Category: Chairman’s Desk

The coming year will prove a challenge for the prime minister as he faces tough issues and must please increasingly upset provinces.

It has been, to use a shopworn clich’, beginning of a winter of discontent for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.

As temperatures began to sink in late November, the Prime Minister’s polling numbers — previously untouchable — also dipped. It seemed that the government was hit by news story after news story that threatened to damage the upbeat year that had been 2016.

Let’s not make any mistake: the Liberals’ numbers have only moved from sky high to high. But the barrage of negative stories, coming as they did together, cannot have been good for Liberal morale.

A stop-and-start bid to reform our electoral system that had no plan and no message. A heartfelt eulogy for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro that went viral and was mocked on Twitter. The decision to approve two pipelines that earned the government the ire of environmentalists. A holiday visit to a private island that ended with calls for an investigation by the ethics commissioner.

It would have been a frustrating several months for any government, but was no doubt even more so for a government that had received little public pushback since its stunning election victory.

Looking to turn the page, the prime minister has shuffled his cabinet and is off on a listening tour, aimed at reaching Canadians who may have become disenchanted by the negative media attention. Make no mistake, the Liberals are determined to reset things for 2017.

It is certainly a serendipitous year for the government to regain a positive foothold: as Canada celebrates its 150th birthday, there will be no shortage of funding and photo opportunities.

The government also has policies in store that will continue its efforts to break from the Harper government years. Legislation legalizing marijuana, renewed health agreements with the provinces, and shovels in the ground on numerous infrastructure commitments, all promise to show the government is working hard on behalf of middle-class Canadians.

However, challenges await. We know of those posed by the change of administration in the United States, but there are a number on the domestic front, as well.

Trudeau’s first year in government was defined by the remarkable compliance of provincial governments. The premiers, often happy to go to war with the federal government, were quite conciliatory toward the prime minister’s activist government. On issues from environment to pensions to infrastructure, there was a harmony that has rarely been reached in the federal-provincial relationship.

This harmony, which previously had been punctured only by the occasional objections of Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, promises to be disrupted in the next year.

Wall, who early in the Trudeau government’s mandate was the only conservative premier left standing, has been joined by Manitoba Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Pallister, a former member of the Harper government. Pallister has joined Wall in criticizing the federal government’s carbon pricing plan and has sharply criticized the government’s approach on health funding.

The two premiers recently won mandates, and are all-but-guaranteed to stick around for the rest of the Liberals’ mandate.

A quick survey of upcoming provincial elections is not particularly promising for the federal government, either. British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, a hesitant ally of the federal government, currently trails the B.C. New Democrats, who have staked out ground as sharp critics of the federal government’s position on pipelines and are advocates of increased federal health transfers.

The Liberal governments of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and New Brunswick have been steadfast allies of the Trudeau government. But the implementation of carbon pricing has affected that support in provinces where energy costs are already among the highest in the country. The three governments, while relatively stable, have less reason today to be as sympathetic as they have been.

The premiers of Canada’s two largest provinces find themselves under fire in the latter half of their mandates. Premier Kathleen Wynne of Ontario and Premier Phillippe Couillard of Quebec are polling either behind or tied with opposition parties as they try to extend the mandates of governments that have been in power for years.

Wynne and Couillard, once partners and allies of Trudeau, have little room to manoeuvre. On issues such as health-care transfers, they have little option but to push the government, lest they provide fodder to their opposition at home.

With 2017 comes opportunity for the federal Liberals to turn the page on the last few months. However, the road ahead is significantly rockier than it was when they were elected in October 2015, and the pastures along the way don’t look to be getting any greener.

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

It’s back – the annual At Issue vs. The Insiders quiz. Tune in to see Jaime and his team challenge their competitors. Who will win this year?

Aired on CBC’s The National in December 2016

‘Justin Trudeau will find that to win the next election his government will have to pick a lane and stay in it, rather than driving down the middle of the road.’

It’s a sad fact that ‘compromise’ can be a dirty word in politics.

In our party system, there is always some measure of compromise. No one ever gets all they want.

Governments come to understand that with every decision they make, at least one section of Canadians will be unhappy.

The Liberal election manifesto was designed, and stunningly so, to build the widest tent imaginable under the party’s bright red banner. As Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau successfully engaged lawyers on Bay Street and suburban soccer parents. He brought urbane West Coast hipsters together with fishers from St. John’s.

Now, more than a year later, the reality of governing will test the durability of this winning coalition.

To win again in 2019, Trudeau must hold that broad array of voters together, a task that may be easier said than done if the past few weeks are any indication.

Trudeau has been trying to find middle ground, but in politics the reaction to issues tends to be focused on the ends of the opinion spectrum, on the black and white and not the grey. When trying to play the middle, a politician runs the risk of upsetting everyone and pleasing no one.

In 2015, the Liberal coalition was made up of a robust cadre of moderate Conservatives, staunch Liberals and soft New Democrats. In recent weeks, it would appear that the Liberals’ big red tent isn’t as friendly a place as it used to be. With each policy decision, Trudeau runs the risk of driving some who took shelter in that tent back to their former homes.

For example, Trudeau’s approach to marijuana and his recent decision on pipelines have upset people on the left and right of the prototypical Liberal voter.

On marijuana, Trudeau is firmly in the legalization camp and Liberal MP Bill Blair, Toronto’s former police chief, is working on new legislation. However, Trudeau says that, in the meantime, the government is not in the business of pleasing recreational marijuana users and police should ‘enforce the law,’ including using criminal charges and raiding illegal marijuana dispensaries.

On this policy, some people want him to drop the legalization promise. Others just want the government to leave recreational users alone and take quicker steps toward legalization. Trudeau’s pronouncements left both groups unsatisfied.

Last week, the government approved two major pipeline expansions while shelving the Northern Gateway project. In the House of Commons, Trudeau claimed the middle ground.

‘One side of this House wants us to approve everything and ignore indigenous communities and environmental responsibilities,’ he said. ‘The other side ﾅ doesn’t care about the jobs or the economic growth that comes with getting our resources to market.’

Nevertheless, Trudeau’s pipeline decision jeopardizes his once-rosy relationship with his left-leaning supporters while not buying him any points with those on the right.

Conservative voters see the government scuttling an independently approved pipeline for no good reason, while those focused on the environment are unhappy the government is allowing the other two projects to go ahead.

By trying to find middle ground, Trudeau has ended up frustrating people on both sides.

When it comes to the decisions that lie ahead, Trudeau must decide whether he will appeal to the soft New Democrats or the moderate Conservatives who make up his coalition.

Trudeau will find that to have a chance to win the next election, his government will have to pick a lane and stay in it, rather than driving down the middle of the road.

If the prime minister had approved all three pipelines, would Conservatives have had the grounds to criticize him? Harper was unable to break ground on a single pipeline which brought oil to a new market in his nearly 10-year reign. By approving all three, the Liberal base would have stayed loyal and his political capital with soft conservatives would have increased. Approval of two pipelines was already going to alienate New Democrats who had voted Liberal in the last election. How much more alienated would they have been if all three pipelines had been approved?

Instead, the government’s decision exposed vulnerabilities on both sides. The prime minister has not consolidated his gains from the Tories, nor succeeded in saving his Vancouver-area MPs from anti-pipeline voters.

In politics, it’s just not feasible to make all voters happy all the time. A government simply can’t be all things to all people.

Bismarck’s words, first uttered in 1867, that ‘politics is the art of the possible’ are surely on our prime minister’s mind 150 years later.

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

It should be troubling to every journalist that so many people do not view the issues and information the media provide them as relevant, believable or representing their interests

Kellie Leitch, the upstart candidate who now appears to be the front-runner for the Conservative leadership, released an email blast on Wednesday morning provocatively titled ‘Revenge of the Comments Section.’ The piece, which railed against the ‘condescending, elitist sarcasm that we get from the media,’ implored supporters to donate in order to send a clear message to ‘the elite of this country that there is a silent majority in Canada who will not be disrespected and who will fight back!’

The email is a microcosm of the Leitch campaign — a campaign that explicitly agitates against the wisdom of Canada’s establishment and revels in being cast as outside the mainstream.

Minutes after the email went out, the eye-rolling began. Pundits pointed out that Leitch’s campaign was a transparent ploy against them, light on policy and heavy on rhetoric. Criticism of her divisive rhetoric soon followed.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Rob Ford. Brexit. Donald Trump.

These movements all had many things in common. They were driven by disaffected voters who felt frustrated with a status quo that wasn’t working for them anymore. They were frustrated and angry and demanded change and they were determined to upset the applecart. They refused to heed the warnings of politicians, economists and professors.

Thousands of speeches were delivered, furious newspaper columns were written, hours of coverage filled the airways. It was unanimous: these movements were wrong, immoral and unacceptable. Dangerous, even.

The result: 383,000 votes for Ford; 17,410,742 votes for Brexit; more than 62,500,000 votes for Trump.

All three campaigns delivered a complete repudiation of the conventional views long held in boardrooms, official halls of power, towers of academia and by media.

How is it possible that in democratic nations, where the press is free and any citizens can share their viewpoint, the mainstream media and establishment forces were in near-unanimous lockstep in favour of campaigns that were defeated at the polls?

Perhaps it is time for a reckoning.

Entire cohorts of people now closely follow news sources that present diametrically opposing views to those of the mainstream media; media institutions that for as long as we can remember have represented the viewpoint of most citizens. Rarely, any more, do these two segments of the population cross paths. Instead, people in each group talk only among themselves, conversing only with others who agree with them.

It should be troubling to every journalist that so many people do not view the issues and information the media provide them as relevant, believable or representing their interests. It is problematic that one of the most foundational components of our democracy, with its ability to challenge governments and inform voters, is now summarily dismissed as opposed to the viewpoints of a large segment of the population.

It is depressing to realize that so many people feel so disenfranchised and frustrated by the uniformity of the viewpoints found in the media that entire political campaigns can be run successfully against those views, almost alone.

Traditional media outlets hold that some candidates are so dangerous and their views are so reprehensible and problematic that they have a duty to cover them as critically as possible.

What is troubling about that perspective is it makes the media an active player in the game, rather than an objective observer. Policy proposals become tribal, supporters become targets, and the divides between political camps widen.

Instead of dispassionately observing and criticizing ideas, mainstream media has allowed itself to fall into the pit of active engagement against certain candidates.

Of course, the media’s role is not the only issue. Society has grown increasingly fragmented between those who are urban, educated and wealthy, and those who live in rural areas and struggle to keep afloat in a rapidly changing economy that is leaving many behind.

The first step toward closing that divide, one that continues to grow, is to take a moment to understand policy proposals and campaign pledges through the eyes of those who support them; to take a serious, in-depth look at the underlying tensions of Canada as a nation and dispassionately unpack what they mean for our country.

Doing so, whatever the result, would provide a real service to our country and to the many of our fellow citizens who feel they are no longer a welcome part of the dialogue.

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

Politics is not so much about sweeping conspiracies or grand policy debates. Rather, at its very core, politics is rooted in its humanity.

It was in March of 2015 that the New York Times first broke the story that Hillary Clinton had been using a private email server, igniting a furor that would eventually help sink her bid for the presidency of the United States.

Opponents pounced, calling her behaviour irresponsible, unreasonable and borderline treasonous. Pundits pored over the contents of the emails, fixated on uncovering any angle that could fill column inches or justify a CNN chyron blaring ‘Breaking News.’ Donald Trump led thousands of people chanting ‘Lock her up!’, claiming that her transgression had compromised American safety.

For decades, conspiracy theories and rumours have swirled around the Clintons. At various times, they have been accused of being responsible for 48 different murders, of having a fake marriage based on political ambition, of regularly using body doubles, and of acting as agents for foreign governments in return for cash. The rumours and theories have generated tens of millions of clicks in strange corners of the Internet.

In turn, those clicks have fueled the outrage of citizens who were positive that the nation was being taken advantage of by two Machiavellian political actors the likes of which had not been seen since Kevin Spacey was president in House of Cards.

So it must have surprised many when the tens of thousands of emails that were released revealed what all those who work in politics know: politics is not so much about sweeping conspiracies involving Russian spies, or about grand policy debates.

Rather, at its very core, politics is rooted in its humanity. It features less than perfect people making less than perfect decisions. It is, first and foremost, an exercise centred around the small, and often petty, dramas of human life.

The so-called scandalous Hillary Clinton emails were actually emails filled with pressing issues like compliments on her favourite coat, how to turn on NPR while on Long Island, and repeated requests for cold iced tea.

It’s tempting to apply a filter of nefarious intent to the things politicians do. The stakes of the decisions they make, of course, can be enormous; the ramifications with us for decades.

But any political staffer will tell you that rather than the fantastical House of Cards, life in politics is eerily similar to Veep, the brilliant, cynical comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the powerless-yet-overreaching vice president of the United States. As her ever-weary chief of staff once sighed: ‘We all know the White House would work so much better if there wasn’t a president; but there is, so we work around that.’

The reality of politics is a lot like that.

There has been much ink spilled in Canada about various governments having a deep-seated need to remake the nation in their image. If one was to believe Twitter, one would have thought Stephen Harper’s government was part of a secret world order.

But ask a former politician and they will tell you that any grand plan they had prior to gaining public office came to a screeching halt hours after they are sworn in, replaced by the all-consuming need to keep the trains running on time. Strategic thinking takes a back seat to just keeping your head above water and your government out of scandal.

And, just when you think you’ve finally reached a point where you can begin to plan, calamity strikes. A forgetful bureaucrat leaves confidential documents lying at the entrance of the department. A staffer falls for a reporter and accidentally spills the beans on a big story. A natural disaster or a terrorist attack takes place.

Politics is fraught with that sort of unpredictable but powerful distraction.

And then there is just the sheer volume of information that comes your way. On the one hand, there’s more information than any person, or even team of people, can reasonably keep up with but on the other often less than the media knows. To wit, Hillary’s concerned email to a staffer questioning whether a cabinet meeting was taking place and why she hadn’t been invited (she had read about it on Twitter to her dismay).

None of this is to say that politicians enter office without a plan, or without ideological principles that guide them in the decisions they are confronted with every day. Over a long period of time, a governing ethos can indeed begin to turn the enormous ship we call government.

But government is run first and foremost by flawed people just like us. The next time a dramatic shift in government policy occurs, and opponents take to social media to decry the strategic principles behind it, take a moment to recall Clinton’s aide who, the hacked emails revealed, spent three painstaking hours one Saturday afternoon trying to teach the erstwhile President of the United States how to use a fax machine.

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