A couple of months ago, Canadian politics took on a new look. Quebec MP Thomas Mulcair was elected leader of the federal NDP and Prime Minister Stephen Harper unleashed his first budget as a majority leader. By the end of March, both men took their first brave steps on the road to the next federal election in 2015.
Since then, both Mulcair and Harper have had interesting if not controversial opening scenes on the national stage. But does controversy deliver good government? Not necessarily, and although it's hard to say if either leader has any misgivings over their first-act performances, the Canadian public should be concerned. In the last few months, neither Harper nor Mulcair has shown us the stuff of good leadership.
First to Mulcair. At the outset, he had everything going for him. He had ground out a tough win not only against talented opponents but against the strong left-wing of the New Democratic Party. He was leader of the official opposition and the NDP was running ads showing Olivia Chow, Jack Layton's widow, offering her full support. All was going well until Mulcair decided to play the green card and with it the notion that Central Canada - and in particular, Quebec - knows best.
Dragging out a 30-year-old economic concept titled Dutch disease, Mulcair attempted to blame the Alberta oil sands for all of Central Canada's economic woes.
By way of a quick primer, Dutch disease was a theory proposed by economists Max Corden and Peter Neary to describe the over-valuing of a nation's currency due to the high prices of resource exports. Neary and Corden argued high export-driven currencies were to the detriment of the nation's manufactured exports. Holland was used as the model as a large natural-gas find in the late 1950s was said to have driven up the Dutch guilder causing a negative impact on the export sales of Dutch manufactured goods.
It's an interesting theory but one with little relevance to the current Canadian economy. Nevertheless, Mulcair steamed full-speed ahead, saying the Alberta oil sands caused the decline of Central Canada's manufacturing industry.
It didn't take long for Mulcair's musings to run off the rails. First, our Central Canadian manufacturing industry has been on the skids since 2008 and is the result of the U.S.-induced global economic meltdown, not the value of our loonie. Second, oil revenues make Alberta a "have" province, and in the Canadian scheme of equalization contribute significantly to the $7 billion we send to Quebec every year. Third, after visiting the oil sands Mulcair admitted he had no idea of the size of the project or its economic impact. He also admitted he had spent no time discussing his latest pet theory with energy company CEOs, investors or Western premiers.
Mulcair's ready-fire-aim attitude is not what Canada needs from one who sees himself as a prime-minster-in-waiting. In terms of land mass, Canada is the second largest country in the world. We are a diverse nation and cannot be governed by a narrow-minded leader who's flogging an outdated economic theory from a small pre-Euro experience.
f there is any illness at all, it is Mulcair showing symptoms of the Pierre Trudeau disease, better known in Western Canada as the failed 1980s National Energy Program. Take note Mr. Mulcair, the disastrous NEP handed Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his Progressive Conservative party the largest federal win ever in Canadian political history.
Meanwhile over in Stephen Harper's corner, things are not going well for our new natural governing party or for civilized parliamentary practice. At issue, the Conservative budget and its accompanying omnibus bill. It's a huge piece, 420 pages, but more seriously it rolls environmental management, OAS changes, CSIS oversight reviews and employment insurance regulations into one big decidedly un-parliamentary bundle.
I sat in three majority governments, in two of them we enjoyed a huge majority, yet we seldom used that legislative muscle to push our agenda and never by loading up an omnibus bill. In fact Premier Bill Bennett insisted on a parliamentary golden rule where the government should treat the opposition the way it would want to be treated.
Stephen Harper has sidestepped that type of parliamentary decency. Too bad. He'll soon find his heavy-handed approach backfiring on him and the party. More seriously, by bullying the members opposite, you take away the valuable opportunity of compromise discussions. If this continues, our parliament could soon be as ineffective and stubbornly partisan as the United States House of Representatives, a body that is truly fiddling while the country burns.
One would hope when our Canadian Parliament winds down for the summer, that NDP leader Mulcair will realize governing is not as simple as running at Canada's complex management issues with one sketchy three-decade-old economic theory. While on the other side of the aisle Prime Minister Harper will understand that bullying - parliamentary or otherwise - is a sure sign of low self-esteem.
