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Category: Chairman’s Desk

The gift of social media helped Trudeau, but it can also take away

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on May 19, 2019.

 

When Justin Trudeau took the stage in October 2015 to celebrate the Liberals’ majority victory, he spoke of his party’s “positive vision,” for Canada.

Their campaign, he said, had “defeated the idea that Canadians should be satisfied with less, that good enough is good enough and that better just isn’t possible … this is Canada, and in Canada better is always possible.”

As we head into what may well be one of the closest and most unpredictable election campaigns in recent years, his words that night could not be more prescient. This is Canada — and, especially in an election year, Canadians will be looking for something better from their politics.

Four years ago, polling showed that two-thirds of Canadians wanted a change in government. And it was that longing for something new, not just in policy but in style and approach, which Trudeau’s team so effectively harnessed and rode to their majority.

Their “Real Change” platform explicitly laid out the stark contrast between Tory present and Liberal future. Stephen Harper on the other hand concluded his foreword to the Conservative platform by claiming his Economic Action Plan was a success. “It’s working,” he said. “Let’s continue on with what we know works.”

In attack ads and campaign messaging, the Tories characterized Trudeau’s “celebrity” appearance — and especially his hair — as proof of style over substance. On social media, the Liberals responded by claiming that he had both and did so in a way that was charming, pithy and most importantly, viral.

From the new-found power of Instagram to the traditionally influential pages of Vogue, the prime minister managed to capture the attention of the digital age in a way few politicians, Canadian or otherwise, had.

And it worked. Trudeau came to be deemed Obama’s successor as the leader of the world’s progressives.

But what was clearly Trudeau’s greatest asset in 2015 may well be his undoing in 2019.

The problem with a campaign built on self-image and the optics of virtue is that people, inconveniently, expect it to be true. And what is fairly easy to execute in a campaign setting becomes near impossible to implement when governing.

What’s more, the gift social media gives, it also takes away. Unlike campaign advertising or stump speeches — which Canadians know is contrived — the power of social media lies in the sense that what you are seeing is, at least to some extent, genuine.

And so, when Canadians see their PM beaming with pride over his gender-balanced Cabinet or taking a selfie with a young couple while out for a jog, style becomes conflated with substance.

And now, after four years of governing, that conflation has become a collision. The chickens have come home to roost. In short, Trudeau is paying the price of the expectations he set when he promised to be a new and different kind of leader and began to practice the politics of political celebrity.

By dubbing himself the “feminist Prime Minister,” Trudeau opened himself up to the attacks that inevitably followed his expulsion of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from his caucus.

In trumpeting his commitment to Indigenous communities — not least of which being a visit to a teepee set up by activists on Parliament Hill — Trudeau set himself up to be pilloried not only for his slow progress on Indigenous files but for tone-deaf responses to Indigenous protestors.

And by claiming the mantle of Canada’s traditionally welcoming stance on immigration as his own, he has made himself vulnerable to the attacks of challengers who want to paint him as responsible for what they characterize as an unsustainable influx of irregular border crossers.

Many believe governments are not defeated, but rather that they defeat themselves. On the whole, I disagree. I think, in most cases, governments are elected to do a particular job, and when that job is done, another party is called up to bat.

For Trudeau, the job he was hired to do was to bring, in his own words, sunny ways to government.

Now that is done, Trudeau’s challenge is to rewrite his job description in a way that convinces Canadians he still has work to do and is still the best leader for the job.

Norman case another blow to Canada’s justice system

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on May 12, 2019.

Another year, yet another unsuccessful highly public prosecution.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors announced a stay of charges against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, ending a four-year circus that took an untold toll on the reputation, finances and family of a career public servant with an otherwise unblemished reputation.

The decision by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) also had a benefit for the Liberal government. It ended the awkward prospect of a trial, which would have featured a parade of high-level cabinet ministers (current and former) along with their colleagues from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office.

Many commentators smell a rat — a desperate measure by a government to save face ahead of an increasingly tight election. I don’t share their view.

Credit where credit is due: Norman’s remarkable lawyer, Marie Henein and her spectacular team, robbed the PPSC of the “reasonable prospect of conviction” test, which the service needed to proceed.

And while Henein went out of her way to praise the integrity of the PPSC, she was not so kind to the Department of Justice and the government itself.

As Henein put it, “No person in this country should ever walk into a courtroom and feel like they are fighting their elected government or any sort of political factors at all.”

This whole sorry business raises serious questions as to what is going wrong with the administration of justice in this country.

Time and again, we have seen high-profile prosecutions collapse or defendants decisively acquitted. It is now clear that there are systemic problems that drive these failings, not least of which is the way investigations are prioritized by police agencies like the RCMP.

Most cases pursued by the PPSC are led by RCMP investigators, who seem to take forever. What’s more, when it comes to significant political and corporate securities cases, prosecutors, it seems, are often not equipped with the evidence they need to see the case through.

Consider the RCMP’s three-year investigation of Sen. Mike Duffy. Years after his suspension from the Senate, Justice Charles Vaillancourt acquitted Duffy of all counts and criticized the Crown for the deficiencies of their case. Shortly thereafter, the Crown decided not to charge Sen. Pam Wallin after another three-year probe by the RCMP.

We have seen this issue at the provincial level as well. In 2017, Gerry Lougheed and Patricia Sorbara were investigated by the OPP for more than two years for alleged bribery violations of the Election Act. The trial was highly politicized and then-Premier Wynne even travelled to Sudbury to appear as a witness. The presiding judge acquitted both Lougheed and Sorbara by way of a directed verdict, arguing that no reasonably instructed jury could convict based on the Crown’s evidence.

It appears there is a common thread that runs from the Senate investigation to that of Mark Norman. Due to the highly publicized and political nature of each, the PPSC and the police forge ahead with cases that will ultimately be abandoned or blown out of the water at trial.

All too often it seems, prosecutors carry on because they are fearful of dropping these high-profile cases. They take the position that it is too risky for them to exercise their prosecutorial discretion, and they’re fond of saying, “That’s what we have judges for.”

In the process, precious resources are wasted, and untold harm and reputational grief inflicted on those who are accused. Not the least of which is having their lives on hold for years, and the uncertainty that accompanies that.

To be clear, broad prosecutorial discretion is a prerequisite for a healthy criminal justice system. Without wide latitude in exercising that discretion, the Director of Public Prosecutions and her colleagues would be denied the true independence on which we all depend.

But after so many false starts on the part of the PPSC, the question must be asked: at what point does the excuse of a series of unrelated occurrences stop and a troublesome pattern begin?

It is a concern that needs to be raised if the very foundation of our justice system — the public’s confidence in its competency, fairness, impartiality and independence — is to be upheld.

Lt.-Gov. Dowdeswell using her bully pulpit to better society

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on May 5, 2019.

 

In the cut and thrust of the increasingly divisive and polarizing way politics are being practiced today, one of the most worrisome developments is the loss of the bully pulpit.

In some ways an old-fashioned notion, today’s practitioners seem to have forgotten its power of moral suasion, to forge consensus, to truly lead.

The notion of the bully pulpit came to prominence in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, who realized the presidency afforded him an unparalleled platform to promote his priorities and outlook for the nation. Roosevelt took advantage of the prestige of the White House and cultivated relationships in order to convince Americans — and in turn, an intransigent Congress — that the challenges of industrialization required drastic measures in the form of regulation.

Today, politicians have come, wrongly in my point of view, to believe that the bully pulpit itself is no longer a powerful tool. Rather, they favour announcements, programmes and spending.

As one premier once told me “I don’t get out of bed to announce anything less than $100 million.”

The result? Public discourse has become transactional rather than aspirational. More and more, it has become focused on the here and now at the expense of building a better tomorrow.

One civil society leader, instructively not a politician, who understands the power of the bully pulpit — in spades — is Ontario’s lieutenant-governor, the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell.

Her Honour deeply understands this platform and its uses. In fact, she refers to herself as the province’s “Storyteller-in-Chief,” and broke with tradition in her inaugural speech by stressing not her priority focus but instead her commitment to use the office as a forum for reflection and “a crucible for ideas.”

On Tuesday evening, I watched Dowdeswell in action in her suite at Queen’s Park as she delivered a speech to open her latest exhibit, Speaking of Democracy and provided a textbook example of the bully pulpit in practice.

Her Honour spoke of the strictly non-partisan nature of her role, and her duty as the guarantor of responsible governance. She noted that viceregal representatives have been described “as a conscience … representing the hearts, minds and souls of citizens.”

She then went on to make a point that has stuck with me.

“Democracy,” she said, “is about so much more than government. It is about … how we learn to live together on this planet in peace and harmony. And so I ask questions, hoping to evoke the best of ourselves.”

While Dowdeswell has clearly mastered the use of the bully pulpit, she also benefits from our Canadian system of government with its viceregal offices spread across the country.

As representatives of the Crown in Canada, governors general and lieutenant -governors alike have an opportunity to reach Canadians in a truly unique way. Well beyond their purely ceremonial duties and important institutional role, viceroys can focus their tenure in office on specific initiatives that appeal to our better angels: for Michaëlle Jean it was freedom and cultural integration, for David Johnston, philanthropy and volunteering, for Dowdeswell, issues of citizenship, democracy, the environment and Indigenous reconciliation.

What’s more, they can make their offices truly inclusive and accessible.

Since being invested in 2014, Her Honour has commissioned five exhibitions, accepted over 50,000 visitors to her suite in Queen’s Park and conducted more than 3,300 engagements. She has represented Ontario on international visits from Utah to the U.K., France, Italy and Switzerland, making the case for Ontario’s place in the world. Most importantly, she has visited over 110 ridings across the province, promoting citizenship and meeting with Ontarians to hear their perspectives on the well-being of community and civil society.

In doing so, the lieutenant-governor has used her bully pulpit to help provide everyday citizens with answers to their important questions and has done so in a way that models an approach that partisan politicians would do well to emulate.

A more skilful and effective use of the pulpit is hard to imagine.

Blue conservative wave keeps rolling across Canada

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on April 28, 2019.

Each new provincial election brings more evidence that the wave of conservative victories across the country is turning into a tsunami. And with that, the inescapable conclusion that the Liberal brand is, if not in crisis, certainly not what it was on Election Day in October, 2015.

Last Tuesday, Prince Edward Islanders not only elected a PC minority government but were sooner ready to consider the Green Party than re-elect Wade MacLauchlan’s governing Liberals.

For those keeping count of such things, that’s five straight conservative victories. In four of them, the Liberal vote share dropped to the lowest levels seen, wait for it, since Confederation.

And so, it should come as no surprise that outgoing Premier MacLauchlan’s Liberal campaign opted not to reach out to their cousins in Ottawa for assistance. Trudeau, who as recently as August, was greeted on the Island as a rock star has now become a political liability.

What a change of circumstances for the prime minister and his party.

Trouble for the Liberals all started with Brian Pallister in Manitoba, then Doug Ford, here, in Ontario, François Legault in Quebec, Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick, Jason Kenney in Alberta and now Dennis King in PEI.

Today, 82 per cent of Canadians are governed by conservative parties.

By any measure, it is a startling rebuke that, six months out from the federal election, is no doubt weighing heavily on Liberals everywhere.

That said, while it is always best to be careful in making assumptions as to federal voting intentions based on provincial outcomes, it is beginning to look like Andrew Scheer’s optimism is warranted. The Liberal ship is floundering. Its cause matters not. The handling of l’affaire SNC-Lavalin. The internecine squabbling. The accumulation of seemingly minor missteps. Or the global rise of populist right-of-centre ideology, the Liberal message is not resonating as it once did.

The three years since the blue tide began have seen the federal Liberal approval rating fall by over 15 per cent. Two-thirds of Canadians now say that Trudeau does not deserve to be re-elected. What’s more, the Liberal’s majority has, through resignations and scandal, become seven members thin.

Add certain losses in some traditional Liberal strongholds and October’s election becomes a daunting prospect.

No doubt some Liberals will console themselves with the old political rule of thumb that when we vote one way provincially, we vote the other way federally. Consider the record in Ontario. Harper won with McGuinty at Queen’s Park; Chrétien with Harris; Mulroney while Ontarians elected both Rae’s NDP and the Peterson Liberals. And, of course, Bill Davis won while Trudeau Sr. was prime minister.

But the past may well not, any longer, be prologue.

As of today, one poll found that the Conservatives were 20 points ahead in the 905 region. Although it’s worth noting the Ontario race, provincewide, is closer.

Yes, the election remains six months away. Much can and will change. Trudeau, as we know, is a capable retail politician, and, after all, campaigns actually matter.

So, Scheer’s Conservatives would do well not to start measuring the drapes, just yet. Though Liberal voters seem to be abandoning the party, polls also caution us that it is no longer simply a two party race.

We have now seen provincial voters flirt with both new and insurgent parties, from the People’s Alliance in New Brunswick to the CAQ in Quebec to the Greens in PEI. Whether this wandering eye extends to Jagmeet Singh’s NDP or even Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party remains to be seen.

What is clear is that Trudeau will not be fighting the election he was envisioning a matter of months ago. Gone are two of his most well-respected cabinet ministers, as well as Gerry Butts, his trusted adviser. His claim to a better politics of openness and integrity has been eroded by a year of scandal and melodrama, and he has lost his ideological allies in legislatures from Alberta to New Brunswick.

It’s pretty clear that the lay of the chess board has shifted, and yet much of the Liberal team still appear to be playing checkers.

The fragile façade of Confederation

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This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on April 21, 2019.

Just as it is for most people who do what I do for a living, our office is littered with television monitors tuned to a variety of news channels from around the world.

And like it is for most of us, we become inured to the onslaught of images that come our way. Some real. Some fake. Many tragic. A few uplifting.

But the truth is, the images eventually become electronic wallpaper.

That is, of course, until this week when I looked up from my desk and saw the torrent of flames blasting through the vaulted roof and spire of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Like millions of others the world over, I was stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t take my eyes off the television screen as I thought about not only the immense tragedy unfolding, in real time, before me but how a symbol so strong, that had endured for so long had been revealed so quickly as fragile and vulnerable.

Over its long history, the cathedral has withstood politics, factionalism and terror.

The 13th century gallery of biblical kings installed on the façade served to symbolically align the monarchy and the Catholic Church by implying a continued lineage from the kings of Judah. During the Revolution, these statues were torn from their gallery and publicly beheaded.

As the First Republic ushered in official atheism, Notre Dame was transformed into a monument to the “Cult of Reason,” with religious icons replaced by altars to Enlightenment values like Liberty and Truth. After the restoration, the kings were reinstated and the church returned to its glory as a place of worship.

And even more threatening were Hitler’s plans to bomb the cathedral — along with most of Paris as we know it — rather than allow the city to fall into Allied hands. It was General Dietrich von Choltitz who disobeyed Hitler’s orders and saved the cathedral.

Notre Dame has miraculously withstood the threats of history with a stubborn resilience.

I thought about that magnificent cathedral this week. The dreams that inspired it. The skill and courage that it took to build it. The remarkable ability of it to adapt, change and still stay true to its values, I thought about our very own Confederation.

We, of course, don’t have cathedrals built in the 12th century in this country but we do, in their place, have the great Canadian experiment, sometimes called the great Canadian dream.

The dream of an improbably small country spread out among one of the most vast geographies of the world. A country that has — for a mere 150 years — defied the odds to remain united in vision and purpose.

And yet like Notre Dame what seems strong and secure and enduring is perhaps more fragile than we know.

This week we are focused on the remarkable success of Jason Kenney in Alberta. But it is useful to understand that his success follows on Doug Ford in Ontario, Scott Moe in Saskatchewan, François Legault in Quebec and Brian Pallister in Manitoba.

And what do these leaders have in common? Some say a move to the right. But that is a facile understanding. What they really share is an expression from their respective electorates of a desire to retreat from that great Canadian experiment.

In province after province, voters have chosen in their narrow provincial interests and not in the national interests. There are many reasons for this; many legitimate reasons. Regional alienation. Lack of economic achievement. A sense that people are not doing as well as those before them.

But the result is the same: a dangerous diminution of the value of the Canadian experiment. A dangerous diminution in the willingness to let someone else — a fellow Canadian — go first.

Politicians are skilfully, and successfully, exploiting this. Why wouldn’t they? That’s how our system works.

In fact, our system has driven our political leaders to act like the short term managers that have come to populate Bay Street. Worry about the next quarter and hope the long term will take care of itself.

It is too early to tell but we may find that our Confederation, which like Notre Dame is grand and imposing from the outside, may actually be much more vulnerable.