Shuffles For The Asking

On The Shuffle That Was And Wasn't

Friday saw Seamus O’Regan leave the Cabinet, in what is another blow to the Federal Liberals. Seamus has been an effective communicator for the government and has gotten some good things done, and his absence will be felt, even if Steve MacKinnon should do a good job. (This is where I confess that I am implacably biased in Steve’s favour, since I am friends with his kid dating back to 2015.)

The specific decisions announced on Friday - keeping the returning-from-Maternity-Leave Karina Gould at House Leader, moving Chief Whip and interim House Leader MacKinnon to Labour, and elevating Ruby Sahota from interim Chief Whip to permanent Chief Whip - made complete sense. It’s also a complete abdication of responsibility by this PM to do this little housekeeping while openly flirting with changing the Finance Minister. What this government needs is a whole of government change in approach. This government needs to be fundamentally imagined, from the policy priorities to the Cabinet. Plainly, the 2023 reshuffle didn’t work, and the new blood brought into the Cabinet hasn’t revitalized the party. To the extent that any part of that shuffle worked, the only part that did was Sean Fraser, and that’s at a portfolio where movement takes time to see the impacts.

Outside of Fraser, the most important part of the 2023 shuffle might end up being the decision to fire David Lametti, which resulted in him leaving the Commons and creating the LaSalle byelection, where it is very obvious to me the NDP will win. Such a loss for the government will end the Trudeau Prime Ministership, full stop. That byelection has to be called within the next two weeks, with September 9th seemingly the likeliest date. (If he wants the last Monday in August he needs to call the byelection Sunday.) And so, after a year that has only seen things get worse, the government needs a total refresh. Seamus’ resignation was an opportunity for it, and the government decided to plug the hole in a sensible way, instead of reimagining the current reality.

So, what should the government do? There’s quite a lot it could do, but here’s a few ideas. I’d call it a #ScrimshawSix, but I plainly don’t think I have 6 ideas that I haven’t already illuminated. 

Piss Or Get Off The Pot On Carney & Freeland

Make a fucking decision on Finance I swear to fucking hell. At some point we either need to reaffirm Chrystia Freeland as the Finance Minister and let her do the fucking job, or execute the very well leaked plan of finding her some international job, jettisoning her from both cabinet and caucus, and running Mark Carney in Rosedale as her successor. This fucking Bachelor-style will he won’t he game that Carney and Trudeau are playing has to end. The country needs a government focused on what it is doing for the people, not on a bad imitation of reality TV. We cannot have this country paralyzed by whether or not Justin is going to give Mark or Chrystia his final rose and whether or not he will accept it.

Friday’s retail sales numbers were a disaster, and we might be approaching the recession that has been long thrown around. It’s certainly the case that growth in Q2 and Q3, if any, will be a decline in per capita growth. It would be nice to know that we have a Finance Minister in the job now who will be in it in October and November when things could be much worse. Right now, there is no certainty and no stability at the top levels of the government. From the guy whose One Big Trick as a central banker was the concept of Forward Guidance, Carney is now holding the Liberals hostage.

I have no idea where the hold up is now, whether it’s Carney refusing to decide, Trudeau refusing to officially offer Finance, or Freeland refusing to agree to resign from Parliament, but the country needs a resolution. I’m on the record saying that Freeland isn’t the right person for the job anymore, but I would rather a forceful, clear articulation that she’s in the job till the election than this nonsense. Piss or get off the fucking pot. 

Move Marc Miller To Literally Any Other Department

If you believe the medium term planning, Canada is about to see big decreases in the number of non-permanent residents in Canada. According to the plans, there will be meaningful population decrease amongst non-PRs, which is one of the most radical changes to Canadian immigration law in recent times. It is an example of the government listening to the voters, who have clearly identified cuts to immigration levels as a priority for them. And it’s something that has been totally ignored by the public because it’s being sold by a Minister who very obviously hates the policy.

Marc Miller is a bleeding heart liberal who doesn’t like the idea of cutting immigration. He’s never explicitly said this, but between initially pushing back against the idea of cutting immigration levels and routinely saying that immigration levels haven’t impacted the housing crisis, it’s clear that Miller wants to live in the intellectual space we used to be able to occupy. In the same way that dropping 100000 housing units in Miller’s Montreal riding would massively drop prices, bringing in a million extra people a year when we aren’t building even close to enough housing to solve our existing shortages is a disaster. Miller seems to know that now, given the policy he is committed to, but he is the wrong messenger for the policy.

What the government needs is not to find its oldest and most racist member to sell this policy, as I’m sure someone will suggest I’m saying, but find someone young, otherwise very liberal, and good on TV to sell this. I am not advocating for a Liberal descent into nativism. I am advocating for the party to fix the housing crisis, and one way of doing it is dramatically cutting immigration levels to make it easier for home building to catch up. The other thing I’m an advocate for is winning seats, and imposing big cuts to immigration levels without getting the political benefit of those cuts is the worst of both worlds. The Liberals need a messenger on immigration who doesn’t hate the policy. Find someone else.

Clear Out The Deadwood

Marco Mendicino and David Lametti were the two big stories from the last shuffle, but there were less movements out than you’d have thought. That was partially due to timing - Anna Gainey and Ben Carr had just joined Parliament, Yasir Naqvi was running for the OLP leadership - but between those three and Charles Sousa, there’s four people who you’d think deserve cabinet roles.

Various people will have various ideas who should lose their jobs - I’m on the record begging and pleading for a new Environment Minister, and I’m also not really sure why Ahmed Hussen stayed in Cabinet after the disaster that was his time at Housing - but the point isn’t for me to advocate for some specific 4 for 4 swap. There’s clearly deadwood at the Cabinet table and at a minimum four names that make sense for promotion. Two former senior Ontario Cabinet Ministers, a former Party President, and the son of Jim Carr who happens to be articulate, brilliant, and the party’s best bet in the Prairies. Some fresh faces who can all survive a TV interview should get a look over those who can’t be trusted opposite David Cochrane.

Give Trudeau A Campaign-Style National Tour

The argument that Trudeau is electable still despite the bad polls is in part that he’s a good campaigner. And that’s true! He’s been very good during the writ in his career - the party gained or solidified their pre-writ position in both 2015 and 2019, and while compared to pre-writ Trudeau fell in 2021, that was from an elevated benchmark. It’s also the case that from the midpoint of that campaign, Trudeau closed strongly. I’m doubtful that he is still that level of campaigner, but conditional upon him staying as leader, we might as well try this.

August is a dead month, but it doesn’t have to be. Trudeau can be a compelling speaker, and the country has responded to him before. More importantly, running a campaign-style tour gives us key information. Either the country is willing to listen to his argument, the polls get better, and he’s the right person to lead us into the next election, or we find out for sure that he’s not the electoral force that he used to be. Either outcome beats the muddied middle of the status quo. 

What this government needs most of all is answers, and not vague senses of some form of possible solution at some point down the line. My objection to Nate Erskine-Smith’s proposed leadership review is that leadership reviews are never as clean as the vote totals show. If Trudeau gets 68% or 72%, you can spin that to stay or to go. We need firm answers, and what we need is the government to see if prolonged, campaign-style exposure to Trudeau helps or hurts their numbers. If it does help, swell, we’re in with a shot. If it doesn’t help, then prolonged exposure in campaign won’t help either, and we are better off risking anyone else.

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