At this point of the campaign, the national
media seems to be eager to anoint Justin Trudeau the rightful heir to the
throne. After a few years of gaffes and less than stellar performance in the
House, leading a party that was dealt a humiliatingly distant third place in
the 2011 elections (not on his watch, of course), Mr. Trudeau has found his
swagger. He has done well in debates, and presents to the Canadian public the
prospect of electoral Change in a familiar red package, complete with a party
leader who is everything that the incumbent is not: handsome, young, and able
to smile without looking like he’s recently sucked on a lemon.
Some argue that it doesn’t matter, as long
as it’s not the mouldering box of Same Old Same Old that Stephen Harper’s been
keeping in the cellar next to a sack of smelly potatoes.
I think it matters rather a lot.
Trudeau’s breakthrough was his bold promise
to cast aside the modern mania for balanced budgets and spend, spend, spend.
Infrastructure spending is something that conjures up FDR’s “New Deal”, an
image that is easy for a lot of us to latch on to in today’s 21st-Century
Depression economy. (Some pedants will argue that it’s not technically this or that, but I would suggest that only indicates
they’re out of touch with what the average Canadian’s life looks like in 2015.
It ain’t pretty, even if it ain’t quite Tom Joad.) But what does that mean,
exactly? “Infrastructure” makes us think of Canada’s crumbling roads and
bridges. That sounds good, right?
It turns out, not so much. As was nicely dissected
by Andrew Coyne here, “less than a quarter” of the new spending would be for
actual, physical infrastructure, $4.2 billion dollars. If that doesn’t sound
like a ton of money to be pumped into the many municipal economies around the
country who are strapped for cash and watching their roads crumble, you’re
right – it’s a drop in the bucket. The rest of the increased funding goes to
other things as “investments”. And while no one who fancies themselves a
progressive would argue with the virtue of putting more money in the hands of
the battered CBC or veterans, amongst other worthy causes, after a decade of
Harper and his favourite pair of scissors, this does not constitute the major
cash injection that Mr. Trudeau would prefer we imagine. It’s spreading a bit
more money around, but there’s no particular project that will be “fixed” at
the end of it.
It’s a lot of flash, but not a lot of
substance. Will Canadians notice a huge difference at the end of this cash
injection? Or will they feel like their lives have mostly remained the same as
they have been, under Harper’s watch – and the earlier stewardship of the
Chretien-Martin Liberal party. Let’s not forget: Paul Martin merrily presided
over slashing spending to the CBC way before Mr. Harper decided they could get
by with a rolled-up newspaper and the photocopied face of Peter Mansbridge
mounted on the end of a hockey stick. We tend to mythologize the Liberal rule
of the 90s as a time of free spending, of plenty, but the Liberals were as
tight with their purse strings as Mr. Harper. They just had the grace to smile
while they were fleecing you. (And, some would say, “that ain’t nothin’ ” in
the cynical world of politics.)
The Liberals also have a long history of
making big promises in elections, tacking to the left to pick up as many NDP
voters as possible, then shrugging and smiling while they say the cupboard’s
bare after the votes are counted. The Liberals have promised national childcare
programs in their “red books” on several occasions. They’ve never followed
through on that promise. But at least they smile.
The most telling part of the Liberal platform
is in their response to Bill C-51, a travesty of invasive policing without
oversight that has torn many voters with libertarian leanings away from their
usual Conservative support to seek haven amongst the progressive parties. C-51
is the kind of awful, overreaching legislation designed to stoke up the voter
base by promising swift justice to terrorists and malcontents, and incidentally
anyone else the Harper government decides is an enemy of the state.
Progressives knew it was bad juju, and have been loudly demonstrating about it
for some time, bringing together a wide range of people who don’t want Canada
to turn into a police state in the name of security. Strange bedfellows, etc.
The Liberals, including Mr. Trudeau, voted for C-51.
This is a piece of legislation so dire that
tie-dyed-in-the-wool hippies, digital anarchists, artists, scientists,
academics, and yes, gun advocates and libertarians fearing the overreach of Big
Government, all saw the problems with it and took to the streets (or Twitter,
Canada’s internet Main Street but with more swearing). Justin Trudeau and the
Liberals voted for this bill.
And no, they are not planning on repealing it. The Liberals claim that they will
amend the bill, and they’ve recently been scolding anyone calling for repeal as
panic-mongers. For anyone keeping score, that sounds an awful lot like the kind
of tactics Mr. Harper made famous in his tenure. Anyone who suggests
disagreement with the party opinion is simply Not Canadian Enough.
The Trudeau Liberals also support the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, just like the Harper Conservatives. Another piece of
political dynamite that a wide range of people are concerned about, and voting
accordingly.
This is hardly surprising, however, because
despite their rhetoric, the Liberals are indeed an Establishment party. They
have deep pockets and many wealthy allies, many of whom are salivating at the
chance for another bonanza after a long time in the political wilderness. Don’t
believe me? Do a little mental arithmetic: estimate the number of ads for the
Liberals you’ve seen in the last few weeks, compared with that of the NDP or
the Green party. How many times have you seen Mr. Trudeau walking in place on
an escalator? Walking toward you across a sunlit meadow, speaking in calm,
reassuring tones? Railing against Stephen Harper? I’ve lost count of the number
of ads I’ve seen just during the Blue Jays playoff games.
The Liberals have no intention of cutting
off a potential gold rush for Canadian Big Business, even if it means the
average Canadian pays more for drugs. Or has less digital security.
They will take care of their friends. They
always have.
The Liberals won’t be engaging in any
meaningful Senate reform beyond “merit based” appointments of Senators to end
the partisan nature of the institution. That should surprise no one, because
the Liberals have many party loyalists in the Red Chamber. The Senate supports
and reinforces the power of Establishment parties like the Conservatives and
like the Liberals. It isn’t there as the house of “sober second thought” so
much as a place where the Old Boys decide what kind of democracy actually gets
to fly in this two-bit country. And yes, a place where party hacks go to while
away their years on a fat salary and expense account, and many have found ways
to squeeze even more largesse out of the public purse.
Partisanship is only the flaking coat of
paint on a rotten house, and Trudeau has no plans to change course. His
response to the Senate scandal, implicating Liberals like Mac Harb in addition
to Conservative appointees like Mike Duffy and Pam Wallin, was to expel Liberal
senators from the Liberal caucus. As though that magically changed the
loyalties of those Liberal appointees, comfy at their public troughs, making
them independent and accountable. That was just another coat of paint, one so
thin that it doesn’t cover up the word FRAUD bleeding through from the previous
one.
It will all be different when we’re in
office, Mr. Trudeau says, you can trust us.
And smiles.
