Since Donald Trump won the recent United States presidential election, Canadian policymakers are trying to anticipate a variety of plausible scenarios to deal with an unpredictable leader and his intentions on everything from trade to mass deportations, border security, currency, NATO, climate action and energy.
The president-elect’s threat to slap 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports to the U.S. on his first day in office caused immediate alarm in Canadian political and economic spheres, as have his social media posts making reference to “Governor Justin Trudeau” and the “great state of Canada.”
There was a rapid response from the federal government, generating enormous media coverage, demonstrating a skill at which Trump is particularly adept — getting attention.
Canada has been sending delegations to the U.S. all year in anticipation of Trump’s election. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland assured Canadians after the Nov. 5 election that “Canada will be absolutely fine.” In short, the government is ready and demonstrating a steady hand in the face of the current chaos.
Pandemic lessons
It’s encouraging to hear the government has a co-ordinated plan, but before rushing to adapt, both federal and provincial governments should reflect on their recent experiences handling the COVID-19 pandemic and the dangers of being overly adaptive.
After describing the pandemic as low risk to Canadians throughout January and February 2020 — similar to Freeland’s “Canada will be fine” message today — governments leaned in hard on pandemic mitigation efforts in March 2020.
Their interventions had numerous cascading effects: they generated inflation and contributed to the mismanagement of immigration, temporary foreign workers and housing policy. Government procurement practices were subject to abuse. The national debt ballooned, a bill to be paid later. The response also had a devastating impact on non-pandemic-related health care.
And this went on for months, in time obscuring what the true cost of the pandemic was, how trade-offs between pandemic response and other priorities were being weighed and who was carrying the cost of the response.
When powerful bureaucracies become fixated on a problem, there is nothing quite like it. They can develop a singular focus, and neglect trade-offs and debate. Everything is framed by one issue.
Unlike the situation in the United Kingdom, Canadian governments have made little effort to examine in a broad sense the lessons from the pandemic. This reveals how complex governing is today, but also the dangers of responding only to crises immediately in front of us.
Team Canada approach?
There is no question that Trump’s election and what he represents are consequential for Canada and the world.
It’s appropriate to take a precautionary response in the face of an uncertain threat with potentially devastating and irreversible consequences, one that is informed but not dictated by reasonable worst-case scenarios.
But precautionary approaches need to be used sparingly — with an understanding of the rationale along with determinations of who is accountable for what — and in a time-limited manner. There must also be a general sense of overall cost. In an effort to ensure stability in one policy area, we can create instability in other areas, planting the seeds for the next crisis.
Crises, of course, are not necessarily bad news for those in power. They create opportunities for unpopular governments, allowing them to commit to immediate and definite action in the face of a top-of-mind issue for Canadians. During the first three waves of the pandemic, for example, all governments that went to the polls were re-elected with increased numbers of seats.
Trump’s election has therefore created an opportunity to describe the U.S. as the source of volatility, drawing attention away from the instability in Canadian Parliament and the sagging popularity of the Liberal government, which has been a dominant issue for months.
We are now inundated with calls for a Team Canada approach, which serves to gloss over divisions in national politics.
The day after the U.S. election, for example, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh called for unity among all federal parties in light of the result.
The instability of minority rule
Minority governments are unstable and expensive. The current dynamic in Canadian Parliament will unleash numerous negotiations in the House of Commons, the bureaucracy and in federal-provincial relations as expensive deals are negotiated to secure the federal government’s standing.
The HST/GST holiday announced on Nov. 21 and derided by many economists is the most recent example of such politicking.
Ironically, Singh perhaps more than anyone else could bring more stability to the situation by persuading his caucus to bring the government down in a non-confidence vote. According to polls, an election would likely result in a Conservative majority, which would constitute a more stable arrangement than the current Parliament.
Of course, Singh is unlikely to do it; the NDP has outsized impact as long as the government depends on its support.
An election also has its own risks. It could quickly become solely about Trump and Canada’s relationship with the U.S., much as the 1988 free trade election was fraught with emotional appeals about national identity.
Free trade was important, to be sure, but so were other issues, like the introduction of a consumption tax, which became the GST. That tax was almost completely overlooked in the 1988 election. Ultimately, it played a role in the demise of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, profoundly altering the Canadian political landscape.
Amid Trump’s chaotic style of leadership, it’s important not to allow him to completely overwhelm our politics, public agencies and national discourse on a daily basis. Canadians also need to have a greater sense of how various public policies are interdependent and how these interdependencies shape government decisions.
If the federal government continues to jump at every move by Trump, Canada will simply be in a constant state of managing crises — while sowing the seeds for others.
Kevin Quigley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
