Month: June 2021

Last week’s G7 summit in Cornwall was the very model of modern, multilateral politicking. Against the backdrop of sunny beaches and clear blue skies, leaders of some of the world’s largest economies walked and talked, posing together every step of the way.

Pre-summit hopes had been in overdrive. Cornwall was, after all, the first such summit in the so-called post-COVID era, and the first G7 attended by the new leaders of Italy, Japan, the United States and the European Union. A more civilized, internationalist approach to the issues of the day seemed to be heralded by the inclusion of leaders from Australia, India, South Korea and South Africa.

But despite all the promise of a brighter tomorrow inherent in the summit, a crippling sense of nostalgia or, more accurately, amnesia turned out to be the dominant theme.

Perhaps that’s because, to a person, the leaders onstage seemed content to pretend the last four years of contentious feuding, silly gamesmanship and embarrassing breaches of protocol and convention had been a blip. A speed bump on the otherwise open road to greater co-operation and interdependence among nations.

Indeed, apart from elbow bumping in lieu of handshakes, the summit could well have taken place in 2015 — before COVID wrought havoc over the globe; before Donald Trump walked all over the idea of unity among western allies with his grandstanding.

But no amount of self-congratulatory affection between western leaders could return us to that halcyon era. So, we were instead forced to watch as the G7 proved itself unable to grapple with reality. In the process, it became painfully obvious that the institution is not fit for purpose.

Sure, some accomplishments were achieved — but they entailed a healthy dose of hypocrisy.

The meeting agreed to donate one billion COVID vaccines to the COVAX sharing initiative — though Canada’s own contributions will only come from returning the vaccines it took from COVAX in the first place!

The gathered countries also pledged to support the education of 40 million girls globally. Sadly, this pledge has been described as an “empty promise,” given the host country’s own decision to cut its overseas aid commitments — including those aimed at girls’ education!

Although leaders reached an agreement on reducing carbon emissions, ultimately it is woefully insufficient in the eyes of climate advocates. Activist Greta Thunberg sarcastically noted that “G7 leaders seem to be having a good time presenting their empty climate commitments.”

But perhaps the greatest oversight of all was on the part of world leaders who celebrated the return of a U.S. president who is “part of the club,” to quote French President Macron.

The unfortunate reality seems to be that Macron, German Chancellor Merkel and their fellow internationalists — our prime minister included — are behaving as though the Trump years were an aberration, rather than a sign of the times. They forget that a plurality of Americans and a majority of Republicans have made it clear they’d rather blow up their club altogether.

Of course, a large part of this complex stems from the group’s disdain for Trump. Aside from Britain’s Boris Johnson, no G7 leader could stand the former president. Because they found him so repugnant, they refused to acknowledge his legitimacy or his impact on the global order. And they refuse to imagine that the U.S. may well return to his form of politics.

But given the state of the American public opinion, it is not inconceivable that a more palatable Trump minion could be sworn into the Oval Office in 2024.

And there is one leader who is wise to this possibility: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Following their meeting, Putin capitalized on political rifts in the U.S. by questioning the legitimacy of arresting those involved in the Jan. 6 uprising.

“People came to the U.S. Congress with political demands … they’re being called domestic terrorists,” Putin said.

For his part, Putin clearly understands the same fault lines that delivered Donald Trump to office are still very much active. Let’s hope his western counterparts wake up to the same.

Inevitably, over time, the differences between elected governments and the bureaucracies that serve them blur. The result? They join together in one of the great pursuits of governing: the creation of the unnecessary regulation.

Then the pendulum swings and a new government comes to power, having campaigned on a promise to sweep away the cobwebs and modernize our regulatory state.

Though it feels like ancient history, there was once a time when the Ford government might well have been defined by its efforts at reducing red tape. After all, once in office, Ford and his government quickly brought forward at least four rounds of legislation, efficiently packaging together repeals of outdated or redundant regulations. It was the kind of sensible, small-government reform that Ford has always excelled at selling his voters on. “We have counted some 386,000 regulations. We will cut 25 per cent of them.”

It’s not quite clear how far they got, because COVID-19 disrupted this work — or, as it now appears, advanced it in some unexpected ways. As we look ahead to the end of the pandemic, the question to ask ourselves is what we want to carry with us into the future, and what we want to leave behind.

In a funny way, the pandemic has been the ultimate exercise in red-tape reduction. Out of dire necessity, we stripped away a whole host of outdated and illogical regulations (adding, of course, many others for reasons of health and safety).

Sixteen months later, and suddenly no one can remember why restaurants couldn’t sell alcohol with takeout or delivery in the first place, or why one couldn’t attend a courtroom hearing virtually, or file some paperwork with the government by uploading it online.

It turns out we don’t need endless public consultations, study after study and a pilot project with a report to be considered — all to make a common-sense change to our liquor laws or any of these other areas of public policy.

We can simply cut to the chase.

These are just three small examples — there are countless other instances of burdensome rules or regulations that were repealed in short order for us to function during the pandemic.

The Ontario government is not the only one to learn this lesson. In the field of philanthropy, Mackenzie Scott’s similarly inspired approach to giving also dispenses with unnecessary red tape.

Since her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Scott has gone on an unprecedented donation spree, giving away $7 billion to nearly 400 organizations in a span of just four months.

She has achieved this by moving swiftly to identify a worthy charity and then giving a substantial gift with no strings attached. Oftentimes, she has given to causes that were considered “unsexy” or overlooked, like affordable housing lenders or historically Black colleges and universities.

Compare this approach to the one taken by the Gates Foundation, which gave away over $6 billion last year but employs 1,600 people and has years of network-building behind it. With Scott’s method, there is no proposal stage, no massive team, no protracted negotiations — just a worthy recipient and a much-needed infusion of cash.

If her approach sounds so simple as to be obvious, well, it is — but it took the profound crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic for us all to realize that there were different, and maybe even better, ways of doing things.

There is nothing wrong with the Gates approach, just as there was nothing self-evidently “wrong” about Ontario’s old ways. It was just that a better way of doing business existed, if we cared to reach for it.

Of course, regulations are needed, but there is no reason that any regulation repealed during the pandemic should not simply stay repealed. Finally, the onus has been reversed — let the rule-mongers make the case for why some ordinance must come back.

My hope, post-pandemic, is that we have the courage to put its lessons to good use. Keep what we need to but embrace our creativity to change what we can. I also wish for my pizza to continue to arrive accompanied by a great pinot.