Liberals’ investments take cues from a wide spectrum of Canadians

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/07/2021 (1289 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the federal election expected to begin in a few weeks, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals will run a more policy-rich campaign than they did last time out.

Recall that in the Grits’ desultory 2019 election campaign, the PM mostly inveighed against his opponents, offering little sense of what he would do with a renewed electoral mandate.

Or why he even wanted one.

But two years and one pandemic later, Trudeau has big plans for Canada.

He wants to preside over a renaissance of our G7 economy. That won’t be the Grits’ sole message on the campaign trail, of course. But it’s the one they’re most committed to this time out.

To a large extent, the Liberals are simply going with the flow.

In exposing weaknesses in the Canadian economy, the pandemic has fostered a new dynamism in most industrial sectors.

In the midst of an unprecedented health crisis, there has been a remarkable number of business start-ups and initial public offerings of stock (IPOs) by young enterprises. Astonishing amounts of capital have been raised to finance Canadian innovation across the industrial economy, in new-product development, R&D, supply chain management and marketing, among other realms of business.

The Grits have not been mere bystanders in that phenomenon. Since last summer, the Grits have been emboldening the private sector to invest more heavily in innovative medical and manufacturing technologies, usually with federal funding assistance to spur them on.

Critics will argue that the Grits are taking on too much, and that the “goodies” Trudeau is set to unveil amount to buying votes with the voters’ own money.

And the naysayers might have a point.

For instance, spending programs the Grits will propose in coming weeks might be a no-sale with Canadians confronting an unprecedented $354-billion deficit in fiscal 2021.

But the polls show that the economic revival is cited by more Canadians than any other issue as their top priority. And that climate crisis and reducing the deficit round out the top three voter concerns.

As it happens, that set of priorities works to the Grits’ favour.

The forceful steps Ottawa began taking last year in retooling the economy account in part for Canada’s strong-than-expected economic recovery so far. And so they’ve shaped the economic and industrial policy reforms the Liberals will emphasize in their bid to reclaim the Commons majority they lost in 2019.

The “economy” is of course a catch-all for job creation, wage gains, innovation, and greater industrial and export prowess.

And the economy, especially if framed as an imperative and lucrative industrial renaissance, is a high card for the Grits.

The minority Trudeau government has won generally high marks for its handling of the health and income-support aspects of the pandemic. It’s why the Grits have a comfortable lead in the polls.

But the factor that could push the Liberals into majority territory, winning back seats in the industrialized regions of Southern Ontario, Quebec and B.C.’s Lower Mainland, is a comprehensive plan for government investments in the economic sectors with the biggest potential to pay dividends for decades to come.

At least, that’s how the Liberals will pitch their economic reinvention plan in coming weeks, as they’ve started to do in the current pre-election period.

To be sure, the Grits’ urgency in ramping up selected industrial sectors has been driven by a pandemic that revealed Canada’s inability to provide for itself, from vaccines to ventilators.

The speed with which Canadian industry was able to retrofit to make medical supplies — notably the auto-sector’s proficiency in making ventilators — encouraged the Grits to support industrial sectors they believe hold the same promise of achieving greater Canadian self-sufficiency.

The opposition parties have criticized Trudeau for his recent campaign-style appearances across the country, in which the Liberals have sought to highlight their economic priorities. But Tory Leader Erin O’Toole and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh tried to keep pace with Trudeau in their own pre-election whistle-stopping.

Admittedly, Trudeau has been hard to keep up with.

This month, Trudeau has been raising the curtain on Liberal priorities that are unusually integrated.

On July 5, the PM was in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., to announce up to $450 million to help Algoma Steel phase out coal-fired steelmaking.

Huge amounts of steel will be required in scaling up alternative energy sources like wind and solar power. But steelmaking is a major greenhouse-gas emitter.

Trudeau’s announcement in the Soo is geared to job creation at the Soo’s mainstay employer; boosting innovation in “green” steelmaking; and positioning Canada as leader in clean technology with export potential.

On July 9, the PM was in fast-growing Surrey, B.C., to announce federal funding of up to $1.3 billion to extend Vancouver’s SkyTrain from Surrey to Langley, another large Vancouver ex-urb.

That funding is drawn from a $14.9-billion pool created by the feds in February as the first permanent funding source for municipal transit systems. Again, the goals are multidimensional: to create jobs, promote advances in clean tech and reduce Greater Vancouver’s traffic congestion and its carbon footprint.

Last week, Trudeau was in Montreal to announce Ottawa’s $440-million share of a $693-million joint investment with Quebec to revitalize Canada’s aerospace sector.

Despite Bombardier Inc.’s widely reported woes, the Canadian aerospace industry still accounts for about 60,000 direct jobs across the country, many related to innovations in engine and airframe efficiency.

Here again, the feds’ plan for their investment is to create and sustain jobs; address the increasing global pressure on airlines to reduce their carbon footprint; and help fund innovation, in this case hybrid-electric aircraft engines with export potential.

Federal economic development schemes have been fraught for as long as anyone can remember. Some have been losing propositions. Even more have been rendered stillborn by inter-governmental squabbling.

And some, like subsidies for the oilpatch, have lacked public support outside Alberta.

Critics have scorned Trudeau’s recent funding announcements as the usual pre-election sprinkling of goodies on favoured constituencies.

But a closer look shows that the Grit investments are well-aligned with the issues Canadians have identified as their top priorities. Which are job creation; a “clean” economic recovery from the pandemic; a Canada that punches above its weight in innovation; and a path to deficit reduction made possible by the above.

Election upsets are common in Canada, and there’s no telling the outcome of the next federal contest.

But at least the ruling party, in its bid for a renewed mandate to govern, is taking its cues from a wide spectrum of Canadians rather than a narrow political base — a phenomenon that hobbles O’Toole and conservatives in the U.S.

And the Grits will go into this election campaign with a clear sense of where they want to take the country, in sharp contrast with their deserved drubbing in 2019 when they failed to do so.

David Olive is a Toronto-based business columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @TheGrtRecession