Dispatch

The ideas behind the Conservative platform have been percolating for years

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole speaks to the media at a bowling alley on August 29, 2021 in St.-Hyacinthe, Quebec. Canadians will vote in a federal election Sept. 20. Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press.

Welcome to The Hub’s Federal Election 2021 Policy Pulse, where we’ll be tracking all the policy announcements from the major parties, with instant analysis from our crew of experts.

With the election scheduled for Sept. 20, we’ll be monitoring 36 days worth of policy ideas, so watch out each morning for the day’s live blog where we’ll be tracking every announcement as it happens.

4:00 p.m. — The ideas behind the Conservative platform have been percolating for years

The Hub’s editor-in-chief Stuart Thomson examines the ideas fueling the Conservative platform:

Last week, the Conservative campaign made a few heads spin with a few unorthodox announcements. Benefits for gig workers, worker representation on corporate boards, and protecting pensions from corporate bankruptcy were among the major announcements made by leader Erin O’Toole, in a week where he could have been easily mistaken for one of his rivals to his left.

It even provoked Maclean’s to, half-jokingly, run a column about the Conservative plan with the headline: “Erin O’Toole, socialist crusader.”

In the pieceJustin Ling called the Conservative proposals “sensible” and “pro-worker” and wondered if the centre-right party could steal the NDP’s image as the go-to option for working-class voters.

“Nobody can doubt the New Democrats working class bona fides, but one can wonder if they suffered from a lack of competition on that front,” wrote Ling.

But are the Conservatives really moving to the left? Alberta MP Garnett Genuis argues that’s not quite the right way to look at it.

Genuis made a speech last year in the House of Commons arguing that yes, going back to former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, some conservatives have shared concerns about social injustice with communists and socialists.

But where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued for class war, Disraeli argued for solidarity between the classes.

“Marx and Engels proposed to change who was at the top of the social hierarchy, but Disraeli sought to challenge the moral condition and the lack of understanding, solidarity and community that led to injustice in the first place,” said Genuis.

With this framing, it’s easy to see why O’Toole would be inclined to throw some support behind labour unions, which are the best way to remedy what Ling describes as “the growing imbalance between boss and employee.”

The American political scientist Michael Lind has been pushing centre-right parties to adopt pro-union policies for years, arguing that corporations are so large and dominant that it’s impossible for individual workers to negotiate a fair salary. Lind pegs this as one of the primary causes of recent wage stagnation.

The idea that a single worker could stand a chance in a negotiation with a company like Amazon, which is worth nearly $1.78 trillion, is not realistic, argues Lind.

“In much of the U.S. economy, a free, highly competitive market in labor does not exist and will never exist. Instead, in many industries, wages are set by informal collusive coordination among all of the firms in a sector,” wrote Lind.

These are some of the ideas fueling the Conservative platform and they have been percolating for a few years now.

It’s not so much a shift left or right, but a realignment that is already underway in the U.S. and the U.K. This election campaign is proving to be a litmus test of how this shift will play out in Canada, if at all.

3:00 p.m. — The Liberal platform shows a preference for ‘cooperative federalism’ and centralization

The Hub’s editor-at-large Sean Speer examines the Liberal platform:

Today Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau released his party’s policy platform. It reflects a combination of policy measures from the April 2021 federal budget and new, incremental promises including many which have already been announced thus far in the campaign. The overall package has been described by Liberal spokespeople as the party’s “most progressive platform” ever released.

Early media reporting on the platform has focused on the amount of new spending ($78 billion over five years) and the impact on the federal deficit ($70 billion more over five years relative to the Parliamentary Budget Office’s pre-election estimates).

But while the sticker shock is significant, that’s partly because other parties have yet to release the full costing of their policy platforms. It’s difficult to know at this stage how the Liberals’ overall spending compares to the NDP and Conservative plans. We do know, however, that no major party will project a balanced budget over a four-year mandate and counting.

One distinguishing characteristic of the Liberal platform is its preference for cooperative federalism in which the federal government actively uses the so-called “federal spending power” to influence and shape provincial programs and policies. The Liberals seem increasingly comfortable to participate in provincial and local policy fields even relative to their own previous pronouncements.

Although no party subscribes to a conception of federalism that legal thinker Asher Honickman has described as “watertight compartments,” it’s fair to say that the Liberal plan is, in specific and overall terms, more centralizing than the Conservative policy agenda.

Take health care for instance. The Conservatives have committed to increasing the Canada Health Transfer’s growth rate to “at least 6 percent per year” but have not proposed any conditionality beyond the parameters set out in the Canada Health Act. (We have previously written about this policy promise and its flaws here.)

The Liberals, by contrast, haven’t promised any changes to the Canada Health Transfer but instead have proposed a series of targeted federal transfers for mental health, wait lists, hirings of doctors and nurses, virtual care, and the wages of personal support workers. While the total sum of these various promises exceeds the cost of increasing the main health transfer to 6 percent annually, they’ll each come with their own strings attached which will result in a more active federal role in provincial health-care systems.

One might argue therefore that the Liberals’ cooperative federalism approach is less about addressing a perceived “fiscal imbalance” and more about directing the design and implementation of provincial health-care programs and policies.

The salary increases for personal support workers is a good (or bad) example. While there may be a case that these workers should earn as much as $25 per hour, it seems odd for Ottawa to impose a “guaranteed minimum wage” across the country divorced from local labour market conditions or the design of provincial care systems.

This preference for cooperative federalism is evident across various other policy areas in the Liberals’ platform as well including child-care, education, and housing.

Different conceptions of federalism are rarely top-of-mind issues for Canadian voters. They tend to be primarily the interest of academics and policy wonks. But this campaign has taken on a more provincial and local dimension than previous federal ones. Perhaps we need a refresher on Canadian federalism. Our political parties certainly do.

1:30 p.m. — Infrastructure promises are only as good as our government’s ability to execute its decision

The Hub contributor Chris Spoke examines the Conservative infrastructure proposals:

Conservative leader Erin O’toole announced his infrastructure plan today. It focused on the need for more public transit, roads, and 5g networks to “connect all of Canada to high-speed internet by 2025.”

Specifically, he promised to kill the Canada Infrastructure Bank and direct funding to projects that “strengthen transit and trade, reduce congestion and grid lock, and advance reconciliation with First Nations”, and not just those with explicitly “green” objectives.

That all sounds great. In fact, “strengthen transit and trade, reduce congestion and grid lock” sounds like four different ways of saying the same thing: improved mobility.

So we can maybe reduce this announcement to a plan for improved mobility and expanded broadband coverage. Great things!

Where we generally stumble as a country is not in allocating dollars to worthy projects but in getting those projects completed quickly and affordably.

Two quick examples:

First, we spend about six times more money to build subway infrastructure in Toronto and Vancouver than comparable cities in Europe and south-east Asia. That’s not great for our goal of improved mobility.

Second, the construction of new cell phone towers is regularly opposed by residents who don’t want them in or anywhere near their backyards. That’s not great for our goal of expanded broadband coverage.

These are problems of state capacity, of the government’s ability to actually execute on its decisions. I’d like to see all parties spend a bit more time talking about that.

12:30 p.m. — Party leaders should take AFN recommendations seriously

The Hub contributor Karen Restoule examines the Assembly of First Nations’ recommendations for the party leaders:

Yesterday, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Roseanne Archibald delivered a platform document outlining the commitments that party leaders should support and implement in order to strengthen First Nations, and ultimately, strengthen Canada.

The priorities don’t stretch too far from what has been tabled in the run up to past federal elections and draw attention to longstanding socio-economic, environmental, jurisdictional, and fiscal issues that have limited First Nations’ success and wellbeing for more than 150 years.

The platform invites party leaders to look forward and take action in five areas: truth and reconciliation, climate change, economic growth, respecting First Nations’ jurisdiction, and strengthening First Nations, and reflect a shared vision and expression of First Nations’ collective priorities at the national level.

Recent polling from Abacus Data shows us that voters in every age demographic are keen to have a government move the dial on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Of note, 32 percent of younger millennials have noted Indigenous reconciliation to be one of the top five issues that will influence their vote, ahead of government spending and deficits, cost and availability of medicines, and other issues.

All federal parties should see themselves in these priorities and consider National Chief Archibald’s invitation to respond and share with First Nations and Canadians broadly where each party stands and how they intend to address the priorities outlined.

After all, we are on Day 18 and have yet to hear from any leader on their plans for the Indigenous-Crown relationship.

11:15 a.m. — O’Toole promises more flexibility for cities on infrastructure funding

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole was in Ottawa to highlight is party’s plan for infrastructure, which he says will provide more flexibility to municipalities and First Nations and remove “onerous” requirements to receive funding.

O’Toole also plans to scrap the Canada Infrastructure Bank and get all of Canada connected to high-speed internet by 2025.

10:30 a.m. — Liberals release platform with $78 billion in new spending over five years

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was in Toronto this morning to announce the release of the party’s platform, which includes $78 billion in new spending over the next five years.

Federal deficits would be about $14 billion larger than the pre-election estimates provided by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

We’ll have instant analysis of the platform today and we’ll be digging deeper, with full comparisons of the three major platforms, as the campaign goes on.

9:30 a.m. — NDP turns the focus back to housing

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was in Montreal today to announce a plan to build affordable rental housing on federal lands in the Peel Basin area.

Singh also highlighted his previously announced housing plan, which includes a plan to build 500,000 affordable housing units, a crackdown on house flipping and a tax on vacant home.

8:30 a.m. — We’re still waiting for a convincing plan for economic growth from the party leaders

Aaron Wudrick, the director of domestic policy program at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, on how to stimulate economic growth:

There’s a mistaken assumption that the government must choose between stimulating growth or working towards balancing the budget. In reality, even in the wake of the significant hit the economy took as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible to do both.

While GDP contracted in Q2 of 2021, this was largely a direct (and predictable) consequence of re-introduced lockdown measures. With vaccination rates now high and key economic measures pointing to growth through the remainder of 2021, the economy will do just fine without the continued fiscal stimulus that all major parties appear committed to entrenching for the foreseeable future.

In fact, there is compelling evidence that growing the size of the public sector through sustained structural deficits and spending can actually constrain economic growth, and does nothing to boost GDP in the long run.

So if continued spending binges are not the answer, what is the antidote to Canada’s moribund growth and large deficits? First, eliminate pandemic spending that is no longer needed, contributes little to growth, and is exacerbating inflation. This alone would go a long way toward reducing the deficit and putting a budget balancing back within reach. No party has gotten this step right.

Second, commit to long term fiscal targets – such as doubling GDP by 2050 and integrate federal decision-making in support of this goal. Third, Canada should emulate policies of more successful jurisdictions, including the investment policies of Ireland and the innovation policies of countries with strong intellectual property protections, such as Switzerland.

Finally, Canada must resolve its unique impediments; namely, it must develop a strategy to build linear infrastructure in a timely manner and get energy products to international markets. Additionally, Ottawa should pursue interprovincial free trade, which itself could lead to a boost of 1.5 percent annually to Canada’s GDP.

By growing the economy more aggressively, we can also climb out of the deficit hole more quickly. Though no party has successfully articulated a comprehensive vision to accomplish it, this should be among the most important goals of the next government in Ottawa. 

7:00 a.m. — Where the leaders are today

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau will be in Toronto to make an announcement at 10 a.m.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole will be in Ottawa to make an announcement at 11:00 a.m.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh will make an announcement on housing at 9:30 a.m. in Montreal.

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