A long time ago, I read an article in Time magazine about super-tankers.
It discussed a man overboard situation and how long it takes a tanker to stop. These tankers have a particular pattern they employ during their 10 to 15 kilometres stopping distance which brings them back to the same point.
The article impressed on me the forces involved in stopping a massive ship. Momentum - mass times velocity - is a hard thing to deal with. The ship needs to overcome a massive amount of inertia.
Even just changing the direction of a tanker takes a lot of time, distance and planning. It takes foresight.
The same is true for governments. The ship of state has a lot of momentum. Turning it or stopping it takes a long time. Getting things going is equally difficult.
In the week following the federal election, this is the analogy which played in my mind. It took the Conservatives the better part of their first two terms in office to wrestle control of the ship of state and in their final term, they started heading us in a new direction.
It is likely going to take Justin Trudeau and the Liberals their entire first term to undo some of the shifts the Conservatives brought about and chart a new course for the country.
To strain the analogy a little further, Justin Trudeau is the captain of the ship but he will need a willing and capable crew to manage it. A captain - any captain - can not do it all alone and it is unrealistic to expect him to perform miracles.
Indeed, his role is not to do all of the tasks himself but to ensure the tasks get done and everyone keeps us moving in the right direction.
In that regard, some of the low-hanging fruit was easy to pick. A day after taking office, Minister of Innovation, Science, and Development Navdeep Bains announced we would be going back to the long-form census.
This was a no-brainer. Indeed, it was simply a matter of going back to the form we previously used. Just a question of digging up a few old computer files rather than re-inventing the wheel.
It is only a minor shift but it is course correction nonetheless. It says "we want to know more about ourselves so that we can make better decisions and come to a better understanding of who we are as a nation."
At least, that is what is says to some people.
To others it is another intrusion into their private lives.
Why does the government need to know how many people are in their house? Or how much money they make? Or what languages they speak?
The census is seen as an unnecessary intrusion. By the truly paranoid conspiracy theorists, it is seen as a complete invasion of our personal privacy and just another form of government control. I used to know someone who didn't fill out the census because he liked "sticking it to the man!"
Maybe one of the questions on the upcoming census should be: "What do you think census taking is for?"
The results would be interesting.
In any case, it is a small first step in altering the direction of the ship of state.
Bringing back the long-form census makes so much sense to municipalities, government agencies, and others in the business of long-term planning that it isn't likely to cause any real opposition.
Ditto for the government creating a Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. Even the most stalwart opponents of climate change admit that it is happening. They just don't think it is caused by human activity or there is anything we can do about it.
I disagree with both of those sentiments. I do think we are impacting the environment in ways both known and unknown. And I am not ready to concede the fight, but I certainly understand why some people might want to throw in the towel.
Fortunately, our government is signally a shift in direction.
But there are other initiatives the government will need to introduce which will be much more problematic.
For example, the Conservatives have cut taxes. They believed the silly nonsense that lower taxes generate economic growth and have hauled back on taxing to corporations and personal incomes.
They introduced a cut in GST.
No one likes to pay taxes but there were consequences to their actions. It allowed the Conservatives to say: "We have no money to pay for the things you want us to do. Sorry."
As much as we don't like paying taxes they beat the heck out of running up massive deficits and building on Canada's debt.
Changing direction on taxes will be a real test of Justin Trudeau's hand on the tiller of the ship of state.
