As the COVID-19 crisis plateaus, public attention is beginning to focus on other matters.
In particular, it is returning to issues, such as climate change and pharmacare, that dominated the last federal election.
Thanks to the pandemic, these concerns have almost disappeared from public debate. Instead, Canadians have been preoccupied with the daily coronavirus body count.
Is it slowing or accelerating? Is this disease being brought under control? Or will an even more deadly wave hit us again in a few months?
In a weird way, the pandemic has been a godsend for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government. It has given that government a focus it lacked. It has consigned political embarrassments like the Jody Wilson-Raybould affair to the back burner.
Most important of all, it has allowed Trudeau, in his daily, televised homilies, to come across as concerned, compassionate and reasonable.
His government has invented a host of new spending programs to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. If people complain they have been left out, the government simply invents more.
All of this costs tens of billions of dollars. Yet even the most fiscally conservative rarely complain. It’s as if the virus had given the Trudeau government a free pass.
But with evidence suggesting that the crisis has reached its peak, all of this starting to change.
Provincial governments are beginning to relax restrictions on economic activity. As that happens, public attention shifts from the prime minister to the premiers.
In Ontario, for instance, it’s much more important to know what Premier Doug Ford thinks about reopening the economy — particularly since Trudeau has said he will defer to the provinces in this matter.
In Ottawa, the opposition Conservatives, New Democrats and Bloc Québécois are starting to take careful potshots at the prime minister. It’s only a matter of time until Parliament returns to business as usual, with or without virtual sittings.
When that happens, the Liberals will want to be recognized as more than good stewards who directed Canada through a bad patch.
By the time a new election comes along (and in a hung Parliament this could happen at any moment), Trudeau will want to be able to present voters with a compelling reason to elect a Liberal majority.
This would almost certainly involve promises designed to appeal to so-called progressive voters.
Some argue that the cost of dealing with COVID-19 will leave no fiscal room for new federal programs, such as pharmacare or measures designed to fight climate change. But they miss the point.
The point is that the pandemic has shown that deficits really don’t matter — that, when it wishes, a well-to-do country can accrue massive debts and yet survive quite handily.
The Liberal government has pledged to spend more than $146 billion this year alone to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. The Parliamentary Budget Officer predicts that the federal deficit will hit a staggering $252 billion this year thanks largely to a fall-off in tax revenues.
Yet few predict fiscal doom. Indeed, many analysts argue that in an economy where the private sector has shut down, more government is needed not less.
Even my fiscally frugal friends on the Globe and Mail editorial board are sanguine, arguing that over time normal economic growth will take care of the COVID-19 debt.
By comparison, a universal public pharmacare plan would be a bargain. It would cost Ottawa only $20 billion a year according to the Parliamentary Budget Office — an amount that would be more than offset by savings to individuals and provinces.
In short, there is life after COVID-19, particularly for the centre-left. The pandemic has underscored the utility of strong government action. It has given the sometimes leftish Liberals an opportunity. We shall see if they have the wit to use it.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/04/30/covid-19-creates-opportunities-for-canadas-centre-left.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a09&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=0C810E7AE4E7C3CEB3816076F6F9881B&utm_campaign=top_24395
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