It is ironic that Justin Trudeau’s greatest insight ended up being his biggest failure as a Liberal.
In 2013, when he became leader of the Liberal Party, he spoke about how the “era of hyphenated Liberals ends right here, right now, tonight”, a reference to the party’s internal civil war going back to Chretien and Martin and how people were known for their allegiance to one camp or the other. The need to move on from that was his greatest insight, and immediately nerfing everyone who was on either side of that war at a high level was a strong signal about Trudeau’s capacity to be a good leader. (The one thing I’ll be forever grateful to Trudeau for is never hiring David Herle or Scott Reid.)
The fact that Trudeau allowed the party to be captured by the same fealty to a cult of personality and nearly killed the party is, of course, the great irony. But it’s also a warning to progressives across this country, not necessarily to start planning for your successions but to start planning for the day your shit doesn’t stink. Mark Carney announced his Clerk of the Privy Council Wednesday, a move that got praise from many for being a culture change for the civil service - a Clerk fit for a government that wants to do and not merely preside. I am incredibly optimistic, but I think the more important cultural revolution needed in Ottawa is on criticism.
We have internalized, in this city and in this business, that criticism is contempt. That there is no reason for criticism except as a vehicle for bad faith. The silencing of voices around the table who are not loyalists is the downfall of every organization, and it’s why Trudeau fell and why Poilievre’s life is suddenly not that easy. The honest truth is that the best leaders are the ones who always ensure they are listening to a diverse range of arguments and keeping internal good faith critics engaged in real and meaningful ways.
This is obviously a self interested position - I have no interest in being a hack for Carney, though when he’s right I’ll gladly give him the credit he deserves - but it’s also the good governance answer. The way I know it is the good governance answer is that suddenly Trudeau era staffers who believed criticism was akin to disloyalty suddenly feel no qualms popping of at Carney and his people. It is a necessary part of the process, and one where a culture change is needed.
Carney has brought in a Chief of Staff and a Clerk of the Privy Council with serious and meaningful private sector experience, experience that will - or at least fucking better - make Ottawa a more nimble, responsive, and serious governing apparatus. But they also need to embrace the private sector’s use of internal criticism as a good thing, with explicit and intentional efforts to run ideas and plans through people who actually have the capacity to say it’s a bad idea.
The killer of most governments in this country, and the reason others never form at all, is groupthink. It is a pervasive problem that stops us from having serious conversations about our problems, and it is at the core of most failures. The fact that Stephen Harper launched an 11 week campaign in 2015 with nothing new to announce in those 11 weeks except the Cultural Barbaric Practices tipline is the kind of mistake that wouldn’t have happened if there were still people in Harper’s orbit in 2015 that could tell him no. Martin’s Mad As Hell Tour was a similar fuckup - the isolation of all Chretienites as disloyal rats meant that Martin never had anyone in the room to tell him “hey, maybe pretending you weren’t literally the second most important person in this government from 1993 till now won’t work”.
In America, the lack of effective internal channels for criticism hobbled both Joe Biden before dropping out and Kamala Harris afterwards. The reporting that people who encouraged disparate views got iced out is a sign of an unhealthy culture that has horrifying results, as we’re seeing on the streets of LA right now. Go back to the insular nature of Democratic politics in 2016, where Joe Biden was told not to run because it was Hillary’s turn and they shouldn’t rock the boat, and you see a culture broken in many ways by the idea that there are clearly right answers divined by the smart people who know it all.
We need to kill sacred cows in this town, whether it’s bureaucratic delays and entrenchment or the idea that the only people who get to have a say are people with some “Former” title in their bios. We need to allow ideas to be judged by their correctness, not be preconceived notions about whether they’re coming from the “right” or “wrong” person.
More than anything, a cultural revolution where dissent is viewed as productive will help rebuild this country. We need to ensure that Carney is not blinded to his foibles by a refusal to engage with criticism. We need to let iron sharpen iron, instead of fearing argument. We need to give Ottawa a different culture, in more ways than one. And if Carney can do that, then he will go an immense way to saving this country.
(I’m proud to support the New Leaf Liberals, an effort to build a stronger Ontario Liberal Party that can defeat Doug Ford. We’ve seen the value of renewal at a federal level, and we need that same energy, vision, and engagement to give Ontarians the Liberal Party they deserve and an alternative government they can trust. I hope you’ll join me.)
A great article and an important warning for Carney and, more important, for those around him. In his book, Carney discusses various kinds of leadership, and says that he always likes to surround himself with people who disagree with him, because that's how he learns. I hope he has many such people.
"The honest truth is that the best leaders are the ones who always ensure they are listening to a diverse range of arguments and keeping internal good faith critics engaged in real and meaningful ways."
Well said. It also shows a healthy personal relationship to one's ego (which inspires confidence in leadership, IMO).