September 2020 - Loonie Politics

The NHL bubble is a great metaphor.

Edmonton's Rogers Place arena is a shiny bauble with little substance in terms of its effect on the home city's economy in the time of Covid.

As rich visiting hockey players and a few hangers on played their games to empty seats, downtown stores and restaurants only blocks away closed down, some forever, for want of customers.

No doubt the Marriott Hotel which hosted the teams did OK during this weirdest of all seasons, but the average Edmonton business got no bounce from the rare Stanley Cup run.

In fact, a survey of Edmontonians in mid September found three out of four people in the city are avoiding their city's downtown core during Covid. Of the six Canadian cities polled, Edmonton took the biggest hit in terms of downtown avoidance.

The Association of Canadian Studies focused on the restrictions on public gatherings and Covid social distancing as the culprit.

"Such measures have presented considerable difficulties for businesses that depend on a high volume of circulation.â€¦"

It is true that provincial health authorities are warning against unprotected frivolity in the nightspots lining the city's main drag of Jasper Avenue and the hip 104 Street bar and eatery strip.

But Edmonton's downtown malaise if not all about Covid.

Through a trick of poor timing and bad luck and intractable urban social issues, Edmonton was already on a course designed to empty out the core this summer, even without the contagion.

Construction in the city centre is horrific.

There has been non-stop excavation and building in the heart of Edmonton for several years. The multi-year construction of the glitzy Ice District around the arena, replete with glassy towers and reconfigured traffic patters, was finally coming to an end just as the city ramped up its light rail transit expansion, cutting an ugly and near impassible swathe through the centre of the heart of downtown. In the Arts District, labyrinthine wooden walkways wend over the site, squeezing pedestrians into close contact despite social distance conventions.

The LRT was supposed to be finished by the end of 2020 but now the finish line is "sometime" in 2021.

The city's downtown shopping mall, City Centre, stretches right beside the 102nd Avenue LRT route, fenced off, churned up and filled with construction equipment. Not surprisingly a number of the stores in the mall are now closed. Even the venerable downtown Bay is on its last gasp, running out a final liquidation sale before vacating the city centre.

Retail malls in the suburbs are not suffering nearly as many blank store fronts.

Only three or four years ago Edmonton was being featured in international travel publications as a surprisingly exciting destination. The summer 104th Street farmers market was lauded for its colourful festival atmosphere.

But last year, the market moved indoors to a building blocks away as the LRT route closed off the part of the venue.

Far more problematic is the city's large homeless population, which tends to frequent the core and was dislocated by the Ice District construction.

Well before Covid hit, the city was hearing many complaints about downtown safety as panhandling rose in the downtown south of the district.

This summer the housing issue became a far more visible crisis as a tent encampment filled a small park in the river valley on the route into the downtown. The council and social agencies are scrambling to find solutions, but there is no truly quick fix to a problem which has become entrenched in the city over decades.

Eventually Covid will end. But that relief may not bring back downtown Edmonton's lifeblood if people aren't comfortable with yawning construction sites and continuing security issues. The city needs to find a way through its downtown misfortune by next summer so those three out of four Edmontonians won't make avoiding the area a habit rather than an exception.

Rogers Arena may be a fine place to play hockey, with or without a screaming crowd, but life isn't only about the national sport.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia.org

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With the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic now fully upon most areas of the country, and two of our party leaders having contracted the infection, it's time that our parliamentarians stop kidding themselves these half-assed "hybrid" parliamentary sittings are not going to be sufficient to keep parliament functioning at a time of crisis, and that they need to bubble in one place Ottawa. After all, the NHL has managed to make it work, with nine solid weeks without a single positive case of COVID, and it's hardly essential to the functioning of the country. Parliament needs to get its act together and start doing the same.

The seriousness of the pandemic has apparently been lost on many of the MPs and leaders, judging from what happened with Erin O'Toole and Yves-FranÃ§ois Blanchet. Blanchet and his wife both tested positive after touring communities following the conclusion of the party's caucus retreat, and even then, Blanchet was holding a news conference ten days after his diagnosis, with no indication that he had received two subsequent negative tests. This should be concerning to everyone about how cavalierly this is being treated. As for O'Toole, he too was going on a tour to meet stakeholders following his leadership win before he was diagnosed, and it was estimated that at least 15 people contracted COVID as part of this tour. This is a signal that the message is not getting through that they need to do things differently as a result of the pandemic, and the glad-handing of politics needs to be curbed.

There have largely been three excuses trotted out as to why MPs shouldn't be in Ottawa that the constant travel would expose them and others to COVID; that the congregation of MPs and staff on Parliament Hill is less than ideal in a time of pandemic; and that MPs need to model the "good behaviour" of working from home to Canadians at large. All of these objections are bogus on the face, particularly in the situation of a parliamentary bubble. MPs shouldn't be travelling they should be staying place in Ottawa. The congregation of MPs is less of a problem because, as has been explained previously, they don't need to all be in the Chamber at one time QP already has speaking lists, and there are ways to accommodate voting, such as lobby voting, that would work better than what has been established. MPs also don't need their staff with them the staff can work from home while MPs continue their parliamentary duties. And there as much "good behaviour" that can be modelled in MPs staying in their bubble than there is from them working from home.

It's only been several days, but the current "hybrid" model is not working. Question Period has been denuded of any sense of frisson or spark of life that it's bordering on a drudgery. MPs are complaining that their committee hearings are cold and stilted. And the first attempt at "hybrid" voting was a complete farce sixty-five minutes to complete a single vote, with technical connection issues, and MPs holding up children or dogs as they voted in a rapidly escalating race of trying to out-cute one another that will only get worse as this carries on. Such a voting system is not sustainable and this is the least evil of all remote-voting set-ups. Letting MPs vote by an electronic means or app is ripe for abuse and additional centralization of authority by the leadership. The entire hybrid set-up isolates MPs and makes them more vulnerable to centralized control by their leaders. This shouldn't be allowed to stand.

The solution of creating a parliamentary bubble, for both the Commons and the Senate, is easily enough achieved. For one, the Chateau Laurier is right there, and Parliament can contract with them to rent out whole floors for MPs and their families, if they so choose, to stay in for the duration of a weeks-long sitting. They can adjust the calendar to maximize time in Ottawa before they return to their ridings and any need to self-isolate or quarantine upon return if those are the local rules. And if MPs are worried about the strain on families, this is a pandemic healthcare workers across the country can't see their own families for fear of infecting them, and MPs should be prepared to sacrifice for shorter periods of time than those healthcare workers.

It also cannot be understated that time in a parliamentary bubble would actually do wonders for congeniality, as MPs would be spending off-hours together and getting to know one another as human beings across party lines something that has been in precipitous decline since the early 1990s when they eliminated evening sittings in an attempt to be "family friendly." Until that point, MPs would dine together in the parliamentary restaurant three nights a week and bond socially, and in the time since, it has become harder for MPs to break out of their caucus circles which is reinforced by staffers who do their best to keep MPs from socializing with "the enemy" (and yes, Samara Canada has documented this in MP exit interviews). There would be the added comradery that these MPs have survived the pandemic together the value of which would eventually translate into things like decorum.

A bubble would also reinforce to MPs that they shouldn't be travelling to events and meeting with stakeholders in-person during these sitting periods, which is still happening because MPs aren't getting the message that they can't keep operating this way under current circumstances. This will reduce the chances of infection, and keep Parliament functioning at this critical juncture. It would also mean that Parliament would be better able to perform its functions properly, rather than constantly reverting to the kinds of abuses of process that we've seen in the rush to pass emergency legislation over the summer. These hybrid sittings are exacerbating problems and corroding parliament. It's time MPs grow up and bubble. If the NHL can manage it, so can they.

Photo Credit: Forbes

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Two federal byelections in Toronto got me thinking.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Chief of Staff, Katie Telford, is well known for her focus on data and on supporting women in politics.

So, let's look at what the numbers tell us in the microcosms of byelections to see if the PM is supporting diverse candidates in these races.

In the byelections this autumn, the Liberals are running Marci Ien, a Black woman with a distinguished career in broadcasting, and Ya'ara Saks, a Jewish businesswoman. Both seats were previously held by men and, especially in the case of Toronto Centre, are Liberal strongholds.

The fact that two women are running is not the exception to the rule under this PM; on the contrary, the data suggests Liberals have "walked the walk" when it comes to supporting women and Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) candidates during byelections.

By my count, since Trudeau became Liberal leader, there have been two dozen byelections.

Many of these seats were vacated by retiring big shots of their respective parties names like Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney, Thomas Mulcair, Stephane Dion, Peter Van Loan, Rona Ambrose.

Of the twenty-two races that have been held already, Liberals won 55% of the races, picking up a few seats.

In these races, Liberals ran some high-profile men, like former local mayors Richard Hebert in Lac-Saint-Jean and Gordie Hogg in Surreyâ€”White Rock in 2017, and Toronto City Councillor Adam Vaughan in 2014.

But, overall, in these 24 byelections, the percentages paint a positive picture for diversity.

By my count, exactly half of the Liberal candidates were women and of these twelve women, ten were running to replace men.

Further, seven, or 32%, of the Liberal candidates were men and women of colour, and two were Jewish.

Those are impressive stats: gender parity in terms of candidates and a full third were people of colour.

More to the point, five of those women won three replacing male parliamentarians and two are today in the cabinet (one woman lost her 2014 byelection but was elected in the general election the next year).

Assuming Liberals win the two byelections this fall, that will mean five women will have been elected through byelections, replacing five men.

That may seem like a small number it's just 1.5% of parliament but put another way, it means byelections have added potentially five Liberal women MPs to the overall eighty-eight women in parliament: byelections will have elected 5% of the women in the House.

By the same token, it is also true that of the seven BIPOC Liberal candidates, three were elected (again, one lost the byelection but won the subsequent general election). There are sixty BIPOC Members of Parliament today, by comparison, or 18% of the House. Like the women MPs, byelections could then count for 8% of the MPs of colour elected.

In particular, Marci Ien being elected would help address the fact that only 1.5% of Parliamentarians are Black, when the Canadian population overall is closer to 4% Black.

Prime Minister Trudeau has said a lot about diversity, about empowering women and ethnic minorities in politics, business and other sectors of society. He's largely delivered in terms of the candidates his party has run in byelections; that ain't nothin'.

For women in politics, and people of colour, gaining ground in terms of representation is iterative, and too slow. As Professor Erin Tolley has said, "When voters demand more diverse candidates, and parties make an effort to nominate them, the representation of diversity is more robust. Despite having the power to do so, political parties have not taken advantage of this opportunity. Their failure to act is not because they have been hamstrung by first-past-the-post, as some advocates would have us believe, but quite simply because they have chosen not to".

The professor is quite right but it is worth pointing out that in the smaller sample size of byelections, we have seen gains made because Liberals ran diverse candidates in the first place.

Photo Credit: Speakers.ca

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Now that the long-anticipated Throne Speech is at last out of the way, we now have a better understanding of what we can expect from a new and improved Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Indeed, Throne Speeches are to governments what theatrical trailers are to movies; they give us a glimpse and a tease, showing us what thrills, chills and spills are awaiting us once the final product is released to the public.

So, what did we learn about Trudeau? What did his Throne speech "trailer" tell us? What can we deduce about the tactics he will employ once he steps upon the electoral battleground?

Well, from what I can gather, the prime minister is getting ready to wield two powerful emotional weapons: hope and fear.

As a matter of fact, hope and fear were littered all throughout the Throne Speech.

Consider the slogan the speech introduced â€” "Build Back Better."

Not only is that a catchy alliteration, (which no mistake is powerfully persuasive in politics) it also neatly and concisely conveys the idea that, even in these dark times of COVID, we can all look forward to our country rising Phoenix-like from the ashes to achieve a glorious Trudeaunian future, a future where clean, green energy will (somehow) power our economy, a future where a million jobs will (somehow) be created, a future where hate and racism will be (somehow) replaced by love and joy.

As a side note, I suspect the Liberals put a lot more work into coming up with that "Build Back Better" slogan than they did on actually figuring out how much all their grandiose promises would ultimately cost taxpayers.

At any rate, if I'm right about Trudeau's "hope and fear" approach, it'd be a pretty good plan.

After all, hope is a powerful emotion; people are naturally drawn to optimism, they want to be inspired, they want to believe they'll have a better future, which totally explains the psychology of loyal Toronto Maple Leaf fans.

Certainly, many successful politicians have played the hope card.

Ronald Reagan, for instance, successfully offered Americans hope in the 1984 presidential election race with his famous "Morning in America" campaign theme and, of course, in 2008, Barack Obama was even more blatantly optimistic, as he explicitly embraced "hope and change."

So yes, during a time when anxiety is hanging over our collective heads like a dark cloud, Trudeau linking himself and his government to rays of sunshine is a smart strategic communication move.

However, since his government has been burdened with scandals and the economy might be seriously tanking in the near future and Canadians might even be getting somewhat tired of his style, Trudeau probably can't win by simply stirring up the emotion of hope alone.

This is where the fear part comes into play.

In addition to pushing himself as the hope-filled savior, Trudeau also needs to tear down his chief rival, Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole, by making him seem scary.

Hence the Throne Speech's most important line, a line that figured prominently on the front page of the Toronto Star was, "This is no time for austerity."

What's happening here, needless to say, is the Liberals are laying the groundwork to define O'Toole and his Conservatives as mean and nasty austere guys, you know, the kind of people who, on a hot steamy summer day, would gleefully disconnect grandma's air conditioner, just to save a few cents on their electricity bill.

The Liberal line will go something like this: "If O'Toole wins, he'll sacrifice all our hopes and dreams on the dark altar of his evil and callous Conservative deity, the god of Austerity!"

No one will be safe! Orphans will be tossed onto the street; the aged will be interned into COVID infested senior homes; Trudeau's brother and mother will be denied speaking fees!

The horror!

Also, expect this frightening message to be dutifully amplified by Trudeau's friends in the media.

This likely explains why O'Toole is currently running videos on YouTube to basically say, "Look at me, I'm dripping with compassion!"

So yep, that's what Trudeau has in store for us lots of hope, mixed with a big heaping of fear.

This tricky part for Trudeau in all this will be the need to carefully balance these two contradictory emotions.

Too much hope can lead to disillusionment; too much fear, to paralyzing pessimism.

We saw such a juggling act in Trudeau's televised address following the Throne speech, when he stated, "It's all too likely we won't be gathering for Thanksgiving, but we still have a shot at Christmas."

So, having the chance to visit your in-laws at Christmas is the hope, having to stay in your own home for Thanksgiving is the fear.

Wait a minuteâ€¦ maybe it's the other way around.

Photo Credit: CBC News

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Like New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs before him, BC Premier John Horgan made the decision that it was time to call an election. A pandemic election, at that. Worse, according to many of his critics, the NDP Leader did so by breaking the Electoral Law and by reneging on the Confidence and Supply Agreement (CASA) Horgan signed with then Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver.

And indeed, BC's law states very clearly that an election would take place "on the third Saturday in October in the fourth calendar year following the general voting day for the most recently held general election." That ain't right now. But of course, there is a significant legal loophole, similar to the one Stephen Harper used to break his own fixed election date: "The Lieutenant Governor may, by proclamation in Her Majesty's name, prorogue or dissolve the Legislative Assembly when the Lieutenant Governor sees fit." And see fit, she did, on the advice of the Premier, of course.

What about the Premier's own signature at the bottom of CASA? "The Leader of the New Democrats will not request a dissolution of the Legislature during the term of this agreement, except following the defeat of a motion of confidence." That exception has not been met, evidently. Surely, that is evidence that John Horgan and his New Democrats cannot be trusted.

Certainly, if you are a Green Party member, you know that for a fact. Except, of course, that the former Green Party leader and other CASA signatory Andrew Weaver has already stated unequivocally that by calling an election, Horgan was not in violation of CASA, stating the that the goals of the agreement were largely achieved and that the minority government had remained stable for a remarkably long time. Weaver, now an independent MLA, even went further by endorsing John Horgan's candidacy.

So Horgan has (legally) ignored the law and has reneged on his own signature, with the approval of the other signatory. Is that enough for BC voters to sour on Horgan? Certainly, that is what rookie Green Leader Sonia Furstenau would like to see. She is out of the gate, fast and furious, saying voters can no longer trust Horgan and that he has lost his credibility by calling an election, despite her assurances that he had a stable government. She is hammering that message forcefully, every day.

New Democrats are pushing back, saying that Weaver leaving was a massive hole in that facade but also that the Greens had had a few internal fights about voting non-confidence over the past three years. They also point out obstacles and barriers put up by the Greens over time. What they won't say is that they would rather not give Furstenau the opportunity to put her mark on the Green brand and build her own record by securing concessions from the NDP government.

Meanwhile, the BC Liberals are jumping on that bandwagon, hoping to help the Green's case: "John Horgan's credibility on the timing of this election is in shreds. No one trusts his answers anymore and any time he brings up one of his allegations about the Green party they immediately say he's making it up," stated Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson.

Will voters care? John Horgan's approval ratings have gone through the roof during the pandemic. A recent Angus Reid poll has Horgan sitting at the top of the pile with the highest approval rating in the country, at 69 per cent. The NDP is gambling that the only thing that matters to British Columbians is who is best to lead them through a pandemic.

That's the first battle of this election. Who will be able to set the ballot question? While the Greens are campaigning about how upset they are at being mistreated and the Liberals are doubling down on trustworthiness, Horgan is campaigning about managing the next steps of the crisis and keeping people safe.

Early on, that message seems to be resonating more strongly with BC voters than those of the Liberals and Greens. "NDP favoured in spite of overwhelming disapproval", hilariously headlined the Vancouver Sun this week, referring to a poll of British-Columbians about the decision of calling a snap election. Furstenau and Wilkinson might be right, voters might agree, but unless they are able to make this the ballot question, it won't matter.

Yet, the NDP's lead and Horgan's recognized qualities in leading BC through the pandemic so far could be quickly undermined if the virus gets out of control during or because of the election. It did work out for Higgs in New Brunswick. Horgan now hopes it'll work for him, too.

Photo Credit: Vancouver Sun

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The video of former UK prime minister Theresa May excoriating her successor, Boris Johnson, on the floor of the House of Commons in Westminster over the government's plans to violate international law as part of its Brexit plans, is one of the most encouraging things about politics that I've seen in ages. Not the fact that the government plans to violate the law to achieve its objectives that part is clearly distressing but rather the fact that May was able to offer such a clear denunciation is something that would be absolutely unheard of in Canada. Our MPs should be paying attention to this, and taking the appropriate lessons from it.

"Far from acting to reinforce the integrity of the United Kingdom, in pursuit of trying to appear to be tough to the European Union, I think the government is putting the integrity of the United Kingdom at risk," May told the Commons.

It's pretty damning stuff, as May outlined how Johnson's moves in looking to break the Good Friday Agreement has the very real possibility of compromising Northern Ireland's willingness to remain part of the country which should concern them greatly as they already opened Pandora's box in allowing Scotland a referendum on seceding from the UK, and they are agitating for another one so that they can remain part of the EU on their own. Losing both Scotland and Northern Ireland means that there will no longer be a United Kingdom it'll be England, and the principality of Wales.

So how is it that May can call out her own successor and the government that she once led? In part, it's because of how the structure of Westminster differs so much from Canada in that it allows room for dissenters that is virtually unknown here. Because Westminster has 650 seats, as compared to our 338, there are far fewer opportunities for backbench MPs on the government's side to become cabinet ministers than here. Not only are the chances much greater mathematically in Canada, our conventions around federally balanced Cabinets and diversity representation means that the chances for some MPs getting into Cabinet are very, very good, which tends to mean being a team player and keeping one's mouth shut. Even those who are disadvantaged geographically or demographically have the hopes of becoming a parliamentary secretary or committee chair, and the salary bumps associated with them, and for everyone else, there is an awareness that they are one minister's screw-up away from a promotion. There are a lot of incentives in there.

In Westminster, the diminished chance of a ministerial appointment, coupled with one's seat being reasonably safe, gives room for those backbenchers to be outspoken. It doesn't happen as often as we may think, but it does happen far more frequently than it does here. As well, the culture of parliamentarianism there means that former leaders and ministers are more likely to hang around than they are to simply disappear into the night. In the UK, that has meant that those former ministers become subject-matter experts that the Commons can draw upon in debate, which is invaluable experience. There is not enough of that in Canada, both with our high turnover rate, and the acknowledgement that for former leaders and ministers, it's simply more lucrative for them to get out of politics and go into the private sector, where they can start adding a lot more zeroes to their paycheques than would ever happen in politics.

There is an added dynamic in the UK, which has only recently started changing, which is around leadership selection. Until this past decade, they operated under the proper Westminster tradition whereby the caucus would choose a leader from amongst their own ranks. This hasn't been the case in Canada since 1919, and the UK has since adopted Canadian-esque rules whereby the party membership gets to vote on the leader, and it's been fairly disastrous since. While May managed to avoid following these new rules because her rival in the party backed out when problematic comments surfaced in the media (the Conservative Party's rules are that the caucus narrows the field to two, which the membership then votes on), Johnson was voted in by the membership at large. On the opposite benches, in Labour, Jeremy Corbyn's disastrous leadership was enabled by an activist base that hijacked the party to get him elected and keep him there until he finally resigned the post after losing a second election that the party should have been able to win.

Why does this matter? Because as we've seen in Canada, directly electing leaders by the membership has had the effect of hollowing out parties and turning them into personality cults, and May's comments offer a rebuke to that very effect.

"I cannot emphasise enough how concerned I am that a Conservative government is willing to go back on its word, to break an international agreement signed in good faith, and to break international law," May stated.

In other words, she is cautioning that the party and its principles are being abandoned by Johnson's cult and its enablers, which should be concerning for anyone who is part of a political party that is supposed to be based on shared values and beliefs, and not as a vehicle for a single person to try and achieve power.

So, what are the lessons we should be drawing in Canada? For one, we need more seats in the Commons, which will have the benefit of better balancing the population disparity between urban and rural ridings, and hopefully keep rural ridings from getting any bigger. We also need better rates of incumbency, which means incentives for people to stick around and provide expertise and institutional memory. And most crucially, we need to do away with the original sin in our politics and return to caucus selection of leaders. All of this is achievable with sufficient political will, and the desire to actually make our parliament a grown-up institution and not a puppet theatre controlled by leaders' offices. Let's hope that May can be an example that we can draw inspiration from.

Photo Credit: Sky News

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For a candidate, the most important thing to have in an election is a message. Donald Trump doesn't have one.

In 2016, he did. As dishonest as it was, "make America great again" was a brilliant political slogan. It suggested, without explicitly saying it, that America was no longer what it was.

It implied that change technological change, cultural change, economic change, societal change had destroyed what previously made American "great." To the mainly older, less-educated white men who support him the most, Make America Great Again (MAGA) was their clarion call, their cri de coeur.

MAGA was the expert distillation of the false notion that America had fallen to feminism, to refugees and immigrants, to coastal elites, to Wall Street, to the Deep State, to billionaire Silicon Valley Computer geeks. "Make America Great Again" was, for Donald Trump, perfect.

He had another message, too. It wasn't seen on red trucker's caps, but it was no less potent than MAGA. It was ubiquitous. It was the notion that Donald Trump would go to Washington and blow up government. He would be the destroyer.

That's what middle America, Nixon's silent majority, wanted. That, to them, was what would make America great again.

For Hillary Clinton, the consummate Washington insider the one who believed in government, and would likely grow government if given the chance Trump's dual messages were politically deadly. They were lethal because Trump had a message and Clinton did not.

Even if you were a voter who didn't like Donald Trump, you at least knew what he stood for. With Hillary Clinton who, full disclosure, I worked for in three different states you just didn't. It's the main reason why she lost.

She, the establishment candidate, didn't have what consultants call "the ballot question." He, the challenger, did.

Four long, grueling, grinding years later, the tables have turned. It is Donald Trump who does not have a message. It is Joe Biden who does.

Oh, sure. Trump has casted about looking for a message, looking for something to attack. That's what he does.

He's been like a monkey with a machine gun, firing tweets at anything that could rile up his base. It's worked before. Could it work again?

So, he's called the coronavirus "a hoax" conjured up by the media and the Democratic Party, but that hasn't worked. He's thrown mountains of mud at Joe Biden even earning himself an impeachment for doing so but the Democratic presidential nominee remains unflappable, and unassailable in the polls.

Trump has attacked protestors in the cities, even sending in armed federal agents to defend his version of "law and order" but the white working class remain mostly preoccupied with joblessness, and the coronavirus. And understandably so.

He's tried to whip up anti-Chinese sentiment but his previous slavish devotion to China's dictatorship has stepped all over his own message. He's attacked Democratic governors and mayors but there's more of both than ever before.

So what has Donald Trump got left? He can't say he wants to make America great again because that implies that, when he ran things, he didn't. And he can't suggest that he's against government, because now he runs the biggest government there is: the government of the United States of America.

Donald Trump has no message. And, with the first presidential debate a few days away and the vote just a few weeks away he is running out of time to find one.

Joe Biden, meanwhile, doesn't have a pithy slogan like "make America great again." He doesn't need one.

By simply being decent and sane by simply maintaining a pulse and being Joe Biden, in other words Joe Biden sends the best message of all. It is the message that will win, too.

Namely, that he isn't Donald Trump.

Photo Credit: Investment News

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This week's Throne Speech represented the banality of normal. In this regard, as we face unprecedented crises across the world, I found the Throne Speech oddly alarming in its normality.

In trying to decipher what I felt about a Throne Speech followed by a prime ministerial, prime-time address to warn us that the pandemic is going to get worse before it gets better, two pieces online guided my thinking.

Tom Clark, the veteran TV journalist, set the mood, writing, "If this were the 14th century, our little ship of state would be in the blank corner of a medieval map that stated, 'there be dragons here,' and our ship would be taking on water in full view of the sea monsters".

In a similar vain, Jen Gerson wrote about the crisis, too, suggesting, "This might be the year when the bad really got started; when history reasserted itself".

She widened the aperture of her alarm, pointing to "The probability of America devolving into a state of civil unrest in the coming months is not zero, and it's getting higher. What are the implications for Canada if our largest trading partner is courting the title of 'failed state'?"

I'm reminded of the scene in one of the Harry Potter movies when sidekick Ron Weasley whimpers, "can we panic now?"

Or, as the Mountain Goats sing, "I'm gonna make it through this year, if it kills me. We'll be singing and dancing in Jerusalem next year: I'm gonna make it through this year, if it kills me."

It is all quite a lot.

The superpower United States is run by a fool who may not concede the election a combination of Nero and Mad King George all in one. We are in the worst global pandemic in a century; we face the worst economic conditions since the 1930s. Right-wing authoritarianism is back, fuelled by income inequality and dormant racism is reasserting itself. Oh, and the planet is quite literally on fire.

As Clark said, "Canada, and in fact the entire world, is in unexplored territory."

With the scope and scale and severity of the crises in full view, the Throne Speech felt small in comparison.

Again, to quote Clark, "Almost nothing about the Throne Speech was revolutionary. A lot of it had been promised in the past, such as national childcare, and the rest was pretty standard fare. Except, of course, for the price tag."

He adds, "What worked in the past isn't working now, and public policy is being formed at breakneck speeds with an 'announce now, detail later' approach."

Gerson makes a similar point: "Except for a few mentions of COVID-19, the speech was indistinguishable from the platform promises he gave when he was first elected to power five years ago. Apparently the answer to an unprecedented global health crisis and economic collapse is â€” identical to the answers the Liberals proposed before the global health crisis and the economic collapse."

I'm reminded of the eloquent line from President Abraham Lincoln: "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves."

Tinkering with Employment Insurance, namedropping leftist buzzwords, touting the notion of pharmacare the Throne Speech sketched out what might have felt like a bold plan this time last year; today, it feels barely adequate to the "stormy present".

The one line I took assurance from was the admonition that now is no time for austerity.

Rather, now is a time to do whatever can be done, to experiment, to jettison programs (like the commercial rent subsidy) when they are not working, to experiment again, and to keep trying to make this unprecedented economic upheaval and health crisis manageable.

At the same time, we cannot take our eyes off the ball when it comes to the climate crisis the phantom menace that is happening before our eyes even as we deal with the pandemic.

This is no time for the banality of normal. It is time to do what it takes to get our ship through these unprecedented, dragon-filled waters.

Photo Credit: CTV News

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So, what was the point of all of this?

One could be hard pressed to figure it out, listening first to the Speech from the Throne, then the Prime Minister's Address to the Nation, which was essentially a shorter rehash of the Throne Speech, with the same structure, even.

It seems obvious that TV network executives got had when the PMO justified requesting the airwaves from national broadcasters. Assurances that the Prime Minister`s request was based on urgent national importance to the Canadian public and was not a political address quickly evaporated, once the pro-forma warnings about the COVID-19 second wave were out of the way. It wasn't going to be a political speech, it was THE political speech, basically Trudeau's re-election stump speech, filled with slogans and platitudes.

Stepping on your own Throne Speech by addressing the nation was unprecedented, and the only logical explanation is that Trudeau wanted to have his own mug delivering the message, rather than the Governor General. Repeating the sanitary measures, repeating the same plan delivered 240 minutes earlier in the Throne Speech, Trudeau brought absolutely nothing new, significant or urgent. Except for basically cancelling Thanksgiving and informing us that we, maybe, had a shot at Christmas, if we washed our hands. In terms of political communication, using this forum can blow up in your face if you don't bring the content.

Even the Throne Speech was mostly an exercise in futility. There were a few tidbits here and there, adjustments caused by the pandemic, some health initiatives that will irk the premiers and a message that money was no object which is easy to say when you don't feel the need to table a budget. But mostly, we heard the same commitments we had heard in last year's Throne Speech, lifted from the 2015 and 2019 Liberal electoral platform.

The entire exercise gives credence to the opposition parties' thesis that the prorogation and everything that ensued was mostly a way to prevent pesky MPs from continuing to dig into the the WE Charity scandal and how exactly the Government of Canada ended up sole-sourcing to the Kielburger brothers' empire the multi-million dollars contract to administer the now-defunct Canada Student Service Grant program.

If at least the leaks orchestrated by Trudeau's minions had turned out to be true. It was going to be BOLD! Yet, despite a vague promise to leave no one behind, one would be hard-pressed to single out a signature measure in the 38 page, 7000 word document. By pretending to be all things to all people, the Liberal government's plan ends up being nothing to most people.

Photo Credit: CBC News