Overnight Thursday, or Friday in Australia, there was a burbling story in my favoured Fiefdom of Formula 1, which is that because Alex Albon’s car sustained damage in the first practice session, Williams can only run one car this weekend. And they have decided that despite the fact that Albon was the one who crashed, he gives Williams the best chance to get points, so he – and not Logan Sargeant, who avoided crashing – would run this weekend. (For what it’s worth, I tipped Albon Points in my Australian GP betting guide, which you should all at least click on for my sake.)
It’s brought up a lot of conversation about unfairness, but much of the discourse presumes that it’s the right and correct decision, even if unfair and cruel. What’s the reasonable gap you’d expect from these two? Maybe Albon sneaks into 8th at best, and Sargeant’s best result would be outside of the points? So, four points is probably the ceiling, and that’s with a set of assumptions I’m not even sure holds up. Makes sense, right?
Well, if you’re only thinking about this race, sure. If this were a season finale I’d get it, but this is the 3rd race of the season, and you’ve just publicly humiliated one of your drivers and told him that you don’t trust him. When that’s factored in, the gamble isn’t whether or not Alex can get points tonight that Logan wouldn’t have gotten, but whether some hypothetical edge in performance this weekend is worth the cost of diminished confidence and diminished future performance.
It's pennywise and pound foolish, a decision that makes sense in the micro but falls apart the second you think about the 21 races after this where the guy you just told wasn’t good enough has to try and score you points. It’s an absurd decision. It’s also what I’m thinking about when I think about the Trudeau government’s kid gloves approach to Doug Ford, because it’s similarly pennywise and pound foolish. And in the same way that Williams is fucking up with their decision in Australia, a Liberal refusal to officially drop the gloves would be a mistake.
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I talked about the Provincial politics of Ford’s refusal to legalize four stories by right across Ontario on the Scrimshaw Show with Nathan Arfin, but there is a federal angle that matters here. Outside of Sean Fraser, who is rightly taking Ford to task for his housing failures, this government is far too cozy with Ford. There was clearly a decision taken after the 2019 election that the kinds of Ford bashing that the Liberals had engaged in both explicitly and implicitly to beat Andrew Scheer would be over. It’s been a mostly respectful relationship since, which included Justin Trudeau appearing with Doug Ford at a car battery plant mere weeks before the writ dropped in Ontario at a I Can’t Believe It’s Not A Campaign Event and senior Federal Liberals in Ontario staying far away from the 2022 election.
That hasn’t actually stopped Doug Ford from blaming everything on Justin Trudeau, but it has meant that the Liberals have held back. They’ve taken heat on housing, student visas, and health care when Doug Ford is responsible for many of the failures in part because they wanted Ford as a partner on things so they refused to play politics. The problem is, that goal just got shit on by Ford.
It was both understandable and even commendable that if there were serious, real negotiations happening on Housing to shut the fuck up about the failures of the Ford government. There were absolutely reasons to think that the government was doing the right thing with the information they had, because obviously they have more information on how much ball Doug Ford was ever prepared to play than we did. But now we know there’s no deal coming, no grand bargain available, no path to making the level of government for whom Housing is actually a primary responsibility do their job. So at this point? Go to war.
Will Doug Ford provide an effective foil for the government such that their government will suddenly get back to winning territory? No, of course not, but the problem when a government is behind is that everyone judges proposed actions through the lens of whether it will get the government back in election winning territory, as opposed to focusing on whether it can win back some number of precious seats. At a time when deep red seats are on the verge of toppling over, clawing back some of the deficit is key, if only to mean the next Liberal caucus has 90 members and not 60. Arguably Stephen Harper’s most important legacy in Federal politics is the fact that he handed over a Parliamentary Party with 99 seats in it, and didn’t do what Mulroney or Trudeau Sr. did and hand over parties in never before seen terrible positions.
What Trudeau has to do is take the fight to Ford. If there is truly any fight left in anyone in this government outside of Sean Fraser there’d be a Prime Ministerial press conference in front of a construction site in Toronto that’s becoming a fourplex Monday. If there’s any fight left Trudeau should book bilaterals with the Governor of Minnesota and the Mayor of Minneapolis to talk about what’s happening in a city where upzoning has happened and the benefits are tangible. The bully pulpit of the office is something we own and the ability to inflict political damage is still ours.
Pierre Poilievre talks about opposing gatekeepers, so at that Monday presser, every answer should be about how Liberals build houses and Conservatives stop it. Make Poilievre either say nothing or make him denounce a Premier he’s already on shaky ground with. In the same way that Poilievre has used Liberal leaders and Premiers to attack Trudeau’s carbon tax, the Liberals have to make Poilievre wear Ford’s refusal to build.
This needs to be a full court press with all of the government’s best communicators out there – get Seamus and Fraser on the Sunday shows, get JT in high-viz on Monday, and keep focused on a single message. Do not engage on the carbon tax. Do not engage on anything that isn’t Housing, and specifically how Conservatives are putting up barriers – hell, even call them gates – that are keeping people from lower rents.
Have Chrystia Freeland find some supply-side incentive to build – lower costs, a premium for overdelivery for developers, something – for the budget, and make this story work. Engage in some stunts, because whatever you think of the efficacy of them, Pierre Poilievre pulled one this week and the words Carbon Tax Coalition ended up as a headline on CTV when the government didn’t fall. Which, of course, was exactly what he wanted.
Liberals at two levels of government have been given political gifts this week by Doug Ford. The Ontario Liberals understand this. The Feds better fucking understand it, because it’s their best chance to save some seats. It won’t save them all, but it’s a start. And it’s more than this government has had in months, but it’ll only show itself if they stop being pennywise and pound foolish.
They should hire you. And it’s a strategy they could apply more broadly. Press conference in Edmonton at the site of the hospital that the UCP just canceled. Hit up Saskatchewan and really hammer Moe on his attacks on Education.
All the basic social infrastructure that the provinces are responsible for that they have spent the last twenty years ignoring and degrading.
Our current crop of feckless premieres provides so much scope for the Federal government to position itself as the ally of the voters against the provincial governments. The responsible big brother who’ll provide oversight and push for accountability.
They’ve got a year. And if they spend every week of it visibly on the warpath on behalf of voters they could actually turn this around.
But the next issue that the Trudeau government shows strategic, adversarial fight on will be their first. I sometimes think Trudeau has never been able to move beyond his first “sunny ways” slogan. If he can’t accomplish something with polite cooperation he just gives up.
It is so obvious. Attacking the conservative premiers is the logical next step. The federal Liberals have been laying the ground work (health, housing, daycare and a few other areas). Now, they can say, we have done our part, the provinces are failing you. The premiers are sabotaging your well being. And why is this so obvious, because it is mostly true.
I understand the recommendation of ignoring the carbon tax, but I think that is wrong. Also here is provincial attack possible. Call out the tricks of adding provincial taxes at the same time as the carbon tax increases. Challenge them to come up with a provincial variant. Highlight the rebate, where is the rebate for the provincial fuel tax increase?
However, ignoring Poilievre would be perfect. Just say, Poilievre has no plan, he is not worthy of a response, we are busy with our plan.
It is time for a fight, let’s get serious.