Category: Chairman’s Desk

The embattled Ontario premier believes she is doing the best for the people of the province and so does her team. They think they can win and she isn’t going away, regardless of poor poll results.

Kathleen Wynne is not going anywhere.

And that’s for one very good reason — the premier truly believes she has a shot at victory.

In recent months, speculation about her possible departure as Ontario premier has increased. Yet, as the provincial election looms next year, Wynne has repeatedly insisted she is here to stay.

This insistence comes in spite of increasing concern among Liberals that her unpopularity is hurting the party. That anxiety is not entirely misplaced.

A recent Forum Research poll had the Ontario Liberals in third place, expected to receive about 19 per cent of the provincial vote. This was nearly 24 points behind the Progressive Conservatives and 10 points behind the NDP.

With numbers like this, a Liberal victory looks far out of reach.

However, no one should count Wynne out. She is a strong campaigner and an effective communicator. She is capable and incredibly hard-working. The biggest mistake the Progressive Conservatives can make is to forget about Wynne’s potential as a candidate.

The Premier has begun to lay out her game plan for victory. She will pursue an aggressive and progressive policy agenda in a bid to capture enough progressive centrist and left-leaning votes to defeat both the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP. Her initiatives will move government to the left — far left.

So what is her path to victory?

First, the premier has announced measures to try to temper skyrocketing home prices, a move that will resonate with many voters and help secure support on the left.

Second, expect the premier to announce that the minimum wage will increase to $15 an hour by 2018.

Third, she will announce a guaranteed annual income program for low-wage workers and welfare recipients. This will win her back some support among middle-class workers who feel this government has largely ignored their concerns about jobs and the economy.

And fourth, next winter, Wynne is banking on Ontarians being happy to see that their hydro bills have decreased by 25 per cent from the previous winter.

The Premier has a few other things going for her.

Wynne has Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in her corner, and he has proven to be an effective resource for Liberals in provincial elections across the country. The Liberal brand remains very strong in Ontario.

With that said, do I think Wynne can win? Only a fool could be goaded into answering that question.

But do I think she believes she can win? Do I think her team believes they can win with her? One-hundred per cent.

There is a comparable example in recent Canadian political history — none other than Wynne’s nemesis, former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Both defied the odds to win majority governments (Harper in 2011 and Wynne in 2012), and both, despite daunting polls, decided they were the best people to lead their parties one last time.

The premier and her supporters staunchly believe that the work her party is doing is for the good of the province and the people of Ontario. Harper’s supporters also had faith that the work he was doing was critical for the nation. Among supporters, Wynne has thus far been given as wide a berth as Harper had in the run-up to his failed re-election.

But what about those terrible polls?

Wynne will almost certainly have a better 2017-2018 than 2016-2017, but the hurdle she needs to overcome may be insurmountable.

One thing, though: political polls have lately not been especially accurate indicators of election outcomes, as we saw south of the border in November.

Perhaps Wynne believes Ontario voters simply have a case of ‘Liberal fatigue’— the party has been the government in Ontario since 2003 — that they will get over at election time.

What’s more, while Ontarians may not like the current direction of the province, the other parties haven’t offered anything else yet.

Hers is not an easy road to victory, and Wynne, experienced political leader that she is, undoubtedly knows this.

But, as long as she continues to believe she is doing the right thing for Ontario, and as long as she is doing it from behind the premier’s desk, it is not surprising that she has not stepped aside. No one should count on her doing so.

Jaime Watt is the executive chairman of Navigator Ltd. and a Conservative strategist.

People accept that mistakes will be made in the process of implementing good intentions and sound policy. They simply want to see that those mistakes are faced up to and managed in a professional and competent way.

It seems counterintuitive, but in communications, attempting to side-step risk can prove to be the riskiest strategy of all.

We have seen this again and again in politics and in business.

In a world where a wrongly placed word can create a maelstrom of reaction on social media, it can be tempting to make only safe, by-the-book public statements.

The problem is that these statements sound like only so much corporate jargon to the public, blather filled with meaningless words like ‘leverage,’ ‘re-accommodate’ and ‘deliverables.’

More than a few businesses and politicians have opted for this supposedly safe approach, rather than speaking in an authentic, and consequently more vulnerable, voice.

But it is a false choice. A company that tries to control the social media and public reaction during a crisis by limiting vulnerability in its public statements is engaging in an exercise in futility.

The reason is simple: a risk-averse approach assumes that people are not capable of consuming or understanding an honest discussion. It shouldn’t be surprising that most people don’t embrace such an attempt.

Take, for example, last week’s United Airlines fiasco, during which the company opted to have a customer forcibly removed by security from an overbooked flight, an encounter that injured the man and horrified his fellow passengers.

Of course, this being 2017, a number of passengers recorded the entire debacle and immediately posted their videos to social media. The spectacle went viral within hours.

The ham-fisted response by United CEO Oscar Munoz did nothing but exacerbate an already difficult situation. In a painfully jargon-ridden release, Munoz apologized for ‘having to re-accommodate passengers,’ a sentiment that was almost comical when juxtaposed with video of a screaming passenger being dragged down an aisle.

Munoz later released another statement apologizing unreservedly for the situation, but the damage to the airline’s reputation had already been done. It will take millions of dollars and a long time before the debacle is forgotten.

The actions were damaging enough, but the statement insulted people’s intelligence. It was an unnecessary and self-dealt blow to the company’s reputation.

It’s a lesson that can also be applied to politics.

Politicians have long honed a way of speaking that fails to resonate with the voters they are courting. Political language has become the language of platitudes, something that has frustrated voters. However, in political circles, it is assumed that the risk of misspeaking using genuine arguments and language far outweighs the cynicism bred by political-speak.

But these assumptions are changing. It has become evident that playing it safe no longer works.

During the U.S. presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton offered what seemed like an endless stream of platitudes and slogans. The line ‘trumped-up, trickle-down economics’ was clearly inserted into the debates by her team as a winning catchphrase. But it found no purchase with viewers who recognized it for what it was — an over-rehearsed line that was too clever by half.

By contrast, Donald Trump’s frenetic, shoot-from-the-hip style won over voters who had grown tired of condescending platitudes. He suffered near-daily debunking in the media, but the aura he established as someone who spoke the truth to power earned him the affection of millions.

A similar story unfolded in Canada. Justin Trudeau has been criticized by the Conservatives for his not-infrequent misstatements, including, for instance, his 2014 statement that Canada need not ‘whip out our CF-18s.’ The Conservative government trumpeted it as further evidence that Liberal leader Trudeau just wasn’t ready for prime time.

In reality, voters responded to Trudeau’s engaged and energetic presence and forgave him for his missteps, as they did with Trump.

The public understands that the business and political worlds are populated by humans — people who make mistakes and who can be problematic.

What the public demands is a genuine voice — someone who speaks to them as educated and informed individuals, and allows them to make decisions on that basis. People accept that mistakes will be made in the process of implementing good intentions and sound policy. They simply want to see that those mistakes are faced up to and managed in a professional and competent way.

Business and political leaders must learn this lesson if they are to communicate effectively in this era of accountability.

Jaime Watt is the executive chairman of Navigator Ltd. and a Conservative strategist.

Canada and the U.S. treat their retired political leaders much differently.

It’s an elite club that many long to join, and it never meets.

With only a handful of living members at any given time, the President’s Club often looks more like a dysfunctional family than a collection of the most powerful men in history.

In the United States, former presidents retain a certain prestige after they leave the Oval Office. The Former Presidents Act, a law passed in 1958, ensures that past presidents receive a pension of $203,000 a year, an office and staff, medical insurance, lifetime Secret Service protection, and unlimited access to the most prestigious hangout in Washington — the Presidential Townhouse at 716 Jackson Place, just steps from the White House. With this comes the pomp and circumstance only Americans know how to deliver.

In Canada, former prime ministers are not so lucky. They are returned to civilian life with a thud. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark has shared that it’s not infrequent that telemarketers call him asking for Mr. R.T. Hon.

However, it appears that the role of former Canadian prime ministers may be changing, for good reason.

When Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, he quickly convened a very public meeting in the Oval Office of all former living presidents. This meeting, the first of its kind, served to counter Obama’s image as an outsider, and it demonstrated his willingness to listen and learn from those with experience, something that proved beneficial to him.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is similarly criticized by opponents as lacking experience, also seems to be calling on his predecessors in a way not seen in recent years in Canada.

It is a smart tactical move for the prime minister.

Earl Wilson, the famous American gossip columnist, accurately remarked that, ‘the fastest way for a politician to become an elder statesman is to lose an election.’

In 2013, Gallup found that presidents’ job approval ratings are almost always more positive after they leave office than while they were in office. Like a good bottle of wine, former leaders age well — or, like a bad relationship, the memories fade. Present-day leaders often find their relationship with these senior statesmen and women becomes increasingly valuable.

For leaders of countries, there are no more promotions. They are no longer political opponents of someone else, no longer gunning for someone else’s job. They have the top job.

On top of this, partisan colours start to fade after a while. In fact, soliciting support or advice from a former leader from an opposing political party demonstrates a current leader’s willingness to co-operate with the opposition, without angering his or her own partisan base.

And finally, former leaders often become distinguished experts in a given field. For former U.S. vice-president Al Gore it is climate change. For former prime minister Brian Mulroney it is trade. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin has become a veritable expert on Canada’s relationship with indigenous peoples.

This reservoir of wisdom and experience, so rarely called upon, can be of great value to a current leader’s success. There is no expert more legitimate than a well-respected and well-liked elder statesperson.

Canada’s former leaders are being called upon more often and are becoming increasingly relevant.

On Thursday, Mulroney was on hand to brief members of the Trudeau government’s cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations. Who better to brief the team? Mulroney negotiated NAFTA, has acted as an early go-between with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and has a close personal relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Notwithstanding the fact that this is a sound decision from a strategic perspective, it’s also a dazzling political move by Trudeau and his team. By calling on Mulroney, Trudeau appears to be a team player as someone who is willing to listen to a Conservative politician. It showcases his ability to bring people together to find solutions, and highlights how seriously he is taking the risk posed to Canada’s interests by the Trump administration.

Similarly, Trudeau called upon former prime minister Kim Campbell to chair his independent and non-partisan advisory board to recommend candidates for the Supreme Court of Canada.

Of course, there are limits. Don’t expect Trudeau and former PM Stephen Harper, or Trump and former president Bill Clinton to be buddying up any time soon.

However, if the past few months have been any indication, it won’t be too surprising if Canadians start to feel a bit of d’j’ vu as prime ministers of the past pop up along the way.

Jaime Watt is the executive chairman of Navigator Ltd. and a Conservative strategist.

Getting Trump dumped early would result in a far more conservative Mike Pence in the Oval Office and would also galvanize base support for Republicans.

Less than three months into Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency, whispers of impeachment are becoming louder.

Ladbrokes, a British bookmaker, has Trump’s odds of leaving office via impeachment or resignation before the end of his first term at 10/11. I am not a betting man, but with those odds, do not expect a large payoff.

Allan Lichtman, the professor at American University who has famously predicted the outcome of every presidential election since 1984, has written a book on what he refers to as Trump’s imminent impeachment.

Impeachment talk is almost a fetish in American presidential politics. For George W. Bush, the issues that prompted such talk were the Iraq War, the Valerie Plame affair, the treatment of PoWs, wiretapping, and the government responses to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

For Barack Obama, the issues that prompted such talk included the notion that he wasn’t born in the U.S., the handling of the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, the federal directive on gender-neutral washrooms, and the alleged failure to enforce immigration laws.

In reality, only two of the 45 presidents in American history — Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton — have suffered the humiliation of an impeachment vote, and neither was actually convicted. Richard Nixon dodged impeachment over the Watergate scandal by resigning.

That said, the allegations of foreign influence seem far more damaging than an affair with a staff member.

Trump is facing three specific risks.

First is his unsubstantiated claim that Obama ordered a wiretap of his phones at the Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. On Monday, FBI Director James Comey delivered a thinly veiled rebuke to the president, saying he ‘had no information’ to support Trump’s allegations.

The second is the ongoing and now-confirmed FBI investigation into contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials. If it is proven that any collaboration between Russia and the Trump campaign helped elect the president, and that members of the Trump team were aware and helped co-ordinate these efforts, the Trump administration will be in serious jeopardy.

And finally, at the congressional hearings to confirm Neil Gorsuch’s appointment to the Supreme Court, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned last week that if Trump were to bring back waterboarding, he could ‘get impeached.’

Alas, the impeachment process is akin to the process to amend the Canadian Constitution — in that it is frequently discussed, but is designed to be difficult to carry out, and is likely never going to happen.

This is for good reason.

While liberals might fantasize about a Trump impeachment, the results of such a scenario might not be what they envision.

The likelihood of a Trump impeachment is significantly greater than was the case with either Bush or Obama, but it is important to keep in mind that Trump maintains an 80-per-cent approval rating with Republican voters and that the president’s party controls both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Barring a confession, or something as dramatic as, say, a nuclear crisis, it would be up to Democrats to start the impeachment process.

While such an effort would temporarily stymie the Republicans’ legislative agenda, it would be detrimental to the Democrats’ long-term interests.

If Trump were impeached, or if he resigns, Vice-President Mike Pence would become president. Pence is a skilled legislator, a more disciplined politician and has a far more aggressively conservative agenda than that of Trump.

Democrats ought to know that a Mike Pence presidency would almost certainly undue more of Obama’s legacy than the erratic, easily distracted and unpredictable Trump. A return to the Bush years might not be exactly what the Democratic Party is looking for.

In addition, an impeachment of President Trump would only serve to reinforce his narrative that the special interests of Washington will do anything to protect themselves. His impeachment would only galvanize his base of support and further anger those legions of Americans who feel that President Trump is their voice against interests that have long been aligned against them.

His impeachment would be a personal attack on them, their values, and their way of life.

Trump’s ideas and his way of doing politics are not exclusive to him. Pushing him out of office could increase the likelihood that a similar, or perhaps more erratic, candidate emerges in time for the 2020 election.

Democrats should instead look inward and refocus their energy on the 2018 mid-term elections and on rebounding in the 2020 presidential race.

It was a strategy that worked well for the Republicans in 2008, allowing them to sweep local and national offices across the United States.

It would be a wasted opportunity for the Democrats to pass up in favour of distracting, and ultimately pointless, impeachment attempts.

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There will be only one winner with the dream of leading the Conservatives to power. The other 13 would-be leaders will face the harsh reality of the May 27 leadership vote — and for some it will not be pretty.

Early last year, I joked that the Conservative leadership race was more like the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs than a contest for head of a national party. Today, as more and more would-be leaders jump into the pool, I’ve come to think of it as the story of 101 Dalmatians.

The number of entrants is eye-popping; especially for a party that many pundits have assigned a snowball’s shot in hell of winning the next election.

Watching the leadership debates — with 14 participants strolling onto the stage one by one — is like watching a seemingly impossible number of clowns pop out of a Volkswagen Beetle. And the debates themselves don’t seem to be debates so much as hours-long question-and-answer snore fests with as little chance of risk, spontaneity and mistakes as possible.

Indeed, more than once, a few of the leadership contestants have looked perilously close to dozing off during what should be a career-defining event.

The decision to enter a leadership campaign is not one made lightly. It involves raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaign non-stop across the country for months.

It’s a strain on health, personal finances and family.

And to top it all off, candidates are competing for a sometimes dubious prize — one that comes with an even more punishing life. A party leader must renew their commitment to non-stop campaigning. In public, that means everything from a strawberry social in Charlottetown to meeting in a church basement in Kelowna.

And within the backrooms of their own party, the new leader has to survive dark rumblings from a caucus desperate to return to power, not all that confident it now has the right leader for the job.

So why have so many Conservatives taken the plunge? It is, after all, a contest that will end in disappointment for 13, and an impossibly daunting task for the ‘lucky’ winner.

An observer of U.S. politics once remarked that every morning, 535 members of Congress look at themselves in the mirror and see a future president staring back at them.

The same is true in Canada.

The prospect of leading a party that is but one election cycle away from winning government and launching a new chapter in political history is very tempting for many who have, for years, looked at and listened to Stephen Harper and thought, ‘I could do better.’

That’s why, when there’s an opening for the leadership of one of the two federal parties in Canada that have formed government, the work begins in earnest.

With major candidates such as John Baird, Peter MacKay and Jason Kenney absent from the current federal Conservative party contest, the race becomes even more attractive to other contestants.

The simple fact there is no clear front-runner with a run away band wagon of support means that not one candidate’s chances are as good as an other.

The fee to get into the race was $100,000 — an amount most members of Parliament and business people who want to enter politics could easily raise. And, many will feel that, with so many candidates to split the vote, they have a hope of winning.

But it is an unpleasant fact that 13 of the contenders will lose. An even more unpleasant fact is that a significant number will lose quite badly, ending with as little as 2 per cent of the vote.

Why, then, are they all still in the race? Why haven’t some of them dropped out, and spared themselves the embarrassment?

There are a number of reasons.

For many of the 14, it is like the first round of a poker game. The have anted up, their money is in, so why not wait and see what happens?

For some, they are running not so much to win this time, but more to raise their profile and build their network for a second run against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Others are on a mission to raise the profile of an issue they care deeply about; a good example is Rick Peterson’s one-man mission to rid Canada of corporate income tax

And then, of course, there is yet another reason — vanity.

Many candidates didn’t receive this much attention when they were elected to Parliament 10 years ago with visions of stars in their eyes. They are flattered by the sustained media and Internet attention.

Many of the 14 candidates are deluding themselves that they have a chance at winning. Perhaps it’s a delusion that can be forgiven, but on May 27 they will face the harsh reality of the results of the leadership vote.

I would wager, however, that several people will wake up the morning of May 28 kicking themselves for having let the glare of attention blind them to the reality of the result.

Jaime Watt is the executive chairman of Navigator Ltd. and a Conservative strategist.