The Weekly Wrap: Immigration is the Trudeau government’s single biggest policy failure

Large-scale temporary migration is incompatible with how conservatives think about society as a web of reciprocal relations between neighbours and family. The late British rabbi Jonathan Sacks frequently referred to society as a “home that we build together.” Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper used to describe citizenship ceremonies as “joining the Canadian family.” These metaphors of family and home convey something much richer than a mere transactional relationship between migrants and a society in which the former sells his or her labour to the latter. They reflect a Burkean conception of society in which we’re equal parts of a multi-generational partnership. The Canadian family can and should welcome new people to join it. But it shouldn’t really be in the business of temporarily hiring people to do its landscaping or deliver its food or care for its children. This richer, more textured understanding of immigration is reflected in Canada’s birth-on-soil policy. We grant citizenship based on birthright rather than blood because we envision making long-term commitments to newcomers and their families and expect them to make similar commitments to our society. It’s a vision of mutual obligation, not temporary expediency. The Trudeau government’s abandonment of this vision has done serious harm to Canadian immigration policy. It’s probably the government’s single biggest policy failure. The Conservatives are right therefore to criticize it. But they shouldn’t merely rely on numbers and facts to prosecute their case. They can draw on the conservative traditions of family and home to present a better image of immigration and its relationship to our society. Government media subsidies are bad—regardless of who takes them For the past week or so, I’ve been part of a spirited online debate surrounding an editorial published by Niagara Now, a local online newspaper in Southern Ontario, about Pierre Poilievre’s position on the federal journalism subsidies and what it tells us about the inherent problem with how the subsidy regime interacts with politics. For those who haven’t been following, roughly two years week ago, Poilievre was in the Niagara region and did an interview with one of the outlet’s reporters who asked if he would maintain the current journalism subsidies. His short answer was no. His longer answer was highly critical of the subsidies and the extent to which they’ve contributed, in his view, to the politicization of the news media. The newspaper then published an editorial that strongly defended the subsidies and accused Poilievre of lying about them and their effects on the industry. Several members of the Trudeau government—half of the Cabinet by our count—subsequently posted the article on social media. We’ve been critical of the whole episode for three reasons. First, there’s something inappropriate about a journalist asking a politician if he or she is going to preserve public funding for journalism. Journalists play an important intermediary role between politicians and the public. They shouldn’t use their unique position to effectively lobby or advocate for themselves. Second, the editorial, which has to be understood as an ad hominem attack against Poilievre, broke the wall between the news site’s interests with respect to public funding and its editorial position. Proponents of public subsidies have argued that outlets would not let public subsidies influence their journalism. Yet here’s an obvious instance where it happened. The editorial essentially functioned as an attack on a political figure who doesn’t support funding for the outlet itself. Third, the way in which it was seized upon by members of the Trudeau government, starting with the prime minister’s chief of staff and the deputy prime minister, is evidence of the unhealthy relationship between politics and journalism that subsidies necessarily create. What these different points establish is something that critics of media subsidies have raised for a long time: the subsidization of journalism invariably creates perverse incentives that are impossible for journalists and politicians to resist. Journalistic independence is eventually put at risk. It’s not about partisanship per se. It’s something far more straightforward: naked self-interest. Poilievre’s position on public subsidies represents a threat to news outlets such that the blood barrier between their journalism and operations breaks down. This particular editorial is the most prominent case of such a breakdown, but there have no doubt been various others over the years that have just been less self-evident. (The disproportionate number of articles in the major daily newspapers about Bill C-18 and the Canadian Journalism Collective is another example.) My comments along these lines have received a fair bit of criticism online. Probably the most common critique is that there are various others receiving public subsidies, including conservative outlets like the National Post and the Sun chain, and it’s hypocritical not to call them out too. Fair enough. Let me be clear: public subsidies for journalism are bad irrespective of whether they’re going to the Globe and Mail, Niagara Now, or the National Post. It doesn’t matter whether an outlet more or less shares our general philosophical disposition. In fact, one could argue that they’re even more egregious for conservative journalists and outlets given that they’re otherwise generally critical of state intervention in the marketplace. I think for instance of the Financial Post columnists who’ve spent their careers railing against corporate welfare and now find themselves on the dole. The whole story—including the vehement reaction from the supporters of public subsidies—demonstrates the irreconcilable tension between reporting on politics and having politics allocate a significant portion of a news outlet’s revenues. This should have been obvious to everyone—particularly conservatives. Kamala the conservative? Not quite This week’s Democratic Party convention in Chicago has of course been the subject of a ton of coverage and commentary. One column in particular jumped out at me. Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne made the provocative argument that not only should conservatives reject Donald Trump but that there’s actually an affirmative conservative case for supporting Kamala Harris. It’s a provocative thesis. I’m not sure that it’s a convincing one. The first part of his argument is that Trump is unworthy of conservatives’ support because he’s neither conservative as a matter of policy substance nor personal temperament is persuasive enough. Trump’s policy thinking is marked by a number of divergences from conservative orthodoxy on free markets, free trade, and limited government. Although there’s scope room for contemporary debate on these questions—particularly related to China—, there’s no doubt that his policy agenda would push America in a more state-centric direction than the old Reaganite consensus. It’s Trump’s character though—his lack of comportment, self-discipline, or inherent solicitude—that is the real problem. He’s the personal and political manifestation of the Freudian id: the chaotic, impulsive, and primitive part of the human psyche. It can be fun to watch sometimes—his latest podcast interview with comedian Theo Von certainly had its moments for instance—but his absence of Aristotelian qualities like prudence or self-restraint is ultimately un-conservative. For these reasons, Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party has clearly transformed it in ways that, as a conservative, make it a less appealing political movement. If I were American, I’d gladly vote for a conservative alternative like former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels or former Nebraska senator Ben Sasse over Trump any day. Which brings me to the second part of Coyne’s argument—his conservative case for Harris—which, it must be said, is a tougher sell. The notion that she’s “more conservative” and that her ticket with Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz is “vaguely…Reaganite” basically requires that he ignore away key parts of their political worldviews and policy priorities from the record. In the past week alone, she’s promised price controls and massive new taxes on capital and corporations. And the Democratic Party platform sets out various other progressive priorities like affirmative action and illegal immigration amnesty. It’s fair to assume that a Harris Administration would have more progressive instincts and policies than the Biden one which would arguably make it the most left-wing administration in modern history. And that doesn’t even reckon with the extent to which the Democratic Party has come to embrace a pretty radical form of culture politics in recent years. One could argue that it is now to the Left of the Trudeau government on questions of gender, race, and sexual identity. This week’s “abortion bus” at the convention speaks to how radicalized Democrats have become. They’ve gone from the Clintonian notion of “safe, legal, and rare” to a public spectacle in favour of abortion itself. Making light of such a deeply complex issue—even among those who’re generally inclined towards the pro-choice position—reflects the progressive id. It’s a lot of things—but it’s not conservative. I wrote in November 2020 that Trump’s defeat was good for conservatives. It would permit him to move on with some wins such as his Supreme Court appointments before doing real damage to conservatism. That column failed to anticipate the January 6 riot or Trump’s cult-like hold over the Republican Party and other organs of the American conservative movement. I’m still inclined to agree that it would probably be good if he were defeated. But there’s a big difference between a negative case against Trump and an affirmative case for Harris. If I had the chance, I’d write in Mitch Daniels.