Well, it took six months

I am seeing rumblings about what the Trudeau government knew and when and whether they reacted quickly enough to the threat posed by the virus.

First let's remember that although the WHO knew about the virus in China and Asia as early as December 2019 they believed that it could be contained and were working with China to contain it in Wuhan province.  Looking at the WHO Pandemic Timeline demonstrates that.  Canadian authorities would have been monitoring the situation but there was not much they could have done at that point, except issue travel advisories and provide any assistance to China that they could.  

On January 30 the WHO declared the COVID virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.  That is not the same as a pandemic.  That means that the global community should be concerned about this virus because it had potential to become a pandemic.

So I would imagine that the PM Trudeau and key advisors would have met on our about January 30 to discuss the issue.  The participants at the meeting would have been the:

• Health Minister
• Finance Minister
• Deputy PM
• Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Chief political advisor for the government

I imagine the conversation went something like this.

PM:  The WHO has declared this new virus a PHEIC.  I believe that means that this virus could spread to Canada.

Health Min:  Yes, that is what it means.

PM:  Well if that is the case I believe we should do everything in our power to prevent that.  What steps should be take to do so.

Health Min:  We should stop all travel to and from China and other countries that have cases.  We should also consider shutting down all international travel by Canadians because this virus is likely to spread beyond Asia.  We should apply restrictions to travel between the US and Canada.  We should begin preparing Canadians for the possible lock down of the economy.  Considering what we know, so far, about this virus, once it takes hold the only option will be to send everybody home to stay there until we can get it under control.

PM:  Really, we would have to take all of those actions to prevent the virus from coming here?  Is any of that even feasible?

Foreign Affairs:  Unilaterally shutting down all travel to and from China will not be taken very well in Beijing.  We could do it but it will hurt Canadian financial and commercial interests. 

Deputy PM:  Neither would unilaterally restricting travel over the Canada/US border.  Indeed, that would be impossible.  The Trump Administration will not accept any reduction in traffic across the border.

Finance Min:  The economic cost of these suggestions would be very high.  The airline industry would take a particularly big hit even if we just greatly restrict air travel.  If we take the suggestion of shutting down the economy the cost will be astronomical.  Millions of Canadians would be put out of work and our GDP would probably collapse.  

Political advisor:  Let's also remember that at this point none of what is being suggested will probably be effective.

PM:  Why is that?

Political Advisor:  Because it is basic human psychology.  Humans do not react to a threat until it is in their face.  This virus is still just a distant concern to Canadians, not a threat.  So any drastic actions proposed by the government will probably be ineffective.  If we tell Canadians to stay home to prevent the virus from coming to Canada they will ignore us.  The airlines and business will howl saying that we are overreacting.  The media and the opposition will say we are overreacting.  Most Canadians will say we are overreacting.  

Health Min:  If we want any chance of preventing the virus from coming to Canada we have to implement the measures I indicated.

PM:  Would that guarantee Canada would not be hit by this virus?

Health Minister:  No.  It will only increase the chances of it not hitting the country.

PM:  So we could essentially attempt to shut down the country and if we succeeded the virus could hit the country anyway?

Health Min:  Yes PM.

PM:  But in actuality, most of these measures are probably not feasible and the ones that might be would probably not be effective?

All other participants:  Yes PM.

Health Min:  But if we do not implement these measures it is only a matter of time before virus comes to Canada and we have no idea what it will do when it gets here.

PM:  So I guess what we need to do is prepare for its arrival.  What steps should be take now?

Health Min:  Continue to monitor the situation through the WHO and begin to take steps to detect the virus in Canada.

Foreign Affairs:  Issue travel advisories for countries that currently have COVID cases.  This has already been done.

Finance Min:  Begin to model the potential economic and fiscal impacts.

PM:  OK, I guess we are going to have to accept the fact that we cannot keep the virus out of Canada.  We can only mitigate its impacts both to public health and to the economy.  We are going to have to accept that Canadians are going to die because of this virus and that the economy could take a potentially big hit.  We will begin to implement the pandemic response plan to mitigate the public health impacts.  At some point this virus could become the threat that will galvanize Canadians and we may have to lock down the economy.  If so, I would like to encourage Canadians to do so by developing economic support programs.  We cannot develop them now but we can begin to do the groundwork.  If it becomes necessary we will have to deliver these programs in weeks not months so let's begin to work on them now.  We will consult with our allies and trading partners regarding collective actions to curtail the spread of the virus.  I will begin consulting with the Premiers.  They need to know what could be coming so that they can begin their own preparations.

PM:  Is there anything else we can do right now?

All other participants:  No that is a good start but this is only the beginning.  This has the potential to become much worse before it gets better.

PM:  OK, this will be a work in progress but we are agreed on what needs to be done right now.

All other participants:  Yes.

PM:  OK, thank you.

Of course, the actual conversation was very different but the above probably captures the gist.  The simple fact is all governments had a very stark choice at the end of January.  Implement very stringent measures to curtail the spread of the virus, with the commensurate impacts on their economies or protect their economies at the potential cost of many of their citizens.   

It should come as no surprise that most of the countries that took the stringent measures were countries close to the first epicentre of the virus.  It should also be unsurprising that countries that were really far away from that first epicentre took a more wait-and-see approach.  

Did the Canadian government take the best approach available to them?  That is debatable.  However, there were no perfect solutions to the problem in which they found themselves.  All they had were options and none of them would have prevented COVID from coming to Canada and none of them would have prevented the economic fallout we experienced. 

Personally, I believe they made the best of a bad situation.  They could have done somethings better but on the whole I believe they did what could be done.

Old Liberals

I have been seeing some old Liberals pop their heads up recently to criticize the current Liberal government. These old Liberals have been around for some time and they are often used by the news media to provide the "Liberal" point of view on their panel shows even though they have not been part of the party establishment for quite some time.

Some have asked why would these old Liberals come out against the government?

There seems to be several theories.  The one I see the most is that they are Blue Liberals who do not like the tack the current government is taking.  After all Justin Trudeau did not follow the old Liberal trick of campaigning from the left but governing from the right.  He actually campaign from the centre-left and he as governed from there since his government was elected. 

Maybe there is some truth to that but I believe it is much more personal than that.  You see from the election of Pierre Trudeau as Leader of the Liberal Party, to when Justin Trudeau was elected as leader, the Liberal Party had been under the thumb of the same power brokers.  They were the movers and shakers behind the party and they provided their heft in making certain that the party continued to realize success.  In return they expected loyalty from the Leaders of the Party towards them and their interests.  Most of the party apparatus was connected to those movers and shakers in some way.  There would have been no way that those who were part of that apparatus could have been employed by the Party if they were not.

Justin Trudeau was expected to be another in that line of Party Leaders who were beholden to those old Liberal grandees.  However, Justin Trudeau did not believe the same thing.  I believe the fact that the Liberals were reduced to Third Party status lead to the weakening of the hold of the old Liberal establishment on the Party.  Suddenly with Mr. Harper enjoying electoral success and the NDP being poised to actually form a government many in the Liberal Party realized things had to change.

I have mentioned in this space before that one of the accomplishments of Justin Trudeau, for which he receives little to no credit, was his remaking of the Liberal Party.  Ironically, he did what his father did.  When Trudeau the Senior won the leadership he cleaned out the old Liberal establishment that had existed since Mackenzie King.  When Justin Trudeau was elected he cleaned out the old Liberal establishment that was created by his father.  Although Justin Trudeau's cleaning was much more thorough than his father's.

That is one of the biggest reasons for the lack of support of old Liberals for the current Trudeau government.  Part of it is the direction the Trudeau government is taking Canada but much more of it is that fact that Justin Trudeau cleaned house.  The old Liberal establishment was swept away with only a few vestiges of it left over when he was elected PM.  Since then he has made it a clean sweep.  Needless to say that members of the old Liberal establishment did not like to be cast aside like that.  That was disloyal on the part of Mr. Trudeau and to be frozen out of the many patronage appointment that the PM can make just added injury to insult.  

I believe that Mr. Trudeau knew that there would be blowback for his actions but I also believe that he realized Canada is changing and that the old Liberal establishment, established in the late 60s to early 70s, would have driven the Liberal Party to near extinction.  (With the enthusiastic assistance of both the Conservatives and the NDP)  So he dragged the Liberal Party into the 21st Century and left the old guard behind.  In the long run the Liberal Party and the country will be better off as a result of his actions but that will not stop members of the now deposed old guard from shouting from the cheap seats.  

Will Mr. O'Toole Lead or Follow?

Since his election as Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada Erin O'Toole has been attempting to pass himself off as a moderate while hoping everybody will ignore the fact that social conservatives, the most militant anti-gun control groups and climate change deniers were crucial to his victory.

The simple fact is he does owe them and they will eventually come to collect their debts, or at least they will try.

I am reminded of Stephen Harper.  He was in a very similar situation.  He won the leadership of the Conservative Party by courting some of the more extreme elements of the conservative movement in this country and many believed that it would prevent him from ever winning an election.  

Of course, he did win elections and part of the reason why was he lead the Conservative Party instead of letting the different elements lead him.  He threw the thinnest of bones to the special interest groups that elected him as leader and did what needed to be done to appeal to more moderate voters in Central Canada in order to win.

The question is will Mr. O'Toole do the same thing?

Mr. O'Toole's challenge is much more daunting.  Mr. Harper won the leadership of the Conservatives before social media really took off so he could control the message within the Party and clamp down on dissidents.  As well, he came to power just as the last big energy boom in Alberta and Saskatchewan was just ramping up.  They were happy so they had no problem looking the other way when Mr. Harper started courting voters in Central Canada.  Finally, in the first decade of the millennium the social conservatives were not nearly as organized as they are now within the Conservative Party.

To overcome these challenges Mr. O'Toole is going to have to lead.  That means he is going to have to take risks.  The Conservatives cannot win without Central Canadian voters and that means they are going to have to move to the centre on a whole host of issues in order to attract those voters.  They will have to temper their social conservative urges and they will have to develop a viable and credible plan to tackle climate change.  Calling for the elimination of the Carbon Tax without expressing a credible alternative is a non-starter.  The Carbon Tax is only a big deal in Alberta and Saskatchewan.  Calling for its elimination is not a vote winner in other parts of the country.  

Of course, that runs the grave risk of upsetting the Conservative base.  If energy prices were high then the Conservatives could probably take the risk without too many problems but since the collapse of energy prices a Western Separatist sentiment has risen in Alberta and Saskatchewan and political parties with the goal of trying to make that happen are being formed.  It is an open question of whether they will have any real impact but their presence does make Mr. O'Toole's job much harder, as many Albertans will not react well to any real action on climate change, and may decide to express that dissatisfaction by voting for Wexit candidates, while central Canadians would not react well to a non-credible plan on tackling it.

The same goes for the PPC, which could attract disillusioned social conservatives although I believe social conservatives will be keeping a close eye on Mr. O'Toole.  If he goes too far off message they will flex their muscle on social media potentially putting Mr. O'Toole in a very tough spot.  How Mr. O'Toole reacts to that will be telling.

The simple fact is Mr. O'Toole is actually going to have to lead.  That means making tough choices and taking risks.  If he is unable or unwilling to do that then no amount of image polishing will lead to electoral success.    

The Conservative Leadership Election Debacle

There is a repertory theatre here in Ottawa that has been showing old classics in order to stay afloat during the pandemic.  Beginning last week and continuing until mid-September they are having a Bruce Lee festival.  They are showing each of his movies, in order, one week at a time during the festival.  I am a Bruce Lee fan and I have seen all of his movies but not on the big screen.  I was still in elementary school when he died so I could not see them when they were first released.  So, I have been taking advantage of the festival to finally see them on the big screen and the second movie of the festival was shown last night.  As a result I did not get home until around 11:30 last night.

I mention all of this to indicate that I was not home to monitor the Conservative Leadership convention.  When I got home I figured I would take a quick look on-line, see who won and then go to bed.  I was wrong.  By the time I climbed into bed, just after midnight, the first ballot had not even been counted, a machine designed to open the envelopes was revealed to have torn up hundreds, maybe thousands of the ballot and there was no indication from the party of when the results would be announced.

I am not going to pass judgement on what all this means.  However, I would point out that in 2007, after Stephen Harper gave a national televised address, Stephane Dion gave a rebuttal address that was filmed using a mobile phone instead of an actual camera, leading to less than good picture and sound quality.  (This was before selfies became a thing).  The result of that is he was raked over the coals with people saying if the Liberals could not pull themselves together to produce a good quality video how can they be expected to run the country?  In his defence, the Liberals did not have alot of time to prepare.  Contrast that to the CPC that have had August 23 circled their calendars for months and their vote counting is still a debacle.  I will leave it up to everybody else to decide if there is any broader implications to that and what are those implications.

I then checked again this morning to discover that they had finally sorted themselves out and that they announced the results at around 0130 but that there were some 3000 ballots missed for reasons that are not yet clear.  I doubt that those votes would have changed the outcome but still the CPC has a bit of a reputation for questionable tactics during elections and those ballots being eliminated without a reasonable explanation can only feed into the reputation.

So after all of that Erin O'Toole was announced as the winner of the election.  I have read all sorts of hot takes on it so I will not add to it except to say that the Liberals are the favorite to win the next election, as I indicated in a previous post from this month, and nothing that has happened in the last 24 hours had changed that.

I would also say that my assertion that an election this fall is very unlikely stands.  Mr. O'Toole will have barely enough time to find all of the bathrooms in Stornaway before the House comes back.  As well, if he loses to Justin Trudeau his chances of staying on as leader of the CPC drop precipitously.  The Conservatives do not take well to leaders who lose elections, even ones that only won the leadership weeks or months in the past.  So he will want to maximise his time as leader and forcing an election that he is more likely to lose than win, and maybe allow Justin Trudeau to win a majority government, is not the way to accomplish that.  

All in all, last night was an inauspicious start to the Erin O'Toole era of the Conservative Party of Canada.

The Failure of Andrew Scheer

This is Andrew Scheer's last day as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and leader of the Official Opposition of Canada.  At times like this it is customary to look back at the time he spent in those roles and assess his performance.

Many in the media have praised him in the last few days, although that praise smacked more of not wanting to speak ill of the dead instead of being genuine praise for his accomplishments.  

Now it is my turn to assess his performance and it should come as no surprise that I believed he failed on a fundamental level.  Many would just put my assessment down to partisanship as I tend to support the Liberals so if you want to dismiss this assessment by all means go ahead.

Many people point to Mr. Scheer losing the last election as his greatest failure but I disagree.  He really did not have much of a chance of winning because three historical voting patterns were working against him.  It would have taken a near miracle for him to overcome them.  And if you are still one of these people who believes that Mr. Scheer prevented the Liberals from achieving majority government I would say you are mistaken.  It was the Bloc that did that.  So him losing the election was not his greatest failure.

So what was his greatest failure?  He did not renew the Conservative Party of Canada despite the fact that he had three years to do that.  The CPC that went into the 2019 election was the same one that went into the 2015 election.  He did not make the Party his Party even though he had the time to do it.  

That matters because the new leader, regardless of who that is, will have to take that party into the next election.  It is the same party that Stephen Harper created in 2004 and the same party that lost in 2015 and 2019.  Since the new leader is facing a minority government he is going to have to focus on election readiness instead of party renewal.  As well, to make things worse one of the perverse impacts of the pandemic is the Liberals now have the opportunity to develop a compelling election narrative, something that they might have had difficulty developing in normal times, for the next election.

When Justin Trudeau took over the Liberal Party he took the time offered by the Harper majority government to completely renew the Liberal Party.  He changed it from the party of Jean Chretien/Paul Martin to the party of Justin Trudeau, much to the everlasting chagrin of stalwarts of those two men.  I feel Mr. Trudeau does not receive the credit he deserves for that accomplishment, done in a relatively short period of time.  If he had not done it the Liberals might not have won in 2015.  

That 2015 loss by the CPC was a tough one but it gave them the time to renew their party.  They chose Mr. Scheer to be their leader and he failed to do so.  Indeed, I believe he did not even try.  The CPC is still very much the party of Stephen Harper.  Some believe it is because he is the man behind the curtain and that could be true but it is just as likely that the lack of renewal could have been inertia on the part of the Party Apparatus combined with laziness and/or incompetence of Mr. Scheer.  Either way, the CPC of today is the same party as when he took over the leadership four years ago and that is the fundamental failure for which he is responsible. 

Canada is not a Corrupt Country

Canada is pretty much corruption free.  Yes some politicians push the limits of ethical behaviour but it would be a stretch to call them corrupt.

What passes for corruption in this country is a joke.  Bill Moreau was accused of being corrupt because he forgot to pay a $41,000 travel bill to a WE event in Africa.  One of the contributing factors to the fall of the Harper government was a $90,000 payment from his Chief of Staff to Senator Duffy.  Another joke.  The WE controversy was billed as corruption but the facts do not support that billing and the same can be said about the SNC Lavalin "scandal".

In over 35 years of observing Canadian politics I can only identify two instances of actual corruption.  The Sponsorship Scandal and Brian Mulroney taking a suitcase full of cash from Mr. Schrieber.  That is it.

Now compare that to the rest of the world.  The dumpster fire that is the Trump Administration is a poster child for corruption.  The fact that virtually all of his campaign team, from 2016, are either convicted felons or are about to be convicted felons would be an indication of corruption.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg.  Unfortunately, the laws around campaign financing in the US create many opportunities for unscrupulous individuals to be corrupt.

Then let's look at Russia.  One of Mr. Putin's leading critics is currently in a coma in a German hospital after being poisoned, likely by people working for Mr. Putin.  Could you imagine the shit storm that would erupt in Canada if something similar were to happen to Mr. Scheer or Mr. Singh?

And that is just the big corruption.  Canada is virtually free of little corruption.  I used to work with a guy who once vacationed in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.  He is a big white guy so he really stood out there.  He rented a motorcycle so that he could go out and explore the countryside outside of the city.  On his trip outside of the city he was stopped ten times and given a ticket by the cops, for various infractions, the ticket to be paid immediately to the cop.  Each ticket worked out to be about 25 cents Canadian so the penalties were not that onerous but he knew that he did not break any laws.  He was just a white tourist who the cops believed had money to spare so they took advantage. 

Canadians certainly need to maintain their vigilance to make certain they identify dishonest and corrupt people in government but Canadians can also be assured that actual corruption in Canada is very rare and those very few who would be corrupt are always caught in the end.

The Acceleration of the End of the Conservative Consensus

I have written in this space before about the Conservative Consensus.  In summary the Consensus is

• The uncritical belief in free trade.
• The uncritical belief in trickle down economics (Although that might just be an excuse for greed)
• Government regulation is a bad thing.
• Taxes are too high and need to be reduced.
• Government spending is too high and needs to be reduced.
• Social programs are ineffective and reduce economic activity.
• Deficit financing is bad and should be eliminated.  (This one is mainly given lip service.)
• Unions and organized labour is too powerful leading to a reduction in competitiveness and economic activity.  That power has to be curtailed.

That Consensus has been with us since the early 1980s and all governments of all political stripes have been constrained by it since then.

That Consensus has been slowly breaking down as demonstrated by the rise of Bernie Sanders and a whole host of US politicians who emulate him and who have been elected.  As well, the election of Justin Trudeau in 2015 even though he promised to run deficits AND introduce a new tax, followed by his re-election despite his keeping those promises and actually doubling down on them in 2019 are an indication of the breakdown in the Consensus.

Conservatives know that the Consensus is breaking down and they have been trying to slow it down if not reverse it.  The unrelenting opposition to the Carbon Tax by Conservatives surprised many commentators because they rightly point out that is was a conservative idea.  However, that was not the point.  The fact it was a new tax that had been accepted by Canadians frightened the shit out of Conservatives and they needed to convince them that is was a bad idea because if they accepted one tax they would accept more.  

Now the COVID pandemic has created the situation where the breakdown of the Consensus could be accelerated.  The Government of Canada did something very surprising when the virus really hit essentially forcing the shut down of the Canadian economy.  The government provided economic relief directly to Canadians instead of to business (particularly big business).  In addition, in order to pay for it they ran up a massive budget deficit.  Many have stated that if this would have happened under a Conservative government things would have been much different.  I would suggest that if this would have happened under the Chretien Liberals it would have been the same as under the Conservatives.  This is not because the Chretien Liberals were more Conservative it is because when Jean Chretien ran the show the Conservative Consensus was firmly entrenched and it had not yet been shown to be the disaster that it has proven to be.  

Ordinary Canadians appreciated the government assistance and they ignored some of the voices of the Consensus who indicated that the assistance was not good, some rambling on about the disincentive to work caused by it.  As well, that massive deficit was greeted with a collective shrug by Canadians.  

Now we are looking towards an economic recovery from COVID and the Trudeau government has indicated that Canada has been presented with an opportunity to address many of the issues that have resulted from living under 30+ years of the Consensus.  He did not state it that way but that is the upshot of what he is proposing.  Predictably many of the proponents of the Consensus have begun to urge caution.  There have been opinion pieces in the Globe, Financial Post and other media warning that Canadians may grow "used to" the government largess and that it will result in Canadians growing fat and lazy.  (I am paraphrasing)

The thing is, Mr. Trudeau would not have made such statements if he believed that it would hurt him politically.  The past few months have demonstrated to many Canadians that the government can directly help their citizens and it has also demonstrated that deficits are not the big bogey man we have been lead to believe.  It would appear Canadians are ready to move in a new direction and they are ready to do it sooner rather than later.

I firmly believe that Canadians would have come around to the change of direction anyway but it would have been much more gradual.  The pandemic might have accelerated the process.  Those who support and benefit from the Conservative Consensus will try to change their minds in the coming weeks and months but it is an open question of whether they will be able to.

I would just like to point out...

It is Thursday.  In three days the Conservative Party of Canada will announce the winner of their leadership contest but very little has been said about it this week in the media.  

Instead, they are talking about the prorogation of Parliament and crapping on the Prime Minister for doing it.  Oh yes, some are also questioning the qualifications of our new Finance Minister.

In a previous post I indicated that the resignation of Bill Morneau, the appointment of Ms. Freeland has his replacement and the prorogation of Parliament have been in the planning stages for a few weeks and that none of what we have seen this week is an accident.

Justin Trudeau has always been very subtle when he plays politics.  Make no mistake, the implementation of this plan this week was partially designed to bait the media into ignoring the Conservatives in the week leading up to the election of a new leader.  He knows that everything that has happened this week is not going to have much of an impact beyond the political class in this country, particularly in August during a global pandemic.  However, hobbling the new leader of the Conservative Party out of the gate will be to his advantage in the coming weeks and months.  

If an Election is Held in the Fall Who Would Win?

I do not believe we will see an election this Fall.  None of the Opposition Parties really want one, for various reasons, and the Liberals under Mr. Trudeau have focused on governing largely avoided overt political maneuvering.  So, the PM will probably not take the short walk to see the Governor General unless he loses the confidence of The House.  

However, let's say the Opposition Parties do decide to bring down the government.  Who would win the election?

It should come as no surprise that I believe in such a situation the Liberals would form the government yet again.  Many would say that, as a Liberal supporter, that I am biased.  I am aware of that bias and I have taken it into account.  As well, my bias did not prevent me from predicting that the Ontario Liberals would suffer a massive defeat in 2018, on the night that they won their last majority government in 2013.

The basis of my assertion is historical voting patterns.  It is truly remarkable how they have been constant for the last century.  One feature of the patterns is federal governments tend to last about eight years.  Joe Clark's and John Diefenbaker's governments were notable exceptions but otherwise the pattern has held since before the First World War.  

The Trudeau government will have been in power less than five years this Fall well short of the usual eight years.  That seems to be the cut off.  After eight years a government is operating on borrowed time.  Sometimes they can govern for significantly longer but all of the stars have to align for that to happen.  Most of the time though, if a party has been the government for eight years they will be looking at losing the next election, whenever it happens.

The second historical voting pattern is the voters of Ontario like to have governments of opposing parties in Ottawa and Queens Park.  There is currently a Conservative government in Ontario so Ontario voters will probably continue to support the Liberals over the CPC and if that happens the Liberals win, with their level of support in the other provinces deciding whether they win a minority or a majority government.

Those two historical voting patterns put the Liberals in a good position if an election is held this Fall without taking into account any other factors.  Add in the many problems of the Opposition Parties and the fact we are still dealing with a global pandemic their advantage increases.  Finally, as I stated in my previous post the Liberals are going to produce a very progressive Speech and Budget that will probably appeal to a significant number of the 60% of the Canadian electorate that call themselves progressive.  Who knows how non-aligned voters will react but unless the Opposition Parties can come up with a more credible plan many of those non-aligned voters will probably vote for the stability currently offered by the Liberals.

For the Liberals to lose the next election two historical voting patterns have to break down.  Although that is certainly a possibility the probability of it happening is low.  Add the troubles of the Opposition Parties and the ongoing global pandemic any election held this Fall would probably result in a Liberal victory.  I really cannot say how big that victory would be but regardless of what happens this Fall I would say the Liberals will still be the government at this time in 2021.  

Opportunities Coming Out of the Pandemic, part two

So it is official.  Justin Trudeau has prorogued Parliament until September 23.

On that date there will be a Speech from the Throne and then very soon afterward I would expect that there will be a budget.  If the PM is to be believed, during his announcement today, both will be the most progressive that this country will have ever seen and they will address some issues that otherwise would not be addressed in normal times.  

Alot of people, including me, are hoping for a little boldness from them as one of the perverse effects of this pandemic is a more general acceptance of government spending.  All of the economic measures introduced during the pandemic have all been well received, despite the efforts of some on the Conservative side at discrediting them, and the massive deficit needed to finance them was greeting with a collective shrug.  There might actually be an opportunity to accelerate the relegation of the Conservative Consensus into the dustbin of history.

Politically, this is a shrewd move.  Yes, the resignation of the Mr. Morneau and the stigma surrounding prorogation (caused by Stephen Harper's abuse of the procedure) will cause some short term pain for the Liberals.  However, some choice bits of the speech and budget will be leaked in the coming weeks to get people talking about them and then when they are tabled in Parliament the Opposition will have the choice of supporting them or voting against them and bringing down the government.  If I am Justin Trudeau I would be quite pleased with running an election based on two documents officially tabled in Parliament, particularly since I believe they will be a comprehensive medium to long-term plan for facilitating the economic recovery of Canada after the pandemic.  On the other hand, the Opposition Parties would have some explaining to do if they voted such a plan down and stating "PM bad and scandals" as the reason would probably not impress non-partisan voters, the voters who actually decide elections.  

Finally, as I stated in my previous post the events of the day essentially stomped on any efforts to generate any buzz or excitement around the election of the new leader of the CPC.  Justin Trudeau laid a trap for the Conservative media and they appear to be falling into it.  He also trolled the Conservatives very well.  Without excitement and buzz the selection of the new leader, regardless of who it is, will be largely ignored, particularly during the final weeks of the summer, during a global pandemic and with back-to-school anxiety ratcheting up across the country.  

I am hoping that the Trudeau Liberals realize the once in a lifetime opportunity that they have for addressing a whole host of issues that they would otherwise not be able to address in normal times.  I am hoping that the Throne Speech and the Budget are reasonably bold documents, although I do realize that there will still be economic and political constraints.  I am hoping that sanity will prevail in at least one Opposition Party so that we can get on with dealing with these issues, although I would not be too displeased if that sanity did not prevail and the Liberals could fight an election based on these two documents.  If that were to happen I would like their chances very much.

The Resignation of Bill Morneau - Updated

Well, there certainly has been alot of excitement on the Canadian political scene today, or at least excitement for the political class.  Everybody else that lives south of Laurier Avenue probably does not care that much.

There is no denying that the loss of a Finance Minister is a blow for any government but let's maintain our sense of proportion.  The Finance Minister post is vitally important to the government but the person who occupies that post is not as important.  I would wager a fair amount of money that most Canadians would not be able to pick Bill Morneau out of a lineup.  Paul Martin was the last Finance Minister who people knew well but that was only because he had his own power base within the Liberal Party and ambitions to lead it.  Bill Morneau had none of that.

So why did he leave?

Well, we can take him at his word that he never planned on sticking around for more than two terms.  In other words, he had no plans or desire to fight a third election.  In that case, with the Liberals being a minority government, and that third election being possible at any time, he would want to leave while no prospect of an election is imminent.  So leaving now makes sense.

There is also the notion that Mr. Moreau and the PM might have had irreconcilable differences over the handling of the pandemic and the recovery plan.  That is possible but the Prime Minister's style is one of consensus as opposed to dictating what he wants so I am certain they would have worked something out.

The WE issue could have lead to his resignation.  That is probably the angle the Opposition and the media will pursue but I doubt that is the case.  I have seen government ministers being forced to resign over scandal and they are always preceded by weeks of controversy dogging the minister.  That did not happen here.  He had a moment of controversy a few weeks ago, each Opposition Party leader called for his removal but not consistently and there was some rumblings in the media but there was never any of the relentless pressure that we have seen in the past.

He was fired.  No.  See the my last point.

Remarkably, politicians usually do not tell you the whole story but what they do tell you is usually true.  So, if Mr. Morneau indicated that he was never interested in being a professional politician then that is probably the real story.  

So let's talk about the timing of his resignation.

First, he did not decide to resign yesterday morning.  That decision was made weeks ago and he probably informed the PM of it when he made it.  It then became a question of when would be the best time for him to announce his resignation and how to coordinate that with installing his replacement.  The fact his replacement was announced the morning after demonstrates that.  As well, no government makes the decision to prorogue Parliament the night before.  When Mr. Morneau told the PM he would be leaving that set the wheels in motion for what we saw this morning.

Why did they choose yesterday?  The immediate economic crisis caused by the pandemic is behind us.  For the past few weeks the economy has been showing signs of recovery.  In short, the current economic situation can be described as serious but stable.  Mr. Morneau steered the country's finances through the initial crisis but now the government is looking towards the recovery plan and the opportunities it presents.  However, the duration of the recovery plan can probably be measured in years, which was probably well beyond the time Mr. Moreau wanted to remain in politics.  So now is a good time to hand off the torch.  Nothing big is going to happen from a financial perspective for at least two months so leaving now will allow for a smoother transition to the recovery plan without unduly threatening the country's finances.

As well, the government probably wanted to prorogue Parliament so that they can present their recovery plan in a Throne Speech, followed by a budget and his resignation can be seen as a catalyst for that.  Make no mistake, the Opposition and the media will spin this in the most disadvantageous manner for the government but it is mid-August, only the most partisan are going to care.

Finally, I think Justin Trudeau just trolled the Conservatives.  They have been running a leadership campaign that has been described, by Conservative supporters in the media, as being a dud.  With the announcement of the new leader on Sunday this would be the week for the Conservative media to try to generate some buzz.  There would be long pieces on each of the contenders and speculative but very positive pieces on the potential new direction of the Conservative Party.  Now all of that is going to be stomped on by the news of last night and today.  On Sunday, without the excitement of a convention, the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada will be announced and I would bet that very few people will notice.  The biggest reason why a political party may enjoy a bounce in the polls, after selecting a new leader, is the buzz and excitement leading up to the selection.  The actual announcement is usually anti-climatic.  That excitement has been missing since the contest started and any efforts to create it this week will probably be lost in the media din around the events of the last 24 hours.  As the media spends the next few days focusing on spinning the last 24 hours they will be pushing the upcoming CPC announcement down the priority list, making it even harder for the Conservative Party to get people to notice they have elected a new leader, That would have been hard enough anyway because they decided to make this announcement during the dog days of summer, which is a bad time to do it at any time, let alone during a global pandemic.  Now it is even harder.

No government likes to lose a senior minister but if one decides to leave there is really not much that a government can do about it.  All they can do is attempt to mitigate any negative fallout that might come from it.  It remains to be seen if they managed to do that with the way Mr. Morneau resigned but you cannot fault the effort we have seen them put into achieving that objective, in the last few hours.

Update:  The Opposition Parties might regret Mr. Morneau's resignation because his replacement is the most capable minister in the government, Chrystia Freeland.  The last time the Liberals had a dynamic duo like they do now was Chretien and Martin and they governed for 11 straight years.  The difference is Ms. Freeland is not as baldly ambitious as Paul Martin was so we would probably be saved from the Liberal soap opera the media so liked to push back then. 

The Diminishing of the Federal NDP

I am old enough to say that I have been observing politics for almost 40 years.  So I remember when the Federal NDP were a force in Canadian politics.  Yes they never held power but I remember when Ed Broadbent lead a third place political party that could convince Pierre Trudeau to adopt policies that they might not have done otherwise and this was when the former PM was leading a majority government.  The NDP at that time seemed to always be able to punch above its weight and everybody respected the party because it always seemed to oppose the government on principle.  Also Ed Broadbent knew how to effectively oppose the government, something none of the current crop of Opposition leaders seems to have figured out.

I often feel sad that the old NDP is gone to be replaced by the current party which does not seem to have any principles and has been completely ineffective as an opposition party.  I know some NDP partisans seem to believe that they have "forced" the current Liberal government to adopt some of their polices but they have been saying that for as long as I can remember and it is simply untrue.  Since the last election the Liberals have managed to convince all of the opposition parties to support the government at least once during this parliament.

So why has the NDP fallen so badly?

The simple answer is power corrupts, or in this case believing that you are close to achieving power corrupts.

In 1993 the Canadians political scene saw a sea-change.  The Liberals roared into power as the revulsion towards the Mulroney Tories manifested itself at the ballot box on election day 1993.  When the dust settled the old Tory Party was virtually destroyed, the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party exploded onto the scene and the NDP did not win enough seats to achieve official party status.  

Thus began a decade of futility for the NDP, which went through three leaders in two elections.  They languished as the fourth party in Parliament for that whole time and it seemed that they would stay there for quite some time.  

Then they selected Jack Layton as leader of the Party and the Liberal government, which was getting very long in the tooth anyway , became mired in the Sponsorship Scandal.  (Note that was a true scandal and they deserved their fate for it.)  Suddenly, NDP fortunes picked up and the NDP began feeling good about itself again.  In 2004 and in 2006 the NDP picked up more seats and then in 2011 they became the Official Opposition, supplanting the Liberals in that role.  Many NDP partisans have pretty much sainted Mr. Layton for that feat but I have always thought they have overstated his achievement.  In reality all he did was lead the NDP to Official Opposition status opposite a majority government, one of the most frustrating positions to find yourself in the Canadian political system.  But now they believed that they were the "government in waiting" and that they would finally gain power in 2015.

Then the unthinkable happened.  The Liberals roared past them, relegating them to the third party yet again and they did not like it.  They believed their time had come, that it was their turn and they did not take their fate very well at all.  Any vestiges of their principles that they had left went out the window as they tried everything to regain their old position and have another shot at governing and people noticed.  The 2019 election saw their caucus cut in half and although some of that would have been people deciding to vote strategically to prevent a Conservative government that has always been overstated in Canada.  The reason for that reduction was Canadians turning away from the NDP.

Many have condemned Mr. Singh for his political tactics but I would assert that they predate him.  They began when Mr. Layton won the leadership because he decided that the NDP would cease to be the "conscience" of the Canadian political scene and become a political party that would shoot for power.  From his election to the present the NDP have continued to place the pursuit of power over principle.  2011 convinced them that they have an actual shot at it when all evidence and eight decades of historical voting patterns indicate that they are deluded themselves.  As long as this delusion persists the NDP will remain where they are and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they will suffer the same fate as the NDP did in 1993. 

The NDP is not the same party as it was 40 years ago.  Of course, none of the parties are but the current NDP has diminished itself by blind ambition and more and more Canadians are noticing.

Opportunities Coming Out of the Pandemic

The COVID 19 pandemic has been disastrous for many countries and Canada has not been spared.  Thousands of Canadians are dead who would probably not have died this year without the virus and the Canadian economy took a major hit.  Recent economic data has shown that the economy could be on the road to recovery but it is a fragile recovery at this time and it cannot be taken for granted.

Despite that all things come to an end and this pandemic will end at some point.  At that point the true recovery will begin and there will be a great opportunity to shape that recovery in such a way as to handle a whole host of issues, including climate change, poverty and income inequality, just to name a few.  

It would seem that the Trudeau government is planning on doing just that.  Lost in all of the hubbub around WE was an announcement a few weeks ago about converting the CERB into a Employment Insurance Program for the 21st Century.  Then a few days ago, buried in the news, was an announcement that further programs to address a whole host of issues would be included in an economic update scheduled for the Fall, although I would guess that it will be pretty close to a full blown budget as we still have not had one yet.  Part of that announcement was some of the programs and policies that will be included in the update will be announced in August 2020, which is this month.

Further, the Trudeau government announced that they were hiring Mark Carney as an advisor for planning the economic recovery post-pandemic.

So, while the Opposition and the media have been playing political games the Government is planning the recovery and they are planning on using the opportunity presented by it to address all sorts of issues they would not have been able to address in normal times.  And they would not be floating this idea if they did not believe Canadians are ready for that kind of bold thinking.  One thing that the government reaction to the pandemic has demonstrated is Canadians seem to be OK with government spending and they might even be getting used to it in sufficient numbers as to accept the costs of the programs that will be proposed.

This is probably not lost on the Opposition Parties.  One of the key people to plan this recovery is the Finance Minister, which is why they are so horny to have him resign or be fired.  If he were to leave their plans would be greatly disrupted, which is why I would be very surprised to see him leave.  

As well, Mr. Blanchette announced today that he would move a non-confidence motion at the first opportunity in the Fall, again unless Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Morneau (and Ms. Telford for some reason) resigned, to bring down the government and trigger an election.  The reason is simple.  If the government announces all sorts of new programs, in a Fall budget, that will address many issues important to Canadians it would be very hard just to prevent the Liberals from winning a majority government let alone beating the Liberals.  In 2000, Paul Martin brought in a budget that included $100 billion in tax cuts.  After that budget was passed Jean Chretien called an election, ran on that budget, and went from a 4 seat majority government to a 20 seat majority government.

The Opposition would like to prevent that.  Certainly, if they do the Liberals will just have an election platform with all of the measures they would include in the Fall budget but it would not have the weight of a government bill behind it.  It would just be an election platform.

So, in October we will either see an election or the Government will introduce, pass and begin to implement a budget that could put the country on a very different economic and financial path than before the pandemic.  I do not envy the position of the Opposition Parties.  If they trigger an election before a budget but during a pandemic voters might not be too pleased with them.  However, if they let the budget drop, and it is well received, then triggering an election by voting it down, during a pandemic, might not please voters either.  I imagine they will continue to fling their own feces at the government over the coming weeks because it would appear that none of them have actually given much thought on how to manage the economic recovery after the pandemic.

Regardless of the machinations of the Opposition Parties and their media cheerleaders it is interesting that the government is looking at the current situation as an opportunity create some good out of it.  I also am pleased that they actually seem to be thinking about and planning for a post pandemic world.  This government has been the most progressive government that I can remember and I am looking forward to what they have to offer for the recovery of the Canadian economy after the pandemic.

Time for Another Comment on Not Trusting Polls

Anybody that has read my posts before knows that I do not trust the public polls.  Having been in the survey business, during my career, I know that designing and conducting surveys is as much art as science.  I also know that there are ways to crank survey results that still meet the accepted standards for doing surveys.

Companies do not use polls to make money they use them as a marketing tool because there is no money in conducting polls.  If a polling company is conducting a poll on behalf of a media company it is usually on a cost-recovery basis and the media company will want estimates that will allow it to support whatever narrative they are pushing.  If a polling company is doing a poll just to do a poll they are spending their own money on it so they will be as economical as they can be, in which case it becomes a situation of "You get what you pay for."

As well, do not get me started on poll aggregates and seat models.  There are no industry standards for them so how they create their models is totally up to the modeler and none of them are without bias.  I remember during the last election a poll came out that was very favourable to the Liberals and when I went to check a certain seat model, that shall remain nameless, that poll was not included on the list of polls used to create the model.  No reason was given of course but the polling company was one of those companies with a generally good reputation so it was a mystery as to why it was excluded. 

Which brings me to the polls we have been seeing for the past few months.  Many Liberals cheered on the Liberals' rise in the polls as the pandemic unfolded.  Now the Liberals are sinking in the public polls and many Liberals are worried, citing the WE issue as being the problem.  I am not so certain that WE is the culprit as it has been in the news for a month and it had no impact on the public polls until week four.  Seems odd to me and a little convenient.

At any rate, good or bad, none of that really matters.  I have always said if you want to see what the true state of politics is in the country watch the political parties.  

The Liberals are just doing their job as the government.  You would not have known the polls, during the spring, were saying they could win more that 200 seats.  On the other hand when the WE issue hit they did not try to change the channel like alot of governments do when they find themselves having to deal with controversy.  Again they have just been doing their job.  

The Opposition Parties on the other hand have been having conniption fits.  Even before the WE controversy they have been trying to create some kind of scandal.  Anybody remember the Harrington Lake issue a few short weeks ago?  Their desperation has been palpable for awhile.

The reason is simple.  The Liberals and the Conservatives and maybe the NDP keep polling and data analytics teams on retainer.  They would have continued to do so to help them fine tune their message and they are not just the minimalist, superficial polls like the public polls.  They do in depth data analysis using the latest data analytics techniques.

What would these data be telling the the parties.  My guess for the Liberals is they did get a boost from their handling of the pandemic and its economic fallout.  More importantly I believe the data is telling them that the favourable opinion of the government is hardening as time goes on.  They expect some fluctuation but it will be from a higher baseline than just a few months ago.  As this situation continues it will only harden more because change in public opinion is glacial.  It does not change quickly.  Further I would bet that their internal data are telling them that the issue most important to Canadians is the pandemic.  Other issues are well down on the list of concerns.  So, all they need to do is stay the course.  It is the best course for winning the next election.

The problem for the Conservatives and maybe the NDP (if the have the money for internal polling) is their data is probably telling them the same thing.  They know the longer this situation goes on the harder it will be to bring that baseline back down to just prevent the Liberals from winning a majority government, let alone unseating them as the government.  Hence, the increasingly strident attacks on the Liberals, about everything and anything they can think of.  They need some issue, besides the pandemic, to break through the consciousness of Canadians.  To make things worse they are dealing with a minority government, which does not give them the luxury of time in which to do it.  Ironically, if we had a majority government there would not be the same urgency as there is now.

So, as usual, I would say ignore the polls.  They are not reliable in really assessing the political situation in the country.  Watch the parties and what they do.  To the discerning eye they are a much better indicator of what is happening.  Just watching them it looks like the Opposition Parties are in much greater trouble than the Liberals.  That could change but for now I would say that is the situation.

Corruption in Politics

I have been accused by a few people that my particular political bent prevents me from getting upset by perceived or real corruption on the part of Liberal governments.

This is wrong.  I do not get upset by perceived or real corruption on the part of any government.  The Senate Expense Scandal did not bother me.  The bald face patronage of Mr. Ford does not bother me.  The fact that Mr. Kenney is under two RCMP investigations does not bother me.  Hell, even Adscam did not bother me.

The reason for this is simple.  Humans using their position to help themselves and/or their family and friends is a human trait.  We all do it and we have been doing for around 2 million years.  It is part of the human condition and it cuts across partisan lines.  To expect it to stop because a person gets elected to public office is about as reasonable as expecting public office holders to give up sex while they occupy office.  Certainly, checks should be put in place to prevent abuse but I can guarantee you that every office holder will take advantage of any and all available loopholes regardless of what political party they belong to.

I am a big believer in not getting upset about things I cannot change.  It is good for my blood pressure and it is good for my mental health.  I cannot change human nature with my vote.  Nor can I change it by other means.  So I have learned to look past it and focus on the big issues that we face as citizens of Canada and as Homo sapiens.

How a government deals with the big issues or how a political party seeking a mandate to govern proposes how to deal with them is what is important to me.  The governance style of a government is important to me.  I will always choose a government that governs using evidence over one that governs according to their ideology.  The competence of the government is important to me.  How well do they handle themselves in a crisis?  Are the actions they are taking during a crisis helpful or harmful? 

Governments have a job to do and how they do that job and the outcomes that come about from them doing their job is what is important.  The rest is not.  

I have Said it Before You have to Fight to win not Fight fair

Watching the ongoing WE saga and the tactics being used the Conservatives and, a little surprisingly, the NDP I am reminded of this post that I wrote back in 2009.  It still applies.

Conservative Parties on this continent are playing the political game to win and they do not care how they win.  The reason is they realize the Conservative Consensus is eroding and they are trying to reverse that.  They will not succeed but that will not stop them from trying. It will only make them try harder.

I have stated several times in this space that progressive parties must copy some of these tactics if they wish to put the Conservative Consensus behind us before it cause more damage to the economies and societies of North America.

I know such a suggestion make progressive uneasy because they do not want to "stoop" to that level.  Progressives believe that if they lose with honour they can claim a moral victory.  What crap, the only reality is you lost and progress away from the Conservative Consensus is delayed some more.

Although I appreciate the positive style of the current Liberal Party I would say that I would not be too upset if they began to attack the policies proposals of the Conservative Party and that they become relentless in doing so.  Do not stoop to personal attacks or scandal mongering but relentlessly question how the Conservatives will address many of the big issues of the day and/or pick their policy choices apart.  It is a failure to do so that contributed to allowing Doug Ford and Jason Kenney to be elected. 

The Conservatives and NDP Must be Happy about a Compliant Media

It was a grave political error to invite Prime Minister Trudeau to the Finance Committee meeting.  It was an even bigger error to show up to that meeting with nothing new to ask him, with no great revelation that could have put him off his messaging.

You had to know that he would show up extremely well briefed and they should have known that he would have kept his wits about him regardless of how belligerent they became.

They failed to do all of this and the result is their one-and-only chance to question the PM over WE came and went with the PM on top.  He managed to get his message out without any interference by any of the Opposition MPs.  

Of course the invitation to appear before the Committee was tendered in the belief that the PM would turn them down, as most PMs in the past would have done.  That would have given the Opposition another talking point.  I could imagine the panic that gripped the leadership of the Opposition Parties when Mr. Trudeau said yes.   At that point the leadership of each party should have got together "in a room" and come up with a strategy on how to question him.  Instead, it was amateur hour.  None of the Opposition Parties strategized how to question the PM and so all they did was give him a free hour in which to present his side of the story.

Which brings us to the media.  Thankfully for the Conservatives and the NDP the media has been pushing the same narrative as them.  The media is invested in that narrative as much as the Conservatives and the NDP so they will not let the PM's testimony interfere with that.  However, he is the PM so I suspect that what he said will receive a fair amount of attention in the media over the next few hours and that is not good for said narrative.

Oh yes, many would not have been paying attention to this outside of what the media was telling them.  So, the first time that many might actually focus on this issue will be to see Justin Trudeau being his usual calm self answering questions from increasingly frustrated and belligerent Opposition MPs.

What about the future?  The questioning of the PM was supposed to be the climax.  The coup de grace by the opposition.  Instead it was a dud.  I am certain that they will do their best to keep this thing in the news but once the PM has spoken many will wonder why they would continue to talk about it.  You accused the guy of all sort so things.  You questioned him on them and he answered the questions.  What else is there to say?

A final note, Mr. Trudeau looked like he became more relaxed as the time went on.  Hell, a couple of times I would even say he was enjoying himself.  I imagine that he went in wondering if they would throw a curve ball at him, some issue or accusation that had not been discussed before, that we would have had to field.  As it became obvious that they had nothing new he began to relax.

A short lesson on Contribution Agreements

The so called "We Scandal" has been occupying the Opposition Parties and the media for some time because, you know, we are not living through a global pandemic.  Then again, the Liberals have no one but themselves to blame.  If they would just screw up their handling of the pandemic and its economic fallout the Opposition and the media would actually have something substantive with which to criticise them.

Oh well, we are stuck with WE.

I have largely been ignoring the whole thing but I did listen to the public servants who set it up because if we were going to hear facts it would be from them.  They did not disappoint.

One fact that stood out was the deal with WE was set up using a Contribution Agreement (CA).  That is a key fact.  Grants and Contributions are the main avenues for governments to give money to companies and individuals.  As a result there are a great number of rules and regulations around providing them.

So what is a grant and what is a contribution?  A grant is the government giving money to a recipient after they have met some set eligibility requirements.  If you meet the requirements, you receive the funds and there is no control over how you actually spend the funds.  Think of grants to university students.  You may apply for a grant to help with your tuition but once you receive it you buy a new top-of-the-line stereo system instead.  (No that is not what I did with my first student grant in the '80s, during my first year of university)

Contributions are an agreement between the government and a person or organization where the government agrees to provide funds to assist recipients in achieving objectives that align with the priorities of the government.  There are eligibility requirements.  If the recipient meets them they can then gain access to the funds.  How the funds are spent are closely monitored by the government.  CAs are legal agreements between the recipient and the Government of Canada.

The key to a Contribution Agreement is the recipient is not given any of the money upfront.

What did this mean for WE?  Simple, WE signed a Contribution Agreement with the government to distribute funds to students.  The amount was around $900 million but that money was not transferred to WE.  It was set aside by the government so that WE could draw down from it to achieve the objectives of the program they were to administer.

Normally, when a recipient enters into a CA they must first prove that they have sufficient funds to achieve the project objectives without government assistance.  The CA then stipulates how much government assistance the recipient can expect. Usually it is around 50% of the total.  Example:  if the recipient has a project that will cost $1 million they can ask for 50% of that from the government.  In order to receive this money, however, the recipient actually has to spend the money and then make claims to the government, providing all of the necessary financial documentation, in order to be reimbursed some of their expenses.  Usually those expenses include administrative fees, which are usually between 8 and 10% of the original amount and which are not included in the original.  So using my example:  the recipient would sign a CA for 50% of a $1 million project, for which they would be able to claim $550,000.  If a recipient submits a claim for work not agreed to in the CA then it is rejected and the recipient is not reimbursed any funds for that work.

For the WE program it would be unreasonable for the government to expect the charity to have $900 million.  As a result the CA was set up to provide WE with a series of cash advances.  This does not mean the government just cut them a check.  In order to receive the cash advances WE would have had to request them, providing a highly detailed plan of how they would use the cash advance.  Once the plan was approved and they received the funds they would then have to track how they spent the funds and submit that to the government.  The government would then review those expenses to be certain that they used the money as agreed upon in the CA and the documentation submitted to request the advance.  If it was found that they did not use it as agreed upon THEY WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PAY THE MONEY BACK.  The cash advances would never be for the whole amount available.  WE would have had to submit several cash advance requests over the life of the program in order to receive the funds. 

All CAs include plans for auditing how the funds are used by the recipient.  If an audit finds that the recipient did not use some of the funds as agreed upon in the CA the recipient WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PAY THAT MONEY BACK.  And trust me, if you owe the government money as a result of contravening a CA they will be ruthless in collecting it.

This is a key point because regardless of the relationship of the WE Charity to any government official, or to members of their family, they would not risk putting themselves on the hook for owing the government money by using funds in a way that contravened a CA.

Or to put it another way the founders and the management of the WE Charity would have been taking a very big risk in misappropriating any of the funds made available for their own purposes.  

So, the WE Charity was never going to receive $900 million without strings attached and the opportunities to cheat the government would have been almost none existent.   Those are the key facts in this whole issue.  Most of the rest is partisan BS.

The Failing of Canadian Media

Last week the Global Television Network announced layoffs in its news division.  This is just the latest announcement by the so called Main Stream Media about job losses.  Job losses in the Canadian MSM can probably be called an epidemic by now as I do not believe any Canadian MSM organization has not laid people off in the last couple of years.  And there is every indication that they will continue as most of them are still showing some financial difficulties.

So why is the MSM having such a hard time?

There are probably many reasons, not least of which, competition from non traditional sources of news available on the internet.  However, I believe one big reason is the Canadian MSM has allowed itself to become propagandists for Conservative parties in Canada.  That is a recipe for business failure.

Election, after election have indicated that Conservatives are a minority in this country.  They are out-numbered by 2-to-1.  So, catering to the minority it going to turn off the majority, which is going to lead to lower revenues and profits.  

I am a case in point.  I am political animal.  I follow politics very closely and I used to watch many of the political news shows, like Power and Politics, quite often.  Not any more.  I have not watched any of those shows in a long while because they have just become a Conservative echo chamber.  Even when they have a non-Conservative on the show it is usually a "Liberal" who has been out of politics for sometime and for whom the Liberal Party has moved on from.  As well, I will no longer pay for my news.  I do not watch TV news (although I did watch it for about 6 weeks when this pandemic really got started), I do not pay for any newspapers and I will not buy an on-line subscription either.

I am not alone. 

By turning their backs on around 70% of their potential audience they essentially set themselves up to fail.  Why are they doing this?  Well, it is not a secret that much of the Canadian MSM are owned by ideologues who want to use their companies to push the conservative agenda in a quixotic attempt to convert Canada to a conservative country.  So it is a race.  What will happen first?  Canadians will become more conservative or the MSM will essentially fail completely and become totally irrelevant.  I would not take any bets on the MSM winning that race.

The funny thing is if a media company were to come along and actually just report the news without the propaganda it would probably make a killing.  No spin, no sensationalism, no click bait.  Just good old fashioned news that deals with the facts of the story and allows the consumer of it make their own conclusions.  I would consume the news from such a company.

No industry can turn its back on 70% of its potential customers and expect to succeed.  But that is exactly what the Canadians MSM has done.  The outcome of the continued diminishing of the traditional MSM is inevitable unless they change that.

The Conservatives Missed an Opportunity

A few days ago I wrote a series of posts on Facebook to provide some context around the announced $343 billion deficit from the economic update.  I did that because that number is an eye opener.  I do not fall for all of the doom and gloom hype surrounding the deficit and debt but even I was rather wide eyed when I saw that number.  That number had collective Canadian sticker shock written all over it.

I believed at the time that the Conservatives and the media would jump all over that deficit and the shock it might have caused and keep on jumping all over it for days on end.  Instead it only lasted a single news cycle and then quietly went away.

I know why.  The Conservatives and the media could not resist a perceived scandal and they have such a low opinion of Canadians that they believe that we cannot pay attention to more than one thing at a time.  So, they had to make a choice.

They made the wrong one.  

Regardless of what the Conservatives and the media think, scandals, real or otherwise, do not have the staying power that they seem to believe they do.  Unless a scandal takes place during or immediately prior to an election they usually do not have a real impact on where voters place their X on the ballot paper.  No election will be held for at least another year.  The COVID virus will prevent one from happening until it is behind us, with January being the best case scenario for that to happen.  As well, none of the Opposition parties are inclined to trigger an election, for a whole host of reasons and the Liberals appear to be focused on governing instead of playing political games.

So, if the Conservatives really want to challenge the Liberals in a year or so they should be laying the groundwork right now and the announced deficit was a big issue in which to start doing that.  Most Canadians have been well conditioned by the chattering classes to be wary of deficits and debt, even if that conditioning is predicated on advancing a false narrative about them.  Although the current situation would have been used to justify the current deficit, a relentless campaign against it, over the next year, would probably have paid dividends for the Conservatives.  

Preston Manning proved that.  When he took over as the leader of the Official Opposition in 1993, leading the Reform Party, he launched a relentless campaign against the deficit.  He was so single-minded about it that many commentators began to ridicule him about it but it worked.  His campaign against the deficit forced the Chretien Liberals to address it.  Mr. Manning's plan was pretty simple.  Force the government to deal with the deficit, which would have forced them to make some very hard choices around taxes and spending cuts to get it done and hope that the choices they made would make the Liberals so unpopular that Canadians would give the Reform Party a shot.  Unfortunately for Mr. Manning his timing sucked and he launched his campaign at the beginning of what would be a 15 year period of very healthy economic growth.  The result was employment increased, with the increase in government revenue and the decrease in government expenditures, allowing the government to bring the deficit under control without the tough decisions Mr. Manning was hoping they would have to make.  It was a contributing factor to the Liberals' victories in 1997 and 2000.

Give Mr. Manning his due.  He was the leader of the last Official Opposition that effectively opposed the government.  No Official Opposition party, of any political stripe, has been nearly as effective as the Reform Party was between 1993 and 1997.  

Really effective opposition parties play the long game.  They take one or two substantive issues where they believe the government will be vulnerable for the foreseeable future and they relentlessly push the government on them.  It is a little risky because if they choose the wrong issues they hamstring themselves but it has proven to be the best way to steadily wear down a government.  Instead, the current Opposition parties are just pursuing non-issues and personally attacking the PM.  Although that might play well to the base and it might bump up the fund raising it is not conducive to long-term success.  

Maybe when the Conservatives choose a new leader they will change tack and actually come up with a coherent line of Opposition but considering the candidates for that position I would not count on it.  If they do not then the Liberals are the prohibitive favourite to win the next election.