Andrew Coyne,
writing in today's Globe and Mail, suggests that we might want. to prepare ourselves for the mother of all fiscal policy U-turns:
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Is Mark Carney’s new job to provide cover for the mother of all U-turns?
ANDREW COYNE
PUBLISHED 2 HOURS AGO
So what
was that Mark Carney appointment about, anyway? The former Bank of Canada governor, it was announced recently, is to chair something called a Leader’s Task Force on Economic Growth – reporting not to the Prime Minister, but to the Leader of the Liberal Party, whoever that is.
According to a Liberal press release, Mr. Carney’s task is to develop “new ideas for the next phase of Canada’s strategy” for economic growth, “building on” the economy’s already “strong foundations.” You get the picture: when we say new ideas, that should not be taken to mean there is anything wrong with the old ideas.
As always in Liberalspeak, there is never any need to deviate from the One True Path, but only to “continue” doing what is already being done. Mr. Carney, then, will be “building on the Liberal government’s work” to date – “shaping the next steps,” as the Prime Minister is quoted saying, “in our plan to continue to grow our economy.”
Perhaps you are wondering why Mr. Carney’s services are needed, if the economy is continuing to grow on the strong foundations of the Liberal plan. Or even if it is not: Do we not already have a Finance Minister? A Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry? A Minister of Economic Development, and several more economic ministers besides? What is their job, but to continue to build next steps in the strategy?
It will perhaps not surprise you to learn that politics is involved. The assignment is, one suspects, not to “continue to” or to “build on” anything but to prepare the ground for a fairly abject about-face, of a kind familiar from recent months – see housing, immigration, etc. – but on a much grander scale.
With per-capita GDP having shrunk in
eight of the last nine quarters – it is no higher than it was in the fourth quarter of 2014 – and the country now among the poorer of the richer countries, it will have occurred even to this government that its economic plan is not, in fact, working.
It’s not that the Trudeau government has had no interest in growth until now. It came to power, recall, complaining of the sluggish growth the country had allegedly endured under the Harper government. Its first seven budgets mentioned “growth” an average of more than 220 times.
It’s just that it had no clue what to do about it. So far as it gave the matter any thought, the answer it came up with was “innovation” (110 mentions per budget). But it was no closer to knowing how to boost innovation, nor any idea of what it was for.
Innovation was plainly considered an end in itself, rather than a means of increasing productivity – the
productivity that is behind those dreadful per-capita GDP numbers.
Of late, however, it seems to have got the message. The word “productivity” appeared just 14 times, on average, in those first seven budgets, but suddenly jumped to 63 this year.
Well all right. If productivity is the problem, after nine years of Liberal “innovation” policies, perhaps the solution is to be found in a different set of policies. So, out with massive infrastructure spending and hefty industrial subsidies, all financed with borrowed money – the government-first approach – and in with the sorts of policies that will spur private businesses to invest more capital and deploy it more efficiently: balanced budgets, sweeping tax reform and pro-competition shock therapy.
Problem: how do you adopt these new policies without confessing your previous policies have failed? How do you impose these upon your existing Finance Minister, without making her look like a prat? And how do you do all this, without knowing whether anyone will buy it?
Answer: you bring in an outsider. Someone with stature and credibility. Someone you’ve been trying to bring on board your rapidly sinking ship, but who has been reluctant to drown with the rest of the crew. Someone like Mark Carney.
For the Prime Minister, it allows him to borrow Mr. Carney’s credentials on economic issues without committing to the final result. For Mr. Carney, it gives him a chance to get involved without getting too close – to be seen to be helping out before the election without being tainted afterward by the expected defeat.
For the party, it offers an opportunity to test out Mr. Carney as a potential leader. That he has the policy chops is undoubted. But can he put together a package of reforms that is not only good policy but politically saleable?
And can he make it all sound as if he is merely building on the foundations of the continued plan?
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So, is it bye, bye PM Trudeau and bye bye Ministers Freeland, Champagne, Joly, and LeBlanc in 2025?
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