Over the last 83 million years, the Earth’s magnetic poles have reversed 183 different times. Political history is measured in much shorter time frames, but it too has seen its share of these sorts of dramatic inversions. Take the U.S. Democratic Party’s evolution in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which turned its long-standing political strongholds in the south into red states, or the more recent flip-flop within the Republican Party on Russia, which went from mortal enemy to potential ally after Donald Trump became its presidential nominee in 2016. It’s hard to see right now, but there’s a similar (and suitably Canadian) shift underway in our political universe. For the first time in a long time, progressives want to build.
This shift is already underway in the United States, where the Biden administration and its allies are pushing what they’re calling “supply-side progressivism.” This is a major break from decades of progressive political orthodoxy, which held that the right’s obsession with so-called “supply-side economics” was really just about cutting taxes for rich people and that the real solutions lay on the demand-side of the economic ledger. Now, in the wake of COVID-19 and yet another financial crisis, progressive thought leaders like Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson and Matt Yglesias are pushing for a different approach.
“The basic idea is that progressives will only achieve their social and economic goals in a world of abundance,” the Cato Institute’s Ryan Bourne writes. “To the extent that the government can remove barriers to abundance or actively enhance its prospects, progressives should favour policies that grow the supply‐side of the economy.”
That was part of the pitch that former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney gave to the Liberal insiders and other progressive elites at the recent Global Progress Action Summit. “That’s our calling: to build. Progressives build things that last — health care, infrastructure, schools, opportunity, sustainability and prosperity.” Conservatives, he said, are far more interested in destroying than building. “When politicians proclaim that our great democracies are broken, it’s not because they want to fix them. It’s because they want a licence to demolish.”
He didn’t mince words when it came to Pierre Poilievre, either. “Starving the beast was the reflexive response of Pierre Poilievre to COVID. He saw a humanitarian catastrophe as another chance to cut taxes and spending.” But, Carney warned, there’s a method to Poilievre’s political madness. “The bad news is that while these tactics never work economically, they can work politically,” he said. “Brexit happened. Donald Trump was elected. So we can’t dismiss the impact of anger. But we must resist its power. Doing that starts with progressives taking control of the economic agenda and making it everyone’s.”
For Liberals desperate to hear some sort of coherent theory of governing from the Trudeau Liberals, this speech must have seemed like an oasis in an otherwise parched desert. The federal government seems to list from one crisis to another, unable to present anything to voters other than a list of accomplishments and complaints that they just aren’t communicating them effectively enough. Right now, their only saving grace is time — and even that’s starting to run short.
It’s hard to imagine Carney running for this version of the Liberal Party right now, given both its increasingly dire prospects and Justin Trudeau’s obvious determination to captain the ship into the next election — and go down with it, if necessary. But his speech, and his vision, offer them the closest thing they’ve seen to dry political land in months. Yes, it would help neutralize their underwhelming track record on housing, especially among younger people. But it could also shift the conversation on climate and energy as well, away from things like carbon taxes and rising costs, towards the creation of jobs, opportunity and a new way of living that many Canadians want to support.
They need something to vote for, in other words, rather than just something — or someone — to vote against. They want a future they can get excited about, one that expands and enhances their own sense of economic and social opportunity. This was the lesson the Alberta NDP failed to learn in the most recent provincial election here, and it cost them the best opportunity to form a government they might get for a long time.
If the Trudeau Liberals want even a puncher’s chance of staying in power past 2025, they’ll need to do more than just point out Poilievre’s negatives. They also need to offer up their own economic story, one that taps into their core values and manages to create some genuine excitement about the lower-carbon future that’s coming our way. If they can find a way to get Carney to tell it for them, all the better.
The Empire Strikes Back
Like a lot of progressive-leaning Canadians, my reaction to the inauguration of Joe Biden in 2021 was less one of elation than relief. No, it wasn’t Barack Obama winning in 2008, or even Bill Clinton winning in 1992. But the sense that we had gotten through the worst of America’s latest flirtation with fascism was palpable, the fever was finally breaking, and cooler heads would prevail — especially in the wake of the near-coup on Jan. 6, 2021. Sure, Biden might be a doddering mediocrity, but that would still be a welcome palate cleanser after four years of Donald Trump.
Instead, that fever has only gotten worse. Biden, to his credit, has been far more capable than I gave him credit for, and the Inflation Reduction Act he ushered through Congress could easily turn out to be the most consequential piece of climate legislation of my lifetime. But Trump has somehow gotten stronger over the ensuing two-plus years, despite facing a growing number of criminal charges for everything from his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection to his various fraudulent financial dealings. Far from being diminished by the passage of time and his retreat to the safety of his golf courses, the shadow Trump casts over American public life has grown even larger.
The recent ABC News/Washington Post poll that put him nine points ahead of Biden may well be an outlier, as other U.S. pollsters suggested. But it’s far from the only one putting Trump — who is, remember, in the midst of being prosecuted for any number of alleged criminal acts — ahead of Biden. As such, his election in 2024 isn’t just a possibility at this point. It’s also one Canadian officials have a duty to start taking very, very seriously.
After all, while Canada’s current disputes with China and India are economic and political irritants, a Trump win would be a national disaster on both fronts. He could do literally anything, from withdrawing from NATO or imposing illegal tariffs on Canadian exports — again — to tearing up the electric vehicle mandates that have pushed all major American automakers to retool their factories and product lines. As University of Ottawa national security professor Thomas Juneau told CTV, "What would have been extremely far-fetched scenarios maybe 10 years ago, today are not impossible anymore.” Sadly, a truly post-Trump America feels like the most far-fetched scenario of all right now.
The real danger of an Alberta Pension Plan
Alberta’s UCP government claims it hasn’t decided whether it’s going to hold a referendum on pulling out of the Canada Pension Plan, although that feels like a mere formality at this point. But when it does, I think we already know what the ballot question will be: “Would you like to have your cake and eat it, too?”
The public engagement “survey” it’s put out, after all, seems far more about pushing the public than polling it. It begins with this definitely neutral, not-at-all-biased premise: “The LifeWorks Report estimates moving to an Alberta Pension Plan would mean an extra $5 billion yearly in savings to start. If we put that all towards reducing payroll premiums, that would mean up to $1,425 less taken off your paycheques per year ($2,850 if you are self-employed). This could also mean a reduction in what businesses pay of $1,425 per employee per year. However, we could also use all or a portion of that extra $5 billion yearly to increase pension payments for seniors.”
What’s not to love, right? If you aren’t as deep in the weeds on the math here as I am — and for better or worse, most Albertans aren’t — you’d probably think this sounds like a good decision to have to make. Do I want more benefits, lower costs, or a combination of both?
If only it was that simple. The odds of Alberta getting more than half of the Canada Pension Plan’s assets are only slightly better than my odds of becoming prime minister one day, and a more realistic figure — say, 25 per cent of the CPP’s assets — would put all of these promises in jeopardy. Rather than being able to shower Albertans in cash, an Alberta Pension Plan might put them at risk of taking a financial bath.
That’s especially true when you consider the possibility that this whole exercise is about getting Alberta’s hands on a giant pool of money so it can be directed towards the oil and gas industry — right as global demand for fossil fuels is rolling over. The government’s own survey hints at this possibility when it asks respondents to rank which factors “are most important for the panel to consider when making their recommendations about investment management of the Alberta pension plan.” The options include “independence from government,” “stability,” “maximizing returns,” “low administration costs” and, most ominously, “investing in Alberta.”
This is all part of the bizarre Quebecification of Alberta conservative politics, where they seek to emulate the province they otherwise love to hate. In Quebec, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec — which manages the province’s pension fund — has occasionally engaged in province-building initiatives rather than simply seeking out the highest returns for their investments. There are clearly elements in Alberta’s conservative government who would dearly love to do the same.
That’s the real risk for Albertans here. It’s not about “stealing” people’s pensions, as Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley has argued repeatedly, and the creation of an Alberta Pension Plan wouldn’t jeopardize the retirements of any of today’s seniors. They vote, after all. Instead, it’s almost certainly about using the money to provide financial life support to the oil and gas industry, one whose access to capital is increasingly threatened by the energy transition and its attempt to slow-walk emissions reductions efforts as much as possible.
That industry and its various representatives and leaders were there at the beginning of Premier Danielle Smith’s political career, when the Wildrose Alliance was first created as the oil and gas industry’s response to PC premier Ed Stelmach’s 2007 royalty review. They were there when Smith was working as a lobbyist for the Alberta Enterprise Group in 2021, lobbying for a program that would see billions of dollars in taxpayer money thrown at oil and gas companies in order to get them to clean up the old wells they’re already legally required to remediate. And they’ll be there once she’s done with politics, whether it’s by appointing her to their board of directors or otherwise rewarding her loyal service.
Her financial future, in other words, is in good hands.
But future Albertans are the ones who need to worry — or, more accurately, who we need to be worrying about. Like too many important public policy decisions in Alberta, the push for an Alberta Pension Plan boils down to feathering the nests of today’s voters with the assets of tomorrow’s. It’s why Alberta has consistently chosen to keep income taxes artificially low rather than using oil and gas revenues to save for the future. It’s why Alberta continues to ignore the growing problem of unreclaimed oil and gas environmental liabilities that could easily end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars so companies can continue to pay out dividends and buyback shares with their cash flow instead. And it’s why Alberta treats climate policy like an annoying chore rather than an economic opportunity.
If the NDP wants to actually knock this dangerous idea down, they need to do a much better job of presenting their argument. If done well, it could help prepare them for the next election. This is a province that’s spent too long paying for today’s luxuries with tomorrow’s wealth. A political party that clearly articulated the problems with Smith’s approach, and replaced it with a new one, might stand a fighting chance against the UCP and their firehose of self-serving lies and deceit.
Required Reading: Justin Ling on the Nazi in the House
Justin Ling’s Substack, Bug Eyed and Shameless, is a good read at the best of times. But at the worst, like right now, it’s even better. His long and detailed take on the humiliating sight of Canada’s parliamentarians applauding someone who had fought for a Nazi unit in Ukraine, and the historical nuances that complicate that oversimplified description, is worth your time.
Here’s just a snippet of it.
“The Galician Division, like many aspects of the war along the eastern front, is caught in a tension. It exists in a difficult space between one genocidal regime and another. For those of us in North America, whose democracies sided with one over the other, we often pretend as though the choice was a simple one. It wasn’t.
“The compromise we settled on long ago is, I think, a good one: For those who fought with the SS in Eastern Ukraine and the Baltics, we looked for evidence of war crimes and, finding none, we accepted that war is hell. We let these men go about their lives, without ever forgetting that history. We chose not to smear that fight for independence — which is still happening today in Ukraine — with the decisions made during the war.
“Rota’s decision to put Hunka in that gallery upset that fragile compromise. The histrionics have only made things worse.”
Trust me on this: read the whole thing.
Good News of the Week: Peak demand is coming
I’ve talked about it before, but it bears repeating: the end of more than a century of relentless growth in demand for fossil fuels is right around the corner. In a new report on its “net-zero roadmap”, the International Energy Agency reminded everyone — hello, Alberta! — that demand for coal, oil and gas will all peak within the next 10 years, and probably by the end of the decade. That’s without any additional policies or programs that try to reduce emissions and bring the world closer to its 1.5 C target.
With them? Anyone hoping to bring a new fossil fuel project to market had better think twice. “If the world is successful in bringing down fossil demand quickly enough to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, new projects would face major commercial risks,” the IEA stated.
This is, of course, why the fossil fuel industry is deliberately slow-walking climate policies and programs: to buy themselves a little more time to make a little more money.
But the IEA report calls out the argument, widely repeated by industry advocates and politicians like Alberta’s Danielle Smith, that the technology just isn’t there yet to meet the targets that have been set. Reducing methane emissions by 75 per cent from current levels, for example, would cost US$75 billion in cumulative spending over the next seven years — which is just two per cent of the industry’s combined profits in 2022.
So, to recap: They have the money. They have the technology. The only thing that’s missing is the will. I’ll have more to say about that in the weeks to come.
The Wrap
Last week, I wrote about the reaction in the conservative community to India’s violation of Canada’s territorial sovereignty, and what it says about their own involvement in the matter. More specifically: what it says about Stephen Harper and his role as the chair of the IDU, an organization that routinely champions aspiring authoritarians like Viktor Orban and, yes, Narendra Modi.
I suspect we’re all about to learn more about Indian politics than we thought we’d need to even a few weeks ago. I wish it was happening under more auspicious circumstances, but having a better understanding of the fastest-growing political and economic power in the world is going to be table stakes going forward — especially for our political class.
I also wrote about Alberta’s very bad, no good, extremely dumb idea of an Alberta pension plan. I wrote about it in this week’s newsletter, of course, and I’ll probably write about it again in a future edition. In fact, I don’t think I’m going to shut about this ludicrous plan until it’s dead and buried in the political ground where it belongs. But ironically, the person who might want to put it there the most is Pierre Poilievre. Give the column a read if you haven’t already.
I’m off for a few days for family-related stuff, so the next column you see from me will probably be next week’s newsletter. As ever, please share this with friends, family and that annoying person at work. With Meta still choking off our access to referrals and links, and Google threatening to do the same, we need to build up this audience as much as possible. If you can convince said people to subscribe to Canada’s National Observer, well, all the better.