Not that I am crazy about the corner Justin Trudeau has
painted himself into, and us along with him: if he is really serious about
“jump-starting “ the economy, and remedying
the infrastructure problem, he
will have to run deficits in the order of 2-3 times what he talked about in the
past election. If there is continued
borderline recession and low interest rates for a number of more years, at
least that infrastructure money will go
farther than it would in a high-rate
environment, and provide stimulus that is actually needed, and not just
inflationary. Cross your fingers.
And that is nothing compared to the corner the New Democrats
would be in had they been elected: they would be wearing Mr. Mulcair’s
“balanced budget every year” promise like a ball and chain. In the current
deteriorating economic environment, that would mean either breaking that
promise every year or keeping it, at the
price of reduced spending and/or higher taxes. (It was truly remarkable to
watch the New Democrats take a clear political asset—the statistical fact that
NDP governments between 1980 and 2010 balanced their budgets 50% of the time,
while Conservatives did so only 37% of the time and Liberals only 27%--and turn
it into a clear political liability.) It
was a great talking point because it showed what Conservative zeal for
tax-cutting actually leads to—i.e. tax cuts do not generally “pay for
themselves”. But when the NDP leaned on it too much, and made it the
cornerstone of their economic policy, they fell over.
The most vexing question on the horizon for me is what to do
about electoral reform. The politics of
voting is characterized by a paradox: a
clear majority of both voters and experts agree that a more proportional and
less winner-take all system would be an improvement , but consensus breaks down when it comes to
specifying any particular system. Proportional representation (PR) always
succeeds when voters are surveyed or are chosen at random to deliberate about
it in citizens’ assemblies, but has
failed to be ratified by voters in a referendum on all four occasions it has
been put to the test , three times by a majority.
On the positive side, what a relief it is not to have to
watch those expensive, partisan, blue-washed “Economic Action Plan” ads
anymore, knowing that Canada’s taxpayers had paid hundreds of millions of
dollars on them. If the Liberals can show even a modicum of self-restraint in
this regard, changing governments last fall and all its attendant uncertainties
will have been worthwhile. Just like changing diapers is worthwhile—and for
much the same reason.
