Category: Chairman’s Desk

This article originally appeared in the Toronto Star on March 15, 2020.

I was disappointed this week to learn that one candidate in the race for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership had stooped to a new low by besmirching the name of an opponent while hoisting the standard of racism and Islamophobia.

If you’re unfamiliar with the name Jim Karahalios, you could be forgiven. After all, the Cambridge, Ont.-based troublemaker is best known for his Axe the Carbon Tax campaign and his legal disputes with the Ontario PC party. In other words, he is a nonentity in a race which will almost certainly come down to the two leading candidates: Erin O’Toole and Peter MacKay.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that Karahalios is relying on name-calling to draw attention to his otherwise lamentable campaign. Last weekend, Karahalios’s team distributed an email attacking O’Toole and accusing O’Toole’s volunteer campaign co-chair of advocating for the implementation of Sharia law in Canada.

Karahalios’s decision to attack O’Toole co-chair Walied Soliman was not just desperate and inappropriate, but also bizarre. For context, Soliman is a long-time party activist and fundraiser. He is widely liked and respected. Further, not only is he chair of the Canadian arm of Norton Rose Fulbright, one of the largest and most successful law firms in the world, he has served as their global chair as well.

Soliman has consistently been ranked as one of the country’s top lawyers, serves on the board of Toronto’s SickKids Hospital Foundation, and just months ago was recognized by the United Nations Association in Canada as its 2019 Global Citizen Laureate. His accolades speak for themselves, as does his long record of generosity and service.

But that’s beside the point.

Karahalios’s xenophobic attack is a reminder of the unfortunate reality that even with a reputation like Soliman’s, Canadian Muslims face uniquely vicious scrutiny for their faith.

I say his record is beside the point because it simply shouldn’t matter how successful or charitable an individual is. Like every other Canadian — Jewish, Christian, atheist or otherwise — their belief (or lack thereof) should be a matter for them, their family and their community. It most certainly should not be a political football to be lobbed in order to undercut the legitimacy of an opponent’s campaign.

In a country like Canada, which prides itself on the secularism of its public sphere, we cannot lose sight of the lived experience of those who face prejudice for their faith. Even as other barometers of social progress like the status of women and acceptance of homosexuality have moved in the right direction, religious tolerance remains a work-in-progress.

It’s easy to forget that just a few decades ago, some of Canada’s largest cities were essentially segregated along lines of faith: Catholics lived in certain neighbourhoods, while Protestant and Jewish families lived elsewhere. While that reality has changed, attitudes toward religious diversity can still be problematic.

Think of Quebec’s Bill 21, which essentially bans all religious symbols from the public sector. Not only does it send a frightening message to Muslims and other religious groups, it sows the potential for social discord.

Consider the example of a veiled woman boarding public transit. Thanks to the specifics of the law, a bus driver or transit employee is now entitled to ask her to verify her identity by removing her covering. Beyond the humiliating nature of such a request, it goes against the principle of individual liberty that a public employee should be empowered to discriminate based on someone’s clothing or religious observance.

At a time when Canadians are as divided as ever along lines of geography, class and political affiliation, it’s incumbent on our leaders to face down divisive language about religion and faith, loudly and definitively condemning nonsense from the likes of Jim Karahalios.

As with the homophobic views of Richard Décarie, I look forward to Karahalios’s realization that his opinions will find no home in the Conservative party or in Canada at all, for that matter. With two weeks to go until the next leadership race qualification deadline of March 25, with a bit of luck he will not have to wait very long to learn his lesson.

This article originally appeared in the Toronto Star on March 8, 2020.

As the latest coronavirus outbreaks have reached us at home, Canadians’ concern has morphed into a growing hysteria. The virus will, no doubt, have some long and lingering effects on our economy and tragic consequences for some of our elderly and most vulnerable populations.

But in the grand scheme of things, the panic is unwarranted. While every Canadian should be careful to protect themselves and their families, the end of times this is not. COVID-19, like the other coronaviruses that came before it, will pass.

Here in Ontario, we are arguably more prepared than ever, thanks to the experience of the 2003 SARS outbreak. Our ministries of health — federal and provincial — have learned tough lessons from that episode, particularly regarding the breakdowns in communication which marred an effective response.

What’s more, thankfully, we in Canada also have the benefit of governments at every level who understand that a health crisis should be managed by scientists and experts, not politicians.

That said, while we can be confident in our governments’ response, the COVID-19 issue has revealed a larger problem: the epidemic of mistrust Canadians have in their public institutions. Over the past 30 years, there has been an observable decline in our collective confidence in institutions like government, “big business,” news media and democracy at large.

This trend is not unique to Canada but rather a problem throughout the developed world. Thirty years ago, 41 per cent of Americans trusted their federal government, “always or most of the time.” Last year, the same pollster found that number had dropped to 17 per cent. For specific institutions, the numbers are not much better. Over three decades, Americans’ confidence in the presidency and congress declined 34 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively.

Brexit, Donald Trump and other manifestations of populism are all results of this decline. And even in otherwise healthy democracies, this deficit of trust has damning implications in times of crisis; no better evidence of which is the ongoing reaction to the spread of COVID-19.

From the moment China alerted the WHO to cases of an unusual respiratory virus in the Wuhan region, suspicions abounded. After so many lies and half-truths to the world about even the smallest things, the Chinese government has made it impossible for anyone to trust them. So, when Beijing deployed a stream of apparatchiks to assure us that everything possible was being done to contain the virus, skepticism was the default response.

Iran, the country with the highest reported coronavirus death rate, has stubbornly refused to share information and delayed crucial action to manage the outbreak. What’s worse, recent events like the downing of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 have eradicated Iranians’ trust in their leadership, and in turn their willingness to listen to the advice of health agencies and ministries.

In the West, our response to the crisis has been hampered by mistrust, as well. President Trump has done his best to “own” the crisis, appointing Mike Pence as the White House’s coronavirus czar and making an appearance in the press briefing room, which has been dormant since July.

But for all his best intentions — questionable as they are — the president’s actions have only served to stoke distrust and paranoia. On Wednesday night, Trump went so far as to suggest that the virus is a Democrat “hoax,” cooked up to hurt his chances for reelection. What does it say when the U.S. president questions the authenticity of an epidemic that has already claimed the lives of 12 of his fellow citizens?

In times like these, the rot of skepticism and mistrust can prove fatal.

Reading the National Advisory Committee’s report on SARS and public health, I was struck by the language that riddles the section on “systemic deficiencies” in Canada’s response.

Chief among these deficiencies were the absence of protocols, uncertainties about data ownership, inadequate capacity for investigation, lack of coordination and weak links between health stakeholders. Each of these factors is marked by a failure of communication, exacerbated by a culture of mistrust, delegitimized institutions and general paranoia.

How frightening then that, such is the time in which we are living, when we most need to trust, we find that we just can’t.

This article originally appeared in the Toronto Star on March 2, 2020.

Two political debates in two countries, What a striking study in contrasts.

The first was the Democratic debate in Las Vegas. I wrote last week how Bloomberg’s entrance to the ring has revitalized the primary race, and how his first debate was about worthy of Vegas. Americans, it seems, agreed. The broadcast smashed ratings records with 19.7 million viewers, more than watched the Grammys or Golden Globes.

The second was the Ontario Liberal leadership “debate” on TVO – though I use the term loosely for it was really more like a kabuki performance of a debate. On both stages stood six candidates, but beyond that the two events could not have been more different.

The reason the OLP debate was such a farce is that it was over before it started.

By debate night, Steven Del Duca already had the race sewn up. Earlier this month, it was announced that he had accumulated an insurmountable lead of 62.5 per cent of delegates.

In the shadow of a national election, railway blockades and COVID-19 stories, the race that will lead to this coronation was generally a tepid and uninspiring affair, one now destined to end in a sad, forgotten convention centre when Liberals convene on March 7.

For a party deep in the wilderness and arguably in the grips of an identity crisis, a coronation is neither productive nor helpful. Sure, the Democratic primary looks messy, but at least it’s a real contest of real ideas. Is the Democratic Party a party of the left that will champion expensive and ambitious social programs? Or is it a party of the centre that will offer a home to disaffected Republicans?

The Ontario Liberals missed an important, perhaps even critical, opportunity on the road to renewal by avoiding a similar clash of visons and ideas. By falling in line, the Liberals have elected to carry on the legacy of the previous government, in which Del Duca served, most memorably as Minister of Transportation.

What many missed is the prize just might be worth winning after all. For a broke party without even official status, the Liberals were polling as high as 33 per cent in mid-January, narrowly besting the sitting government. If they could get the party’s act together – a tall but not impossible order — the next leader stands a chance of becoming premier. And yet the race failed to attract any of the rumoured heavyweights, so here we are.

Already, the PC party has been conducting focus groups about their presumptive challenger. These groups were reported to have been inconclusive. “Nobody knew who the hell he was,” as one source summed it up to the Star. That may very well be the appeal. Either way, the Liberals are now preparing to anoint a blank slate.

But there are termites in the Liberal house. When a pollster asked voters which party they would vote for on a generic ballot, the Liberals beat the PCs by six points. But when they asked the same question with leaders’ names attached, Del Duca’s Liberals lost to Doug Ford’s PCs – by seven points.

While it’s early days, and that’s only a single poll, the results of Thursday’s byelections were instructive. That said, it seems clear Ontario voters are not exactly in the grip of Del Duca-mania.

With the OLP race now a foregone conclusion, I have watched with interest as Bernie Sanders has pulled ahead in the Democratic primary. His rise has caused much consternation among the party’s establishment, who worry he may well become their Jeremy Corbyn – a progressive albatross around the necks of candidates all the way down the ballot.

In truth, there’s a strong case to be made for Bernie’s electability. In head-to-head national polling Sanders consistently tops Trump by a small but meaningful margin.

And besides, imagine if the Democrats had conducted their race with the same attitude as the OLP: They would have nominated former vice-president Joe Biden and sleepwalked into a second Trump term.

It seems Democrats remember the dangers of their 2016 coronation. Time will tell if the Liberal one works out any better.

This article originally appeared in the Toronto Star on February 23, 2020.

In his 1913 book, “Essays in Rebellion,” British journalist Henry Nevinson illustrated an issue facing the Atlantic fishing trade.

The problem: when shipped in tanks overseas, cod tended to be “lethargic, torpid … prone to inactivity, content to lie in comfort … rapidly deteriorating in their flesh.” The solution, devised by an enterprising fisherman, was to insert one catfish into each tank, ensuring that each cod came to market “firm, brisk, and wholesome … for the catfish is the demon of the deep, and keeps things lively.”

Nevinson thus introduced the concept of the catfish as a stimulating, corrective presence that forces its neighbouring creatures out of their inertia. Over a hundred years later, the term “catfish” has become a popular expression for social media users who, while pretending on the internet to be someone they are not, play the same kind of role.

Watching the Democratic primary debate this week in Nevada, it became clear that former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg is, himself, a catfish. Setting aside the unflattering comparison to Nevinson’s “demon of the deep,” it now looks like Bloomberg’s greatest impact as a candidate will be in his capacity to jolt his competitors out of their lethargy. He may not come out on top — characterizing his debate performance as disappointing would be kind — but his candidacy will cull the field and refocus the race.

For months, the democratic primary has felt underwhelming. Initially framed as a coronation of former vice-president Joe Biden, surprises along the way have culminated in Sen. Bernie Sanders’ firm dominance in most national polls. Virtually all pundits agree that position will erode as the field narrows to just one or two centrist alternatives to the Vermont senator’s staunch socialism.

But the reality is, aside from Sanders’ proposed political revolution, none of the candidates has really caught anyone’s imagination. Biden seems to have fallen asleep at the wheel, Pete Buttigieg has yet to garner any serious support from crucial minority groups and Elizabeth Warren’s emphasis on substance over style has left voters wondering whether she is up for a general election fight.

But all of that changed on Wednesday night.

For the first time, each candidate seemed energized, on their toes and unafraid to throw punches. Like a catfish among the cod, Bloomberg forced his stage mates to eschew their friendly demeanour and act like the competitors they are.

Warren came for Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar swung at Mayor Pete and perhaps most significantly, Sanders learned to defend himself from exactly the kinds of attacks that he would face from Donald Trump.

Responding to Sanders’ ardent defence of democratic socialism, Bloomberg noted how “wonderful” the U.S. must be, considering “the best-known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses.”

Sanders was taken aback. The senator is used to attacks for his socialist views but has yet to experience any serious challenge to the working class bona fides, which have defined his entire political identity. His flustered response shows just how unfamiliar Bloomberg’s tactic was. No doubt the Sanders camp was taking notes.

The similarities between Bloomberg and Trump — both are defined by their wealth, brashness and New York City demeanour — make the former mayor a perfect debate proxy for the president. And no one took better advantage of this than Warren, who spent most of the debate attacking Bloomberg.

After months of Warren’s restrained focus on policy solutions, many have wondered whether she could put up the fight necessary to take down Trump. Last week, she answered that question, explicitly comparing Bloomberg to Trump and tearing down Bloomberg’s “history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women and of supporting racist policies.”

For the first time, voters could see just how Warren scraps. She stuck to her principles, was articulate and proved that she can fight back without getting covered in mud.

In reality, the rumble in Nevada may not make a difference: Bloomberg’s $400 million (U.S.) ad buy will reach millions more Americans than the debate did. Regardless, the catfish has been set loose in the tank.

This article first appeared in the Toronto Star on February 16, 2020.
As a surge of populism sweeps the world, many Canadian commentators climb onto their high horses, pat themselves on the back and declare Canada immune to this short-sighted selfishness.

Problem is, if you look below the surface, that notion simply doesn’t hold water.

Canada is not unaffected by the factors that are driving this shift: the forces of globalization, increasing inequality, a shrinking middle class, automation and disruptive technology.

For many, these forces are not theoretical ones. They impact their everyday lives. One needs to think no further than the almost 400,000 Canadian households who depend on a cashier for part of their family income. Self check out will soon see them checked out of work.

The business pages of the past month alone tell a bleak story: Papyrus will shut all its Canadian stores; athleticwear retailer Bench will do the same. After 50 years, Mega Bloks is closing its 580-person factory in Montreal. Bombardier is being dismantled in front of our eyes. And analysts anticipate worse losses to come.

As the economic landscape has changed, so too has the political. In every provincial election since 2018, the winner has been a conservative or centre-right government. This trend has led many to conclude that the electorate has shifted to the right.

That thinking is mistaken. Instead, what we have seen is a shift toward populism.

Conventional wisdom has taken hold that says these impressive provincial majority victories represent an endorsement of a right-wing agenda.

But the proof is in the polling and it suggests otherwise. A December 2019 poll found 69 per cent of Ontarians disapproved of Premier Doug Ford, while 50 per cent had a negative view of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. Trouble came for both when they began to pursue right-wing, fiscally conservative policies.

In contrast, Quebec Premier François Legault did not suffer the same fate. He has tied his political fortunes to Bill 21, a brazenly populist piece of legislation that also happens to be supported by nine out of ten Quebecers.

Circumstances have driven Canadians to become increasingly focused on themselves and their pocketbooks. Who can blame them? It is difficult to be generous to those who come after you, if you are faring worse than those who came before you.

It’s not that Canadians have given up on grand projects of social cohesion or nation-building. It’s simply that they feel they cannot afford them. So rather than elect Kenney to get spending under control at Alberta Health Services, he was elected to build a pipeline and deliver the jobs that would come with it.

In Ontario, voters turned to Doug Ford because of an affordability crisis, expecting him to deal with unsustainable increases to the cost of living, from hydro prices to gas prices to taxes.

This populist turn is constraining the ability of politicians to dream big and undertake nation-building projects. No sane prime minister today would undertake the GST; none would pursue a pioneering free-trade agreement. Just as short-termism has taken hold on Bay Street, it has taken hold in corridors of power.

As politicians come to embrace populist sentiment, corporate Canada should expect provincial or federal governments to act against them. So, as it has gone elsewhere in the world, where populist governments are in power in some of the world’s largest democracies, it will go here.

In India, Narendra Modi was first embraced by business, but he has since brought policies effectively skimming 60 per cent off corporate profits. In Indonesia, President Widodo has nationalized large swaths of the economy. President Trump has both waged a trade war and subsidized the farmers who are its primary victim.

The trend is not constrained to right-wing politicians: New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern is young, liberal, and populist. Mexico’s new president is raffling off the presidential plane in an act of working-class solidarity.

Already, our federal government has come for the pharmaceutical industry with mandated reductions in the price of patented medicines; they have come for the telecommunications industry with a pledge to cut the price of phone bills by 25 per cent despite lacking any policy mechanism to effect such a change.

Canada is not immune to populism. In fact, we may already find ourselves firmly in its grip.