed from the Conservative economic orthodoxy and they have been rewarded for it.  That will not do for conservatives who desperately want to maintain the Conservative Consensus.

People ask what the Conservatives would do about climate change.  They point out that they do not have a plan.  They point out that a Carbon Tax is a conservative idea and a market based solution to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

These same people miss the point.  It is not about Climate Change.  It is about maintaining the current economic orthodoxy.  It is about maintaining the Conservative Consensus.  I stated in a previous post that there are signs of the Conservative Consensus beginning to break down.  Conservatives see it and they know that in order to maintain it they need to stop any progress away from the Consensus, now, before it develops a momentum that will make it unstoppable.

That is the overarching goal of Conservatives in this country right now.  Everything else is secondary.

Why the Sudden Rush Mr. Singh?

It made the news last week that the leader of the Federal NDP is now ready to run for a seat in Parliament, after more than a year of being the leader and after passing on four by-elections since he won the NDP leadership.  The seat he has chosen is in Burnaby BC, which is available and for which a by-election has to be called by March 2019.

The Prime Minister has decided to wait to call that by-election and the NDP in general and Mr. Singh in particular are up in arms about it.

I have been watching Mr. Singh for the past few months and it strikes me that he is not enjoying his job.  It strikes me that maybe he would like to leave it.  Unfortunately, a whole host of reasons would prevent him from resigning at the moment so he is stuck.

However, if he were to lose the by-election, which would be very possible since the Burnaby seat is by no means a safe NDP riding, he would have his excuse.  Unfortunately, in order for that excuse to work he would have to lose that by-election sooner rather than later.  His resignation as a result of that loss would have to be early enough to allow the NDP some time to pick up the pieces.  

Losing in March would be bad for both him and the NDP.  If he sticks around the NDP would be saddled with a wounded leader, perhaps a mortally wounded leader and the 2019 election would be an NDP bloodbath.  If he left then the NDP would only have about six months to find a new leader and develop an election platform.  Again, that would be a recipe for an electoral bloodbath for the NDP.

This is all speculation of course and I could be completely wrong in my assessment of what I am seeing.  However, my political gut is telling me that there is more to Mr. Singh's sudden urgency to win a seat in the House of Commons than what we are hearing from him and the NDP.

The Breakdown of the Conservative Consensus

For the past 30 years or so the prevailing economic consensus amongst the political classes of the Western world, particularly the English speaking world, has been a conservative one.

It all began around the late 1970's when the then prevailing liberal consensus, which had lasted since the latter years of the Great Depression, began to break down.  It came into full force in the 1980's with the elections of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.  In Canada it came into full force with the election of Brian Mulroney and the findings of the MacDonald Commission on the Canadian economy, which were released soon after his election.

The conservative consensus was:

• The uncritical belief in free trade.
• Government regulation was a bad thing.
• Taxes were too high and needed to be reduced.
• Government spending was too high and needed to be reduced.
• Social programs were ineffective and reduced economic activity.
• Deficit financing was bad and should be eliminated.  (This one was mainly given lip service.)
• Unions and organized labour was too powerful leading to a reduction in competitiveness and economic activity.  That power had to be curtailed.

It took more than a decade for this consensus to solidify.  Politicians, conservative academics and the media began a concerted effort to convince ordinary people that they would be much better off following the conservative consensus.  They claimed that following it would lead to greater economic success for everyone and not following it would lead to more of the economic upheaval that characterized much of the 1970's.  They were successful.  By the end of the 1980's the conservative consensus was pretty well set and any government, even progressive governments, that proposed going back to the liberal economic policies of the 1970's did not enjoy lasting success.

For that first decade conservatives were more circumspect about pushing their agenda too hard.  They had to bring people along slowly and they still had to deal with the Soviet Union appearing to be a viable alternative to capitalism.

That all changed in the 1990's.  The consensus was set and the Soviet Union collapsed leaving capitalism as the only game in town.  That lead to the proponents of the Conservative consensus to begin pushing the boundaries of their ideology.  That lead to the election of the first neo-conservatives, including our very own Michael Harris, who pushed deep tax cuts and deep government spending cuts.  They sold this by stating that the tax cuts would increase economic activity enough to make the tax cuts revenue neutral.  Their sell job worked although their claims were proven to be completely false.  

Eventually, the neo-conservatives began to ignore the ordinary person claiming that tax cuts for the wealthy and business along with the government cuts was the way to go.  Again, for a time their sell job worked.

However, under the surface things were not going very well for ordinary people in the West.  Free trade lead to globalization, which lead to massive job losses.  Reductions in government spending lead to their inability to assist those who lost their jobs in a meaningful way.  Reduction in taxes to the wealthy and the neutering of organized labour has lead to unprecedented inequality in the West.

This has been going on for two decades and it is finally coming to a head.  Brexit and the election of Donald Trump are the results of this situation.  Both happened because "populist" politicians managed to tap into the anger and and deep uncertainty that living under more than 30 years of the conservative consensus has created.  Of course, those politicians are just pushing more to the same while stoking hatred of the "other" to "explain" the plight being experienced by these ordinary people.

That will only work for so long.  You can only promise to fix a problem and then do the exact opposite of fixing it for so long before people begin to direct their anger at you.  Inevitably it will lead to change, not just of government, but of a new way of governing.

We may already be seeing the beginning of the breakdown of the conservative consensus.  

In 2016, Bernie Sanders was a credible candidate for the President of the United States despite the fact he admitted he was a socialist, a democratic socialist to be certain but still a socialist.  If he would have attempted to run as a socialist in 2008 he would have been creamed.  

Here in Canada, in 2015, our very own Liberal government ran on a political platform that included running deficits, while their two main opponents ran on promises of balanced budgets, and they won handily.  That is significant.  Governments routinely broke their promises of balanced budgets but they at least promised it.  No government in recent memory has realized any success by promising to run deficits.  The government also ran on introducing a carbon tax, a new tax.  Again that has been unheard of for decades but they were still successful.  As well, both of these promises have been kept and the most probable outcome of the next election is still a Liberal majority.  Two policies that go against the prevailing economic orthodoxy and they are still realizing success.

In 2018, more and more candidates running in the mid-term elections in the United States are versions of Bernie Sanders.  Despite this the consensus amongst the political classes in the US is they will be successful in at least retaking the House of Representatives, perhaps retaking the Senate and taking their fair share of governors' mansions in the States.  We will have to wait and see if that really comes to pass.

There is a change in the economic consensus taking place.  We are seeing the beginning of the end of the conservative consensus, which will be replaced by a progressive consensus in due time.  It is early yet and the proponents of the conservative consensus may be able to mount a rear guard action effective enough to slow down the transition but that is all they are going to be able to do, slow it down.  Their lack of effective policies to actually help ordinary people, to mitigate the impact of technology on the nature of work and to mitigate the impacts of climate change will lead to the conservative consensus being cast aside, probably within the next decade.

The New NAFTA

I have had a chance to review the new USMCA agreement and my greatest response is "Is that it?"  Is that all we got from over a year of negotiations?

I realize this all started because of the ego and stupidity of the current occupant of the White House so I guess it is probably a bit of a blessing that things have not been changed drastically but I am still kind of surprised at just how much it has not been changed.

Then again, since we were dealing with a bloviating windbag it is impressive that the Canadian negotiating team did not have to make significant and potentially detrimental concessions in order to secure the new agreement.  

As I stated here I am not a true believer in free trade agreements in general and the NAFTA in particular.  It has done some good but it has also done alot of bad for the Canadian economy since its implementation.

All that being said there are a couple of changes in the new agreement that I believe make it somewhat better than the original.  The first is the virtual elimination of Chapter 11.  The idea that a company can no longer sue a government for taking actions to protect the environment, food and water supply and labour standards is an improvement.  The second is the change in the energy provisions that used to force Canada to sell its energy resources to the United States even during shortages, potentially leaving Canada short of these resources for its own use.  Brian Mulroney essentially sold Canada out on that provision in the original Canada/US FTA and it is significant that when the US asked Mexico to do the same thing in order to join NAFTA the Mexicans told the Americans to get bent (diplomatically of course).  This provision was one reason for the discount that Canadian firms had to sell their energy products to American firms so maybe the elimination of this provision will help improve that situation in the future.

The media and the other political parties are being their usual obtuse selves.  The other parties because the agreement is a win for the government, albeit a limited one, and they cannot have that.  They have to find some fault with it so they have focused on dairy.  It is true that the dairy industry has to allow more access to its markets but the amount is not that great.  It can easily be absorbed by the industry on its own and with the promised compensation the government has indicated they will give them no one in the dairy industry is going to lose their shirt.

The Globe and Mail had another angle yesterday in their Saturday paper editorial.  There is a provision of the new agreement that states that none of the signatories can enter into a free trade agreement with another country without approval from the other signatories.  This provision is aimed directly China.  The Globe and Mail seems to believe that this is a somewhat unreasonable infringement of Canadian sovereignty, which is silly.  Free trade agreements by their very nature are huge infringements on the sovereignty of the signatories and they have always been that way.  There is a reason why the Liberals ran a political advertizement showing a guy erasing the border between Canada and the US during the Free Trade election of 1988.  Everybody knew that the new FTA would reduce the sovereignty of both Canada and the US.  That did not seem to bother the Globe and Mail in 1988 or since.  Now they seemed to be bothered by this one provision.  Is this an indication that the Globe and Mail has a limit to how much an agreement can impact Canadian sovereignty or is this just the Globe and Mail quibbling because they believe they have to find something to criticise the government with in this treaty?  My guess is it is the latter.

The new USMCA is a slight improvement on the old NAFTA but it is still a flawed agreement like the NAFTA.  I doubt its will change how the three partners deal with each other in a significant fashion which kind of makes the whole past 13 months kind of pointless.  The government was forced into this situation by a sociopath so I guess we can be satisfied that the agreement that was finally signed should not do significant harm to the Canadian economy and society.

Populism is here to stay

So says none other than Stephen Harper in an op-ed piece in yesterday's Globe and Mail.

I do not totally disagree with this assertion but I do not believe that it will have as much of an impact on our political system as some believe.  Many believe the recent success of some populist politicians in Canada is a harbinger of their takeover of the political system.  This belief is based on a very superficial analyses of these successes and if you look a little deeper into them you will find that maybe other factors than just populism lead to their success.

The other assumption of Mr. Harper is he seems to believe that right-wing populism is the only kind around.  The problem with that assertion is right-wing populist politicians are just spouting more of the same conservative dogma that we have been seeing from the Canadian political establishment for the last 30 or so years.  They are just being more in-your-face about it.  Those policies have failed to improve the lives of Canadians.  In fact, they have made them worse off and the political establishment knows this.  That is why they are doubling down on them while attempting to distract people with debates about niqabs, immigrants, asylum seekers and terrorists.  The time of the conservative consensus in Canada is coming to a close and they know it and are terrified by that fact.

It is only a matter to time before some left-wing populist begins to take advantage of this situation.  It may take another few years but the swing of the pendulum back to the left will begin in a relatively short period of time.

So Mr. Harper may be correct but it will probably not play out as he currently assumes.

Fahrenheit 11/9

My wife and I went to see the latest Michael Moore film last night.  It was what I expected, being typical Michael Moore fare.  I liked the film.  It was entertaining and in many places it was enlightening.  However, there were a couple places where I thought he missed the mark somewhat.

In general he did a very good job of describing an America where those that would govern have completely lost touch with those that they would govern.  This is not a situation unique to the United States.  All of the Western countries are going through a period where the ruling elites have almost completely lost touch with their citizens.  The problem is made worse in the US, however, by the prevelence of money in their political system.  Ms. Clinton raised and spent more money on her failed bid to win the US Presidency than the Canadian federal government and all of the Federal Parties spent on the 2015 election combined.  And by a huge margin I would add.  Power corrupts but money greases the wheels for that corruption and that is what is happening in the United States right now.  The segment in the movie describing the Flint, Michigan water crisis and how it came about is a great demonstration of that.

There were a couple of arguments in the film where I believe he is off base.  He spent a fair amount of the film describing how the Democratic Party establishment was and is undermining left wing candidates in the Party, from Bernie Sanders to many candidates currently running as Democrats in the mid-term elections.  He puts this effort down to the fact that the Democratic Party takes money from many of the same donors as the Republican Party.  Although there is some truth to that it is probably not the whole picture.  The Tea Party movement in the United States is an extreme conservative movement that rose up around two decades ago.  In that time it took over the Republican Party and Donald Trump is its progeny.  I am no fan of Mr. Trump for many reasons but one big one is the historian in me knows that extremism breeds extremism and history has demonstrated that nothing good comes from extremists battling each other.  It invariably leads to hardship, injustice and authoritarianism.  And it sometimes leads to war.  The current crop of very left-leaning candidates in the Democratic Party could be the beginnings of left-wing "Tea Party" movement and as with the real Tea Party movement it will continue moving farther to the extreme left, which will inevitably lead to a left-wing version of Donald Trump.  Preventing that from happening is in the best interests of society so any attempt to impede the movement towards extremism is a necessity.  The Republican Party completely failed in doing that and the United States is living with the consequences.  If the Democratic Party fails to keep a lid on its extremists then the situation in the US will become much worse.

The second argument where he was off base was to compare the situation in the US with with the fall of the Weimer Republic, to Adolf Hitler, in the 1930s.  Mr. Moore's comparison, in the film, is compelling but it was superficial and somewhat misleading.  To compare the two situations is to compare apples to elephants.  The Weimer Republic came into existance in Germany in 1919, after centuries of Germany being lead by autocrats.  There was no democratic tradition in Germany before 1919.  The democratic institutions of the Weimer Republic were weak and ineffective because of that.  So when Adolf Hitler managed to win enough votes to become Chancellor (Prime Minister) of Germany just 14 years after the establishment of the Republic he had no problem subverting the new democracy.  The United States has more than two centuries of democratic tradition to fall back on.  Its democratic institutions are effective and robust.  If any US politician had designs to do what Hitler did in Germany he would find it impossible to pull off.  The price of freedom and democracy is eternal vigilence and Michael Moore effectively reminds us of this fact but he let himself go too far by inferring that the US was on the verge of going the way of Germany of the 1930s.

Other than those two quibbles I would say Fahrenheit 11/9 is a good film and I would highly recommend going to see it.

A look Into the Future: The Optimistic View

In a previous post I wrote about a possible future that awaits us as the rise of China, automation and climate change continues on the pace we are currently seeing.  I presented a very pessimistic view of the future from the standpoint of us in the West where China had risen to the top of the financial world, gaining the military and political clout along with it and relegating the West to second world status and widespread poverty, in the West, for all but a very small elite.  I posited that the very small elite had already seen this future and were diligently working at concentrating money and power into their hands in order to insulate themselves from the worst of the transition.

This post is a more optimistic view of that possible future.  As with the pessimistic view, climate change will inevitably impact our world but we as a species will be able to mitigate that impact so that our species and our civilization will survive.  As well, as with the pessimistic view, automation will change the nature of work in the world, leaving billions without any form of meaningful work.

It is climate change and automation which is a cause for optimism.  The reason is China will not be immune to their effects and in order to mitigate their effects a global effort will need to be undertaken to do so.

Make no mistake, without those two trends the Chinese would reach the pinnacle of the international community, carrying most of Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East with it.  The world would be divided into a dominant Eastern Block lead by China and a smaller increasingly weaker Western Block, consisting of increasingly poorer people lead by increasingly autocratic governments working at the behest of rich and powerful elites.

However, with climate change and automation in play China will not have the luxury of trying this approach.  China has the same interests in trying to mitigate the negative impacts of these two trends as the rest of the world and that gives them an interest in working with the rest of the world to do just that.  So, although the processes used to achieve the objective of mitigating the negative impacts of the two trends will be not always be easy or selfless they will achieve the desired effect.  Further since these two trends are not going to end any time soon the efforts to mitigate their negative impacts will be ongoing with no real end date.  That is, the world will need to continue to cooperate on these two issues for decades and no country or block of countries will be able to accomplish what needs to be accomplished by going their own way.

As a result we can conclude that one optimistic view of the future will see China rising to the pinnacle of the international community.  I believe that is essentially inevitable.  They will use their new found power to create a new international system that better serves their interests but they will not be able to change it so much that it will harm the former great powers.  China will need to ensure the cooperation of the former great powers in the continuing efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change and automation so they will have an interest not to let them fall as far as they could fall.

Further, the pessimist in me sees the trend towards the concentration of wealth and power in the West and I do not believe that those who would take a much different approach have what it takes to reverse that trend before it becomes irreversible.  However, we are starting to see the reaction to this trend within the Western world so there is cause for some optimism that those who would take that different approach will get their shit together before it is too late.

One other note.  For all of human history it has always been a requirement that if you wanted to survive you had to work.  Whether it was hunting and gathering, working in the fields, working in a factory or working in an office we have always had to do some kind of work to allow us to acquire the necessary resources to eat and put a roof over our head.

Automation could be an opportunity to change all of that.  Automation could very well make work voluntary.  We may no longer need to work in order to survive.  We would let the machines to the work for us and we would reap the benefits.  Yes there are a whole host of issues around the dangers of technology, with Hollywood providing us with many of the worst case scenarios.  However, if we did it right we could launch the human species into a whole new era.  Without needing to work to survive the human species would be free to use its intelligence and cognitive abilities to explore all sorts of things, within us, on the planet we live on and the universe about us.  There is no telling where we could end up as a species with this freedom.  Sure it could kill us all but it could also allow us to transcend the boundaries we currently find ourselve operating under.

The truly optimistic view of the future is that one.  We gain the upper hand on climate change and its impacts, which nation leads the worlds becomes largely irrelevant and humans begin to reap the rewards of not having to work just to survive.

So, which of these two views of the future do I believe will come to pass?  Right now I would say I am heavily leaning towards the pessimistic view.  Hopefully, I will be proven wrong.

The Maxime Effect

So Maxime Bernier has publicly and spectacularly removed himself from the Conservative Party of Canada and he has indicated that he will form his own right-wing political party.

This really should not come as a surprise to anyone really.  He was the front-runner throughout most of the Conservative leadership campaign, garnering the most votes on the first count, finally only losing the leadership by less than one percentage point after the prefered ballots were counted.  There were rumblings of some irregularities during the voting and they were not put to bed by the party when they destroyed all of the ballots almost immediately after the winner of the leadership campaign was announced, preventing a recount.

Things settled down somewhat after the Conservative leadership vote although there were rumours of Mr. Bernier publishing a tell-all book about it that seemed to go nowhere after what appeared to be some back-room wheeling and dealing.  This started to go sideways when Mr. Bernier was fired from the Conservative front bench, ostensibly for voicing his opposition to Canada's supply management system.  What I found curious about that is he has never kept his opposition to that system a secret so why it suddenly became a problem last June was a mystery to me.

His crashing out of the Conservative Party this week solved that mystery.  I believe not everything was all rainbows and sunshine within the Conservative Party since the leadership vote and it finally came to a head this week.

So how will this impact the next election?

Right off it needs to be stated that the most probable outcome of the 2019 election was a Liberal Majority government before the Conservative implosion.  I will not go into the reason why at this time.

The events of the last couple of days increases that probability regardless of how this all shakes out.

If Mr. Bernier flames out and just disappears from the Canadian political scene Andrew Scheer will still be saddled with the burden of being the leader that could not keep his party together.  Mr. Bernier had been a stalwart of the Conservative Party for years, he was extremely popular with many Conservatives and he is the most popular conservative politician in Quebec.  Losing him is a big blow to Mr. Scheer's credibility and if he is not around it is an open question of whether the Conservatives win any seats on Quebec in 2019.  Virtually every Conservative elected in Quebec attached themselves to Mr. Bernier's coattails in order to win their elections.  With him gone and with no obvious replacement for him in the Conservative caucus the Conservatives could be in tough, in Quebec, in 2019.

If Mr. Bernier follows through on his assertion that he will form his own political party it could potentially spell political disaster for the Conservatives.

He has set himself a very daunting task of forming a political party with 338 candidates in just over a year.  I doubt he can do it but he could probably find enough candidates to fill out the ranks in Quebec and perhaps Ontario.  In all probability that would spell the end of Conservative hopes in Quebec at the very least and it could spell the end of Conservative hopes in both Ontario and Quebec.  In both provinces a Bernier lead party would probably split the Conservative vote allowing the Liberals to walk away with many additional seats in both provinces.  As I have stated here the Conservative movement is very weak in the country, even when it is united behind one party.  If the movement splits that weakness is increased.

If Mr. Bernier does pull off forming his own party with a full slate of candidates then the Conservatives would be in deep trouble everywhere.  A Bernier lead party would just need to siphon off 5 percentage points from the Conservatives and it would be bad news for them.  Any more than 5 points and things would only get worse.  Fifteen points and it is conceivable that the CPC only wins its Alberta bastion and a handfull of other seats in the West.  

Many Conservatives, both the politicians and the Conservative cheerleaders in the media, have been downplaying the impact of Mr. Bernier's departure.  However, watching them they seem to be doing so through gritted teeth.  They are spinning this as best they can but I am certain that many of them do not actually believe their own spin.  The events of the past few days have damaged the Conservative Party.  Only the fullness of time will reveal to what extent it has been damaged and whether that damage will be short-lived or enduring. 

A Look Into the Future: The Pessimistic View

In my previous post I wrote about the possible Triple Whammy of Climate Change, the rise of China as the preeminant economic and political power in the world and the creation of a large number of unemployable people as a result of automation.

One or all of these three situations will occur in the next two or three decades and they will have an impact on the world.  That impact could be negative or positive.  This post will examine the possible negative impacts.  A later post will examine the possible positive impacts.

First and foremost it has now been revealed by climate scientists that we have gone past the point of no return with regard to preventing "hothouse Earth".  That is, global warming is going to get worse no matter what we do from now on.  The only question is how bad it will be.

The most pessimistic outcome would be runaway global warming which changes oceans currents and completely changes the climate of the planet.  In that case the combination of vast areas of the planet becoming uninhabitable and the possibility of the creation of "Canfield Oceans" could lead to a mass extinction that would include the human species.

That is not the most likely outcome but it is possible.  A more likely outcome of runaway global warming would be large areas of the planet becoming unproductive and uninhabitable, leading to widespread famine and mass migration, leading to war.  That in itself would lead to a mass die off of the human species, although not an extinction level event, with the resultant fall of our modern civilization, which would worsen the die off.  The number of humans that would die in this scenario would be in the billions and we would be cast back into the dark ages.  All of the progress we have achieved in the past 2000 years would be lost.

However, the human species is resilient and it has a very healthy survival instinct.  As such, I do believe that our species will realize the danger with enough time to sufficiently reduce greenhouse gases and to develop effective eco-engineering technologies to prevent the worst effects of global warming and climate change.  They will still be disruptive and destructive.  Many human will die but our civilization will survive.

So humans will survive but they will still need to face the impacts of automation and the West will need to deal with the impacts on the rise of China.

Taking the pessimistic point of view I can see China changing the way the world economy works once they have achieved economic and political primacy.  When the West was running the show all of the Western countries had to integrate their economies in order to create sufficient wealth to keep their populations generally happy and satisfied.  The same in not true of China.  They have a population of over a billion people and a large number of them are still not part of the Chinese middle class.  When China reaches the pinnacle of the world economy it will be able to reach even greater heights just by elevating its own people into the middle class.  It will not need to trade with the West in order to create wealth.  Further, China is spending over a trillion dollars in Africa and Asia to help countries on those continents of develop.  Like all aid this funding is tied to Chinese priorities.  So just when they are rising the top of the economic and political heap they will have a further billion or two people beholden to them in Africa and Asia.

It would not be surprising if the Chinese close their economy and demand their client states to only trade with China and themselves when they overtake the US as the largest economy in the world.  They will not need the West to generate wealth and the West has a history of abusing China in the past which may motivate the Chinese leadership to attempt to even the score.  That would reduce the ability of the West to generate wealth at its current levels.  In fact, it would probably cause the Western economies to shrink, if not totally collapse.

Then there is automation.  If the Chinese move to freeze out the West from markets in Asia and Africa is combined with the impacts of automation then things would only be worse for the West.  Huge numbers of people in the West would be in such dire financial straits that the destruction of the Western democracies would probably be inevitable.  Automation will impact China as well but they will be in a better position to absorb those impacts.

I have stated in the space before that I believe a large segment of the ruling classes in the West see the negative impacts of the rise of China and increased automation and that they are preparing for it by concentrating wealth and power so that they will be able to ride out the coming economic and political upheavel in the West.  I have also stated that there is another segment of ruling class in the West who believe that the negative impacts of these two events can be mitigated by investing in their societies and peoples and preventing the concentration of wealth and power in a few hands.  These two opposing views will inform the political and economic debate in the West for the next couple of decades.  

In the pessimistic view of the future those that would concentrate wealth and power into their own hands will prevail.

This is just one possible future that could result from the impacts of climate change, automation and the rise of China.  My own opinion is that this future is the more likely one at this time.  Those that would concentrate wealth and power into their hands are winning the debate so far.  Hell, they are framing the debate, and history has demonstrated that he who frames the debate wins it almost every time.  There is still time for the other side to push back but so far they have been completely ineffective.  That could change in the next couple of decades but my gut tells me not to hold your brealth waiting for that to happen.