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Category: Chairman’s Desk

Advice to party leaders on summer stumping

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This piece first appeared in the Toronto Star on June 23, 2019.

As the warm weather finally sets in and the House rises for the summer, the leaders of our federal parties will begin to have visions of electoral success dance in their heads.

Conventional wisdom tells us Canadians don’t want to hear from their politicians at this time of year — they would rather tune out the news and let leaders flip burgers and pal around at the Calgary Stampede.

But before they checked out for the summer, millions of Canadians gathered around their television screens to watch the Raptors claim the country’s first NBA title. And third-party advertisers took advantage of record television audiences to impress upon Canadians the key narratives and frames that will follow the leaders into the fall federal election: Andrew Scheer was tagged as “weak.” We were reminded that Justin Trudeau is (still) “not ready.”

And Jagmeet Singh’s current position in the polls meant he suffered the ultimate humiliation: no one even bothered to attack him.

So while it may be traditional to take a pause before the start of the campaign, the intensity of the pre-emptive air war (and the increasingly stringent campaign spending rules) has changed the conventional calculus that leaders can take a break and simply ramp things up come September. Now that the messaging of their opponents has begun to take hold, it would be a mistake to allow it to set in over the summer.

For the prime minister, bad news abounds: the Conservatives are leading in the polls and many observers predict the Liberals would be lucky to secure a minority.

Trudeau’s polling has been worsening since mid-February, around the time that Jody Wilson-Raybould resigned as Minister of Veterans Affairs amid the SNC-Lavalin affair. But there may be a silver lining. That decline seems to have finally slowed, along with the steady Conservative gains that accompanied it.

Now it’s up to the prime minister to convince Canadians there is still a job to be done, and he is the right man to do it. Along the way, he would do well to avoid further gaffes, like his comment about “drink-box water bottles.” Such moments may seem benign, but they are red meat for the likes of viral content factories such as Canada Proud.

For Andrew Scheer, the most crucial thing will be for him to build his own brand, distinct from the Jason Kenney-Doug Ford coalition that has come to define conservativism in the minds of many Canadians over recent months.

Polls suggest this has not worked to Scheer’s advantage, particularly in Ontario, where candidates out door-knocking have found voters conflating the provincial party with their federal counterparts — and not necessarily in a positive light. While the Conservatives have effectively capitalized on Trudeau’s SNC-Lavalin woes, their momentum has been slowing. Scheer should devote his summer to travelling the country, making himself more accessible to Canadians and proving he is a viable option as prime minister.

Considering the New Democrats’ dismal standing in the polls to date, my advice to Jagmeet Singh is simple: batten down the hatches.

With support crumbling in former “Orange Wave” ridings, the NDP leader needs to accept the reality that this campaign is not a winning opportunity, but rather an attempt at survival. For the party, that means they must carefully prioritize ridings they can actually win or hold, rather than make any long-shot efforts at incursions elsewhere.

What’s more, the weakness of the NDP seems to be paying off for Elizabeth May’s Green party.

On Tuesday, Ekos released the first poll to show the federal Greens ahead of the New Democrats. While it may have been less than a two-point lead, it’s clear the party’s message is resonating with at least some Canadians.

With another elected MP by her side, May should be laser-focused on maintaining that momentum over the summer.

For every leader, I would advise them to remember — as the Raptors victory and so many other events have shown us — that this is truly a year of firsts. Anything can happen, especially during an election. And while that may be a blessing for some, for others it may well prove to be a curse.

Ontario Liberals opt for good TV at leadership convention

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on June 16, 2019.

Two weeks ago, the Ontario Liberals began the long and arduous process of rebuilding their shattered party. Now reduced to a caucus of five — or what some impolite wags refer to as “the minivan caucus” — the party membership gathered in Mississauga to determine just how they will go about selecting a new leader next March.

The business of drafting the rules of a leadership race may well conjure up stereotypical images of smoke-filled back rooms but the work is anything but arcane. Recall how for the federal Liberals, the race that brought Justin Trudeau to the helm of the party also revitalized the entire organization. It brought in a new generation of excited members and garnered a tsunami of earned media coverage.

That’s why so many observers were puzzled by the choice the Ontario Liberal party made last week to effectively keep the rules of the race the same as before: the provincial party decided against dropping membership fees, and more importantly, against moving away from a delegated convention in favour of one-member, one-vote.

Under a delegated convention, riding associations elect delegates, who assemble at a convention and choose the new leader through a series of successive ballots. Under a one-member, one-vote approach, which most Canadian political parties have adopted, all party members get to cast their vote, typically through an online portal. In that model, the convention functions simply as a venue to announce the results.

Even though the Liberals adopted a hybrid system in 1991, which allows party members more say in how delegates cast first ballot votes, delegated conventions have been derided as antiquated; this very newspaper called the OLP’s decision “old-style.”

Old style it may be, but there is, of course, the sheer spectacle of it all. There is a reason that American political parties have continued to opt for delegated conventions. Delegates shifting their allegiances among the candidates in real time, punctuated by rousing speeches from would-be party leaders, all makes for compelling television. And if there is something the Ontario Liberals could use right now it is some compelling television. Brutal has been the fall from government to no-party status.

In January 2013, when the party elected Kathleen Wynne at such a convention, television networks ran non-stop coverage for nearly two days. Eric Hoskins staged a theatrical floor-crossing, feigning a walk to Wynne’s rival Sandra Pupatello before marching over to Kathleen’s camp. CTV News called it a “thrilling” convention and mourned the prospect that it could be the last conducted in this way.

In 1996, when Dalton McGuinty was elected leader, it was a classic dark-horse race that didn’t end until 4 a.m. With delegated conventions, the drama comes baked in.

On the other hand, one member, one vote formats often deliver results that are expected. That’s because the format favours front-runners with large organizational and financial resources. At least that has, more often than not, been the story of the history of the Conservatives in Ontario. Think of Patrick Brown, John Tory, Tim Hudak and Ernie Eves.

The exception, of course, is Doug Ford and it may well be that concern about the emergence of an equivalent insurgent candidate had an impact on the decision the Liberals made last week.

Finally, there is the practical matter of the vote’s integrity. Using an online portal has proven liable to technical difficulties, which can forestall or even overshadow the ultimate outcome. The race to replace Jack Layton as leader of the federal NDP was plagued by hacks and overwhelmed computer servers. The entire unfortunate affair sapped the excitement out of Thomas Mulcair’s victory, and he struggled for some time to regain momentum.

Given all of this, it was no surprise the Liberal party fell short of the two-thirds vote of the members needed to change the system. The race for the next leader will consume the party through March 2020 — already, several contenders have thrown their hat into the ring, including Steven Del Duca and Michael Coteau.

And one way or another, I bet we’ll all be watching.

A lesson in valour from Juno Beach

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on June 9, 2019.

On the Normandy coast, the few remaining brave veterans gathered, their numbers depleted by the unrelenting ravages of time. They were joined by politicians from every nook and cranny of our country, military brass, and serving soldiers, sailors and airwoman and men.

And thousands upon thousands of everyday Canadians and French. All gathered to commemorate, and remember, the 75th anniversary of the largest combined military operation in history and, arguably, the crucial turning point in the Second World War: the Allies D-Day landing.

The air was filled with an almost partylike atmosphere. The weather was glorious. Event planners from Veterans Affairs Canada efficiently checked guests off lists and issued colour-coded wrist bands. Along the route, French authorities closed roads and provided motorcycle escorts.

The French stood by the roadside and, all these years later, expressed their enduring gratitude with quiet and solemn waves. Canadian flags, along with those of our allies, flew everywhere — not just from public buildings but from homes and apartment balconies.

Friends greeted friends. They made plans for dinner. It felt peculiar, almost surreal.

As we took our seats for the start of the ceremony, that feeling didn’t change. As lovely as it was, it all felt, in many ways, no different from many other ceremonies. Bilingual. Inclusive of our Indigenous sisters and brothers. Anthems were sung. Music was played. A thoughtful speech was given by our prime minister. It was all, well, appropriately Canadian.

And then everything changed.

From the beach came 359 young Canadian and French boys, each one representing a Canadian who was killed on that day 75 years ago. And from that beach those kids kept coming and coming.

Each carried boots or flowers or a helmet in remembrance but it was their age, roughly the same as those who lost their lives, which made the greatest impression of remembrance on me.

It was at that moment that I truly understood the difference between valour and courage.

Courage, of course, is the ability to do something one finds frightening, while valour is strength, determination, heroic bravery in the face of unimaginable danger.

Part of the act of remembrance is to remember that these were boys — kids we would call them today — who fought a war which was not their own. They were volunteers, every last one of them, who understood that the duty of a free citizen is the willingness to fight to preserve that freedom.

They took the beaches, many of them in their first military engagement, and remained fiercely committed to holding that ground as the world fell apart around them.

And the beach was only the beginning.

Their belief in a better world drove them further and further — from the beaches of Normandy to the heart of the continent and beyond. Caen, where Canadian flags flew this week alongside the tricolore, was a turning point on this road to salvation. A city martyred for peace and the enduring belief in something better.

And like the city itself, that hope has endured. The veterans who spoke on Thursday told a story that books never could. A story of valour but also the insanity of a time when young people were sent into the world with Canadian emblems sewn not onto their backpacks but rather the shoulders of their uniforms.

And when the war was done and they came home, they went on to be, in the words of journalist Tom Brokaw, the “Greatest Generation,” for their resolve coming of age in the Great Depression and their sacrifice in the Second World War.

Standing on Juno Beach, I came closer to understanding the power of that resolve, realizing how the discipline of one step forward can carry a person — and a generation.

And closer to understanding just how important Laurence Binyon’s words from his poem, Ode of Remembrance, are.

As he said, “we will remember them.”

Give our democracy the TLC it deserves

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on June 2, 2019.

As spring gives way to summer, so too will the predictable rhythm of governing in Ottawa and the ever-so-predictable antics of question period give way to the high-energy, much less predictable, winner-takes-all stakes of a federal campaign.

And, as the parties’ planes and buses start their engines, commentators like me will surely lament that the upcoming election will be the nastiest, the lowest, the meanest, the most divisive of all time.

These commentators will then bang on about how, left unchecked, this horrible behaviour will result in the end of the world as we know it — or at least in a mortal weakening of our cherished democracy.

Hands will be wrung over the “Americanization” of our system and of the perils of campaigns targeted at the “low-information” voter. The echo chamber of social media and so-called “attack” advertising will be blamed.

But just before we get carried away and reach for the Prozac, there are two points worth considering: one is the evidence and the second is our role in all this.

First, the evidence. Our democracy is simply not in peril. In the last federal election, and in each of the last elections in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, voter turnout went up. That’s right, participation in each of those elections increased.

It is simply not true, on the evidence, that modern campaigns and modern campaign practices are turning voters off. Rather, the evidence suggests that Canadians respond when a clear choice is offered, when the various competitors lay out distinct differences in their visions, and when other civil society actors get involved.

The tools available to strategists have changed, to be sure. And with those changes come some problems: some structural, some transitory, and some more fairly characterized as growing pains.

But it is a mistake to simply pine for the good old days, which usually weren’t that good. Rather, it behooves us to understand the power of these new tools to level the playing field. To make it possible to reach more people and to do so in a way that is more meaningful and personal.

Barack Obama became president of the United States and leader of the free world by motivating people who had never voted before to vote for him. He accomplished this using the exact techniques that are so often vilified and condemned.

It also behooves us to understand our own role in the electoral process. And our role is not to simply stand at the side of the road, watching as the parade goes by. Our role, the role of each citizen — and note that I did not say each taxpayer — is to become part of the parade.

After all, the way to get politicians to act in a way that’s more to our liking is to join with them in the pursuit of that most important right — the one from which every other right and all freedom flows — the right to freely choose who will govern us.

And that is not a big ask. It is a once-every-four-years ask. And here is what it looks like.

Imagine the impact it would have on our elections, on the politicians who compete in them, on the media who cover them, and on the special interests that have a huge stake in their outcomes, if we all figured out how to get involved.

If we all took the time to read each party’s platform. Bothered to go to an all-candidates meeting and asked a question. Went to a committee room and volunteered. Took a sign or, better yet, signed up to put up signs.

If we gave even $25 to our preferred candidate; wrote a letter to the editor; organized a coffee party with friends, or simply talked to our families and colleagues at work; or walked our young kids with us to the polling station and modelled being an informed voter.

They say the grass is always greener where you water it. Maybe a little water is all our democracy needs.

Trudeau trying to navigate uncharted digital waters

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on May 26, 2019.

 

This week, as more than 25,000 tech execs and entrepreneurs from around the globe descended on Toronto for the Collision Conference, the parallels between Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada and the companies that define Silicon Valley, and (increasingly) Toronto and Montreal were striking.

Both are largely founder-driven.

Both are searching for organic growth, and looking to broaden their total available market — of users in the first instance and voters in the second.

And, both, have lost some of their lustre in recent years with heightened public scrutiny resulting from issues of ethics and values.

So, as panellists discussed topics like, “Move Slow and Fix Things: Can big tech bring back the shine to their fallen star?” and “From Darlings to Damaged: Managing tech’s reputation in an age of heightened scrutiny,” it was perhaps no surprise to see Trudeau and his Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announce a digital charter: Ten principles designed not only to underpin all future legislation but to guide reforms to the existing patchwork of laws that govern our digital lives as well.

Bains and Trudeau say the rationale behind the charter is a desire to restore trust in our institutions and technology, giving Canadians confidence that their privacy is protected while also bolstering a nascent domestic tech industry.

The reality is that it will be impossible to pass meaningful legislation before the House rises in a couple of weeks.

Not that it bothers Team Trudeau. More than a real plan for regulation, the document is a statement of principles, a glimpse of a future Liberal campaign plank.

It is not hard to imagine Trudeau campaigning on this issue — he is young enough to be conversant in online issues. Remember the praise and adulation in 2016, when he stood in front of a chalkboard covered in math equations and handily explained quantum computing to an adoring media?

But he is not alone. His NDP counterpart Jagmeet Singh, who is himself a savvy user of Snapchat, could out flank him by calling for the immediate regulation of tech giants, like Facebook or Amazon.

Across the Western world, leftist political parties are following the lead of the Europeans in regulating tech companies, riding a public “techlash” driven by scandals such as Cambridge Analytica and an endless parade of hacks and data breaches.

In the United States, Democrats jostling for the 2020 presidential nomination are racing to out-do each other in their plans to trust-bust Facebook, the same way Teddy Roosevelt did Standard Oil or Clinton did Microsoft.

There is an audience for all of this because the public believes when it comes to privacy-protecting regulations, government is chronically running three steps behind the biggest, most advanced tech companies.

Consequently, governments now face the same challenge they did in regulating Bay Street. Those who really have the know-how and technical understanding to draft regulations find it much more enticing to work for industry than for government.

In his speech announcing the digital charter, Trudeau referred to the digital sphere as a “Wild West,” a fitting descriptor both because it can be a dangerous place — Trudeau’s remarks were delivered at a conference devoted to combating hate speech online — but also because there exists enormous financial opportunity.

The challenge with the digital charter is thus to strike the right balance between preserving the nascent but lucrative technology ecosystem (a $100 billion industry in Canada) and addressing the public’s sudden concerns.

To do so, the charter includes a number of principles about consumer protections. In addition to obvious privacy and safety rights, users should have control over what data to share, and the ability to transfer it from one company to another without “undue burden.”

This last idea, known as “data portability,” will be a boon to both users, and to startups, by making it easier to transfer personal information away from legacy companies.

The fact of the matter is most companies, operating in a sphere without strict borders, already comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and realize more stringent regulation is on the horizon.

The digital charter is simply the opening salvo in a long war to come over the governance of technology in Canada.