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We need to talk about "caucus discipline" because it is absurd.

The bumper cars-routine that has been Premier Doug Ford's cuts to Francophone services in Ontario is a case in point that caucus discipline has gone too far.

Amanda Simard, the only Francophone in the Premier's caucus from an almost-entirely Franco-Ontarien constituency, spoke up against the cuts.

At first, the Ford team seemed to be handily things somewhat deftly, allowing that on this issue, she needed to side with her constituents rather than her caucus colleagues.

But when her criticism did not stop, it seems the government got its back up.  They even went so far as trying to block her from speaking against the measure in the Legislature.

Reporters engaged in a theatre of the absurd performance of reviewing whether she was applauding her government in Question Period — apparently a key performance indicator for Ford and his embattled, mercurial chief of staff.  One reporter even took to referring to her consistently as a "rogue MPP", when all she was doing was her job.

The fact is, despite the prevalence of party labels and leaders, we still elect MPs to represent our riding's interests in our parliaments.

In other words, Simard was doing her job.

The Ford government at first seemed to recognise that discretion is the better form of valour, and let her speak out.

Then, they clamped down, and the result is that Simard is now an Independent member of the Legislature.

There are rumours brewing another half dozen Tory Ontario MPPs are similarly discontent and considering crossing the floor.  To lose one MPP in the first six months of a mandate is bad; to lose another six is catastrophe.

To his credit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has allowed a certain degree of latitude for Members to break with the government on non-confidence measures, but if an MP strays too far, they can face internal demotions — see, for example Nate Erskine-Smith or Scott Simms, who lost committee roles and a chairmanship.

Meanwhile, in Westminster, British Prime Minister Theresa May can barely keep her cabinet together on her Brexit deal, much less her backbench.  In the UK, MPs are expected to break with the government, not as a matter of course, but when their conscience or their constituents demand.  MPs vote against the government in Westminster, if not routinely, then as often as necessary to do the job of being the peoples' servants in a representative democracy well.

Trudeau seems to recognise that a certain amount of leniency is also a way to diffuse an issue; it lets an MP do what they feel needs to be done.  It becomes something of a pressure release and shows some grace from leadership.

Ford should learn the same lesson.  If he intends to govern "For The People" as he claims ad nauseam, it's to his benefit to sometimes let his caucus show the diversity of views the people actually have.

Even Nancy Pelosi, the almost certain once and future US Speaker of the House, showed enough humility and dexterity to let her more moderate members vote against even her leadership, in order to show independence and freethinking.  It worked; she won the best US midterm results in history.

Of course, the real culprits aren't the Party whips but the media.  The media — as they did with Simard — cover the story almost exclusively through the angle of caucus disarray.  This is a facile and sometimes farcical attempt at clickbait.

Members should be allowed to be freethinking individuals, not automatons.  They should be allowed to vote their conscience and their constituents' interests.  And the media should not treat every attempt at diversity of thought as a five-alarm caucus disunity fire.

I was on Parliament Hill earlier this week and was reminded as I walked back to my hotel of Pierre Trudeau's quip about MPs: "when they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill…they are just nobodies".

Maybe if their votes weren't some almost nameless part of a presumed party whip count, that would change.  And we'd certainly have more intellectually honest public debates—for the people.

Photo Credit: The Hamilton Spectator

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


GM's announcement that it was closing yet another plant in Oshawa caught everyone by surprise.  If it wasn't so sad, it would have been funny to watch Industry Minister Navdeep Bains looking like a deer caught in headlights as he was making the rounds trying to put a brave face on his government's incapacity to see this coming or to actually do anything about it.

In a weird twist of fate, GM's closure will force the Trudeau and Ford governments to work together.  But don't expect a salvaging operation.  While both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Doug Ford expressed their disappointment at GM and said they would do what was needed to be done to help the workers affected by the automaker's decision, the contrast in their approach was also telling.

Trudeau was all about expressing his feelings in order to commiserate with Oshawa families, who may soon have to leave everything behind as the local economy comes to a halt.  The Oshawa Truck Assembly plant was shut down in 2009 while the GM north plant was gone by 2004.

For generations, GM workers have been the heart and soul of Oshawa.  But, as Premier Ford stated, that ship has left the dock.  It's a tough week for workers in Oshawa, not only at GM but all along the supply chain.

When GM was failing in 2008, both levels of governments stepped up to help out, providing billions of dollars to support the company.   Once GM was out of trouble, Governments were out of it too.

That was obviously a mistake: why would you trust the very same bunch to right the ship properly, to the benefit of your province and your country, when they had just failed miserably a few years back?  GM didn't ask for help this time.  Their decision was entirely predictable, yet nobody really saw the announcement coming, despite previous rumours.

It is inexcusable that they were caught off guard and there is not much the governments could do to prevent it, not after having sold their shares in the company in 2015.  The Corporate Welfare Bums win again!

It's a big slap in the face for the people of Oshawa, the people of Ontario and the people of Canada.  Because the auto industry is what made the city of Oshawa grow.  For 111 years, they've built cars in Oshawa.  The OHL junior hockey team, the Oshawa Generals, were named after General Motors in the 30s.  But today the last plant is closed.

Unifor's President Jerry Dias has appeared shaken and upset, as he pledged that "they're not closing our damn plant without one hell of a fight".  But back in 2009, when GM closed the truck assembly plant, the union was mad too.  They protested, they howled, they went through the motions.  The plant was still shut down.

The Ontario government has given up.  The Federal government is talking about training people.  And GM is moving out.

The future is not very rosy for the people of Oshawa.

Photo Credit: Global News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


 

In the wake of General Motors (GM) announcing that no new product would be allocated to its facility in Oshawa, Ontario, in 2019, nor to four other facilities across the U.S., much of the blame rightfully went to GM itself.  The company is far behind on investing in electric and autonomous vehicle innovation.  Competitors such as Toyota and Honda have begun to dominate market for sedans, which are what the Oshawa plant built.  The perception of the GM brand is one of low reliability, corporate welfare suckage, and local economic devastation.  This closure was, perhaps inevitably, a matter of when, not if.

Don't expect any of this to comfort the nearly three thousand Oshawans who will be out of a job, to say nothing of the plant's suppliers and other businesses depending on the local workforce.  GM has finally faced up to its failure to justify their continued employment.  It's now up to others, specifically others in government, to answer the first question that came to their minds: "What's next?"  Some answers have been worth hearing; others are simply a waste of breath.  Let's recap.

Best: Ontario Premier Doug Ford

Ford's term has shaped up to be much more action-oriented than I once predicted.  He accepted GM's declaration that the government could do nothing to help, and immediately shifted his focus to unemployment insurance and retraining.  One does wonder if he would have shoveled more subsidies onto GM if they'd claimed it was necessary, say, for retooling the facility to build electric vehicles.  Luckily, even they aren't that shameless.

Worst: Ontario Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath

It seems Ford's opposite number definitely would have, accusing Ford in a statement of refusing to make the "investments" needed for Oshawans to build "the vehicles of tomorrow."  She is absolutely correct that the laid-off workers would rather have jobs than extended EI benefits; nobody is ignorant of this.  But GM has determined that some of its facilities are suitable for the vehicles of tomorrow, and none of the five being closed are among them.  If they were committed to keeping Oshawa open, they would have retooled the plant accordingly, with or (preferably) without another government check.  By pretending this is not the case, Horwath is offering nothing more to Oshawa than false hope.

Worst: Unifor president Jerry Dias

But at least Horwath's economic advice isn't pure poison.  For that, we turn to self-appointed labour czar Jerry Dias, calling on the federal government to give "the middle finger" to GM by slapping tariffs of up to 40 percent on any cars the company manufactures in Mexico.  His sole concern here appears to be retaliation; were he genuinely concerned with GM's willingness to pay more workers, he would recall that existing tariffs on GM's supply chain may have sped up the shutdowns, if not caused them outright.  That he doesn't puts him squarely in the company of . . .

Worst: U.S. President Donald Trump

We shouldn't expect Trump to change the habits of a lifetime and accept even partial or possible responsibility for an outcome he doesn't like.  But you'd think, when he spoke to GM CEO Mary Barra, that he would at least pay lip service to the fates of laid-off workers in Ohio, Michigan, and Maryland.  Maybe you think "I love Ohio" counts.  "You're playing around with the wrong person" meaning himself, he who has probably never so much as changed a tire in his life does not.  And what action might he take if GM doesn't open a new plant in the Buckeye State?  A 25 percent tariff on all auto exports, except for those from Mexico and Canada.  Some people never learn.

Best: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Trudeau's responses have been as predictable as possible: He has expressed his disappointment, discussed options for workers with Ford, met with Unifor, and talked on the phone with Trump, all without announcing any specific actions on the federal government's part.  It's not much, but he's keeping a cool head, possibly positioning himself as the mediator in future talks between all parties.  Not being actively unhelpful counts for more than it may seem.

Worst: Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer

It's one thing to suggest that a federal carbon tax might hurt Canada's business investment climate.  But Scheer is eager to have us believe that, had Trudeau offered GM a carbon tax exemption, they might have kept Oshawa open.  When Ford said GM told him that no policy change would make a difference, does Scheer think he was lying?

(UPDATE: As this column was going to press, CBC published an article headlined "Doug Ford blames Trudeau's carbon tax for GM plant closure."  A closer read of his comments indicates that he blames the carbon tax for a dire outlook for Canadian manufacturing, but not the GM closure in particular.  However, he does draw a direct link between GM and business-unfriendly policies, such as high taxes and hydro rates, implemented by former Premier Kathleen Wynne: "If I'd been here for five years, they probably wouldn't have left."  Oh, Doug.  You were doing so well.)

Written by Jess Morgan

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Monday was something of a black day in Southern Ontario, as General Motors announced it would be closing its manufacturing plant in Oshawa.

It's catastrophic, in the sense that GM wasn't just closing the Oshawa plant, but one in Ohio and another Michigan.  This is a signal the plant is gone, there is no bringing it back.  Not any time soon, at least.

So, it was with more than a little interest I watched Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer stand up in the House of Commons this week.  What would he say?  What message would he push?  What does he want done?  What would Scheer's vision for the future look like?

He rose Tuesday* and the first question out of his mouth was, "Can the minister confirm if any of the support programs being contemplated for GM workers were factored into the fall economic statement, or can we expect the deficit to be even higher?"

Woof.

Question Period is mostly a farce, a theatrical spectacle meant not to get to the bottom of anything, but to show off, with a rigid delivery that hints at moral drama, what a politician's priorities are.

And so when the Tory leader stood up to ask his first question to the government, to signal what his very first priority was on this black week, he went to the deficit and whether it might be growing.  Grim stuff, but not out of type.

If you've seen the Conservative leader, or perhaps any other right-wing Canadian politician, lately, you might have some idea where things headed from there.  Yes, of course, Scheer was wondering if the government would drop the carbon tax, or at the very least give the auto sector an exemption.  At least give them a fighting chance!

This line of questioning may have made some sense if GM had only closed the Oshawa plant.  But the auto giant wasn't just closing this Canadian plant, it was also closing a pair of factories in the U.S.  Our southern neighbours, you might have heard, don't have a carbon tax.  In fact, the current administration down there is taking a slash, and slash again strategy to not just taxes, but environmental regulation as well.

If dropping the not-yet-in-force carbon tax was going to keep the Oshawa plant open, how do you explain that?

Well, you can't.  Not really.  Not in any intellectually honest way.

So, you could perhaps dismiss this as just part of the theatre of question period.  But the carbon tax led off the round of questions Scheer asked Wednesday, too.  This is the tack they are taking, that Canada's regulations and taxes are what are closing the assembly plant in Oshawa.

What Scheer is asking for is a new tier of handouts for a company that is obviously not swayed by them.  It wasn't that long ago that federal and provincial governments were handing GM oodles of cash, in the form of $60 billion in loans, to keep it out of bankruptcy.

That wasn't enough to stop a transmission plant from closing in Oshawa in 2009 and another assembly plant in Windsor in 2010.  When the Oshawa plant closes at the end of this year, GM will have two left in Canada, one in Ingersol. the other in St Catherines.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he was told by the company there was nothing to be done, but let's assume for a second Scheer's demands were met and GM decided to keep the Oshawa plant open.  How long would that last?

General Motors has made it clear they can be bought for a time, but they make no commitments to the future.  How much money should be thrown at this corporation, only to watch it vanish?

If your answer is more, you've obviously not been paying attention.

Scheer doesn't have the answer to this problem, but he needs some kind of solution.  Why not make it the same case he's been making all this time anyway?  After all, if the talking point fits, spout it.

All of this ties back to this ongoing feeling I have when it comes to the Tory leader.  There's always this suggestion there's something more to Scheer.  Some greater depth, or insight, or even tactical ability.  But every time he shows the same self, the same plan.

He's against deficits, against the carbon tax, against regulations, against being against pipelines, against this, against that.  He has a pithy line for all sorts of situations, but ask the guy to get down to details, to reveal something about what he wants to do â€” not just undo — and he's got nothing.

His priorities for the people for Oshawa are to keep the deficit down.  To stop a carbon tax that wouldn't have kept their jobs anyway.

There is no depth, there is no more.  Andrew Scheer has showed us who he is.  This is his best.

***

*He wasn't in the Commons on Monday.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Alberta New Democrats know beer.

They toiled for years at the low end of the political pay scale, more than likely swilling brews, not $50 Scotch or ice wine, during late night left wing get-togethers.

Their rise to power in 2015 coincided nicely with the mushrooming attention craft beer was getting from millennials.  The NDP government saw an obvious opportunity.  Alberta's small craft brewery sector was ripe for development into a thriving industry.  What could be more feel-good: a business built on Alberta agricultural products bringing happiness to locals at community centres and down-home independent pubs?

So the government initiated a number of support programs and policies to speed up the Alberta sector.  Now Alberta has 99 craft breweries, a leap from the 10 craft breweries the province had five years ago.

The government is busting its buttons over the success.

Now the Alberta government is developing national ambitions on the suds front, launching a trade challenge to open up the giant Ontario market to Alberta's beer and promising to expand its fight for inter-provincial beer free trade to other provinces.

Breweries in Alberta argue that they have been barred from free access to Ontario by a myriad of discriminatory regulatory fees and policies.  In one case, Edmonton's Alley Kat Brewery had to pay $400 in lab fees to get $1,600-worth of its beer into Ontario, even though the well-established brewery must meet the same safety standards as any other brewery in Canada.

Naturally Alberta is railing against such blatant injustice.  Just as Ontario and Saskatchewan breweries railed against the blatant injustice of Alberta policies created to give a hand up to craft breweries in the province.

In fact, Ontario's Steam Whistle Brewing and Saskatchewan's Great Western Brewing Company won court challenges against Alberta for discriminatory practices including markup policies for small breweries that favoured the domestic Alberta product over out-of-province brews, and a subsequent evening out of the markup coupled with subsidies to Alberta small brewers to offset the increase.

Does that make the Alberta position on interprovincial free trade a bit hypocritical?  You might say that.  The NDP's tactics to build craft brewing in the province have been quite effective, if not always particularly consistent.

In a two-pronged response to this week's NDP free trade challenge against Ontario, UCP Leader Jason Kenney has tweeted his support of the government.  The UCP party statement is not quite so supportive.

"It's notable that the minister also announced this trade challenge at the same time as he abandoned his illegal subsidy that has cost Alberta millions of dollars in fines," said the party statement.

From another perspective, the government's subsidies may have just achieved their purpose and run their course.  The NDP might have decided to run the risk of a fine or two to get the industry up and running.  Maybe there was a benchmark — say 100 active craft breweries — that would trigger the end of protecting the nascent industry within Alberta's borders.

Now the second phase of developing that industry has begun, with the province's aggressive stance against Ontario the first volley in a larger battle to build Alberta craft beer's market and reputation across the country.

Some of that is already happening.  The Vancouver Sun just ran a travel piece on Alberta focused on the craft scene in Calgary and that gushed, "If you're a beer lover, Alberta just might be one of the most exciting places on the planet to visit right now."

Beyond brewery jobs and buzz, of course, is the base principle of keeping politics simple and relatable.  And booze is pretty darn relatable.  At the height of Alberta's irritation with British Columbia over its attempts to block the Trans Mountain Pipeline, the first target the Alberta government aimed at was the B.C. wine industry, blocking it from importation to Alberta.

Now that the provincial election is approaching in the spring, the optics of the NDP standing up for small craft brewers is a simple, warm and fuzzy image.  The UCP recognizes that and has shot back, saying the government is spending too much time on the issue.  Of course they want to swing the spotlight back to the failure to get a pipeline lifted off the regulatory rack.

Even though it's not giant in the scheme of the provincial economy, the craft brewery success story is a winner for the NDP.  And right now Rachel Notley's government needs a chill, refreshing victory to take the edge off.

Photo Credit: Labmanager.com

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


The official home of the prime minister is in utter disrepair. But the price tag to restore it is way too high. Here's a solution

$34.5 million.

That's how much the National Capital Commission (NCC) recently said it would cost to repair 24 Sussex Drive, the official residence of the Canadian prime minister since 1951.

Hmm, this seems pretty steep.  What about tearing down the original Victorian house (built in 1868) and its extension, and building a brand new one?

That's even worse.  The price tag would climb to $38.5 million.

Neither estimate would even cover all the required repairs at 24 Sussex.  The pool building ($5.3 million) and caretaker's house ($2 million) would remain in a crumbling state of affairs.

It's hard to believe after all these years of study that the NCC came up with these figures.  Not just from a political or partisan perspective, but also a personal one.

My family has been involved in mortgages and investments since the early 1930s.  Louis Taube, my late grandfather and a lawyer, dealt with mortgages before the rise of the Central (later Canada) Mortgage and Housing Corp., the national housing agency, in 1946.  Stanley Taube, my father and also a lawyer, bought his first mortgage at age 13 in 1949, owned a trust company and remains in the industry.

While I headed into politics and media and opted not to become a lawyer (there's a black sheep in every household!), I carried on this tradition and also became a mortgage agent.

In my view, the NCC's two numbers are preposterous.  Even if you factor in security, electricity, heating, paint, wallpaper, elevator upgrade, crown mouldings and other fixtures, along with the pool building and caretaker's house, the entire repair shouldn't exceed $10 million.  And while it's easy to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a new build, it should still be in the neighbourhood of $12 million to $15 million.

Some professional contractors seem to feel the same way.  For instance, one contractor told Toronto-based talk radio host John Moore on Nov. 22 that the repair should be around $5 million.  This particular number sounds both fiscally prudent and economically tangible.

With this in mind, I would suggest the NCC re-approach a well-known Canadian builder/contractor: Mike Holmes.

The star of several popular TV series (Holmes on Homes, Holmes Inspection, Holmes and Holmes), he offered to help rebuild the aging, collapsing residence back in October 2015.  "I've read all your posts about the problems with 24 Sussex Drive and that Justin Trudeau won't be moving in," Holmes wrote on his Facebook page, "I do know the best renovator in Ottawa that would be happy to help.  Say the word and we'll grab our tools!"

According to news reports, the Prime Minister's Office turned him down.  That was a poor decision.

As a professional contractor, Holmes has access to a wide array of builders and suppliers.  He would be able to keep costs down through his connections, buying in bulk, while keeping the historical importance of this particular residence at the forefront.

Holmes would likely want to create a TV reality show when repairing 24 Sussex.  While this initiative could turn some Canadians off, there's really nothing wrong with the idea.  It would enhance his reputation and create a permanent video record of the entire project.  This would also help ensure the house repair has been done properly, and would last for many years and/or decades.

Yes, Holmes has different ideas about what to do with 24 Sussex.

In November 2016, he told CTV's Question Period that while he respects the need to protect it as a heritage building, "You could take the house down and build a brand new home.  If it was me, that's probably what I would do."

He went on the same program last week with a new suggestion: "Should it be a museum?  Should we turn it back to history for all the prime ministers that were there, for the public to walk in and see it?"

Nevertheless, the NCC should set up a meeting and see what he thinks.  If Holmes can repair and save one of Canada's great homes, he'll hopefully save millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.

Photo Credit: Constitution150.ca

Troy Media columnist and political commentator Michael Taube was a speechwriter for former prime minister Stephen Harper.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


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The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Last week, when demanding action on the oil price differential, Alberta's finance minister, Joe Ceci stated that the federal government was on "another planet," that if it was the auto sector or Bombardier facing problems, "there wold be all-hands-on-deck trying to address this as quickly as possible," and felt that Alberta's oil sector wasn't getting the same treatment.  Just days later, GM announced that they were planning to halt production in their Oshawa plant in 2019, and there was an immediate sense that Ceci's words might be put to the test.

While I get that there is frustration in Alberta (speaking as an Albertan myself with family who works in the oil patch), I also have to roll my eyes a little at Ceci's rhetoric, because the federal government has taken plenty of action to help Alberta's oil sector, up to and including outright buying the existing Trans Mountain pipeline in order to ensure that its expansion can be built.  Measures in the fall economic update around accelerated capital cost depreciation and tax credits for investments in companies will benefit the oil sector, and had in fact been demanded by them.  It's hard to square the government's actions with the narrative from the usual suspects in Alberta that the federal government is stymying new pipeline development.  It doesn't fit the actual facts on the ground, never mind the list of lies being told about the decisions relating to Northern Gateway, Energy East, and Keystone XL.

And it's not like there are any actual budgetary measures that can help the situation that the oil patch finds itself in a temporary supply-and-demand situation brought on by a supply glut at a time of constrained demand because of refineries in the U.S. are being shut down for maintenance and retooling.  The price differential problem is one that was decades in the making, owing to changing economics in the oil markets, and it's one that can't be fixed overnight.  Ceci has been demanding immediate action from the federal government in terms of increasing the amount of oil that travels by rail in other words, that the federal government buy oil tankers to use until pipeline capacity comes online (and there is the Enbridge Line 3 replacement that will come online next year that will help with the capacity issues), but there's just one small problem with Ceci's demand it's also one that will take time.

You can't just go to a dealership and buy new railcars, whether you're talking grain hoppers or tanker cars.  Why do you think it's taking the industry to long to phase out the older oil tanker cars that were responsible for the disaster at Lac Mégantic?  They take time to build, and the federal finance minister has told Ceci as much.  To get the numbers of railcars he wants could take a full year by which point Line 3 will be in operation.

And it's not just Ceci making demands Conservatives and their provincial counterparts are making all manner of demands that they say would have immediate effect, but they haven't yet actually given any convincing arguments declaratory legislation around the Trans Mountain pipeline would be useless because it's already federal jurisdiction (seriously, look at a map it crosses a provincial boundary); appealing the Federal Court of Appeal decision on Trans Mountain will take well over a year while they have yet to point to the error in law that they would be appealing; and nobody can conclusively point to any section in the new environmental assessment legislation, Bill C-69, that is an actual hindrance to new pipeline projects.  Worse yet, industry boosters keep making comparisons about how Canada built railways and we should be able to build pipelines ignoring of course that railways were built with virtual slave-labour from China, and forcibly displaced the Indigenous people on the prairies in order to get it through their lands.  I'm not sure that's an argument they want to keep repeating too loudly.

Let's compare Alberta's woes to those of Bombardier or the auto sector.  With Bombardier, they were asking for loans in order to ensure liquidity something that the oil sector isn't having a problem with.  Likewise, with the auto sector they needed money to keep afloat while they restructured during the economic downturn, and again, they did simply ensuring that money flows was something the government was able to do in fairly short order (though the fact that the Conservatives wrote the Chrysler loans in such a way that made them impossible to get repayment for after they restructured into Fiat Chrysler was clearly a problem, and the fact that they sold the GM shares they bought at a loss in order to create their paper balance on the budget was also arguably poor judgment).  These aren't the problems the oil sector is having, so trying to make the comparison is clearly a bit of a straw man, and Ceci and the Conservative agitators know it.  Clearly, they think that fomenting anger against the federal government is a winning strategy, even though it's built on a foundation of sand.

This having been said, we should also acknowledge that the woes of both the manufacturing sector in Ontario, and the oil patch in Alberta, are not wholly dissimilar, in that they're both the signs of a changing economy.  The manufacturing sector is transforming from one where the low-skill work has been replaced either by automation or by going off-shore, and what is replacing it domestically much more high-tech and high-skilled.  For the oil patch, both the availability of shale oil and gas, plus the demands for greener alternatives, means that it too will be facing a future where may not be any pipelines post Trans Mountain because of changing environment around social licence, and climate obligations mean that hard caps on emissions will curtail growth in the future.  Both sectors will need to adapt, and the current challenges they face are indicative of problems on the horizon.  Government bail outs may postpone the inevitable, but as the GM situation has shown, a changing marketplace will mean hardships for both industries going forward.

Photo Credit: Huffington Post

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


There's something about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's proposed carbon tax scheme that's caused some people to twist our ideological perceptions way out of whack.

For instance, everybody expects conservative politicians to mightily oppose the carbon tax since, after all, opposing taxes is what conservative politicians are ideologically-speaking supposed to do.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't ever remember Ronald Reagan ever supporting a tax.

Yet, some smart people in this country are making the case that the carbon tax should actually be regarded as a conservative policy, meaning conservative politicians who oppose it i.e. politicians like Andrew Scheer, Jason Kenney and Doug Ford are basically guilty of something akin to ideological treason.

One such smart person putting forward this seemingly topsy-turvy argument is "conservative economist" Christopher Ragan, who's director of something called the Max Bell School of Public Policy.

In a recent column in the Globe and Mail, Ragan argued the carbon tax is "the only truly market-based approach to reducing emissions."

To put that argument another way, imposing a carbon tax (or carbon "price") will ensure the market place's cold-hearted discipline will inflict such economic pain on gasoline-buying consumers they'll be forced to either reduce consumption or to find alternative forms of "clean" energy.

So I guess, Adam Smith would theoretically love a carbon tax.

And this is Ragan's main point; as he asks in his column: "If carbon pricing is so clearly within the tradition of conservatism, why do today's conservative leaders reject it so strongly?"

That's an interesting question, but if we accept Ragan's premise doesn't that lead to another interesting question, i.e. "If carbon pricing is so clearly within the tradition of conservatism, why do today's socialist leaders accept it so strongly?"

I mean, if Adam Smith would love a carbon tax wouldn't that also mean Karl Marx would hate it?

As a matter of fact, I highly suspect Marx would say bourgeois-capitalistic "market-based solutions" actually end up hurting the proletariat who are lower down on the socio-economic ladder.

Indeed, isn't that the cornerstone of socialist thought?

Isn't that why socialists typically oppose the free market, they believe it helps the rich and burdens the poor?

And couldn't you make the argument that a carbon tax does hurt the poor, that it's actually a regressive tax, one that spares fat cat corporate elites?

So I wonder why, in the name of ideological consistency, no "socialist economist" from some left-wing think tank, is writing articles in the Globe and Mail, chastising any left wing politician who supports the "conservative carbon tax."

He or she might argue that, instead of advocating a carbon tax, leftists should be pushing for massive taxes on private jets and on yachts and on limousines.

Surely, such a proposal would fit in better with a socialist "class war" ethos.

If Ragan can legitimately call Scheer and Ford and Kenney, ideological traitors for opposing the carbon tax, doesn't it follow left-wingers like Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh are ideological traitors for supporting it?

Yet, as far as I have seen, socialists have embraced the carbon tax.

And this is the problem I have with Ragan's thesis.

If the carbon tax is such a conservative policy, as he maintains, how is it that socialists can support it in good conscience?

I suppose it's possible they don't understand the supposed free market underpinnings of the carbon tax or maybe they've simply given up on socialism.

But isn't it more likely they simply see the carbon tax as good socialist policy, as an instrument to increase the state's power over the individual?

And given the history of taxes in the past, isn't that a reasonable assumption?

That's why, with all due respect to "conservative economist" Christopher Ragan and to Adam Smith, I'd say conservative politicians are right to be wary of the carbon tax.

In other words, the ideological instincts of Scheer and Ford and Kenney are sound.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


In my study of Canadian politics, I have observed two trends that I thought were separate: a near-constant absurdity and sense of meaninglessness, where incompetence repeatedly thwarts any developments that might actually be good for the country or province, and resistance to populism, where elites demonstrate sudden bursts of ruthlessness and efficiency in nipping any dissent in the bud.  I now realize that these two tendencies are not mutually exclusive.  Simply put, you can't get too excited about something that means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Canada is, and will always be, a curiosity, a place that exists in spite of itself.  Liberals like Trudeau spend bucketloads of credibility and money trying to attract investment that might pack up and leave at any time, cultivating an obviously false image of a nation that's just too good to be true.  But they do not realize that the thing that they value most, and the thing that they virtue signal about most Canada's safeness, and its decency is the thing that prevents people from investing, and keeping their money here.  People don't want to bet big on safe bets.

Then we've got fake populists like Ford and Legault, who are supposed to signal the advent of made-in-Canada Trumpism, and huckster hobos like Steve Bannon, who provoked a perfectly Canadian outbreak of self-conscious madness when he showed up here to chat with local boy David Frum in what amounted to a useless gabfest where no one's mind was changed, if you believe the official results.

Standing outside Roy Thomson Hall as the protest against Bannon unfolded, and Toronto's moneyed elites sniffed at the rabble screaming "Shaaaaaame!" at them from the other side of barricades, over the shoulders of armoured police, I bore witness to an amazing sight.  A protestor, one who you would imagine would be inclined to vigorously oppose Ford's brand of populism (or else why would he be there that Friday night?) began to dance as a group of drummers tapped out a cadence.  Lightly and insubstantially, he hopped from one foot to the other in time with the drums, dropping into crouches and sliding across the pavement with coordinated movements of his ankles.  One of the police officers, who had a short while ago held his baton aloft, threatening to crack the skull of any masked Antifa drone who got too close, smiled broadly and called out to the dancer in encouragement.

Immediately I understood.  This whole display was nothing but pageantry, a Little League tournament where everyone gets to go home and declare that they were on the winning side.  This ridiculous dancer knew it, the cops knew it, the protestors with their eyes running from pepper spray knew it, and Bannon and Frum probably knew it too.  No ideas were disinfected with the sunlight of public debate, because that would imply someone had something to lose.

And, pulling back to the political realm again, we can see why the sexual harassment scandals that hit the Ford government will have no impact either.  All it does is feed into the narrative of "Ford The Trumpy Populist", as Jim Wilson goes to treatment for addiction and Andrew Kimber gets packed off to a PR firm, run by the guy who ran Ford's campaign, a safe distance away from it all.  The NDP is released from having to show that they could in some possible world be "a government in waiting" as they now can do their job by standing in front of podiums and whining, "Ontarians demand answers!"

Thus we in Canada get to have the best of both worlds.  We get to experiment with "populism" like all the big-boy countries do, while remaining secure in the knowledge that we won't fall into the sort of chaos that has just recently claimed Brazil.  We get to gawk at the closest thing to a real live villain that we'll ever meet Steve Bannon and have him submit to David Frum's protestations, while a bunch of virtue signalling brocialists dress up in black and get their weekend war on.  Then, like the end of some ridiculous movie or sitcom, everyone dances to some music only they can here, takes a bow, and gets into position for the next act.

Photo Credit: National Post

Written by Josh Lieblein

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.