By Jim Mauro
NOTE: This article had been completed but not submitted before recent developments. Some of the information has been updated to reflect that change.
Throughout our history, except for a few brief months, our highest office in the land has been occupied by a white male. The only break of that streak was when Kim Campbell was Prime Minster before the 1992 election. Why did our country not celebrate that for the first time in our history, a Sikh became the Prime Minister of Canada.
Jagmeet Singh has served as leader of the New Democratic Party since 2019 and was elected Prime Minister in September of 2021. Our news outlets treated it as if this was just another election. Mr. Singh made history that was largely ignored.
We should be proud of this election. Like our friends to the south who elected their first African American with Barak Obama, our country took a step forward.
As Prime Minster, Mr. Singh as been largely left alone by our media, focusing their attention instead on the leader of the Liberal party, Justin Trudeau. I believe it is a sign of disrespect when the true Prime Minister of Canada is not referenced by his official title instead of Mr. Trudeau.
I believe that is more than enough sarcasm to start an article, but I must confess, I believe the analogy is accurate.
In 2021, the conservative party of Canada received more votes than any other party. Yet due to regional distribution of votes, our country has been governed by a minority liberal party, propped up by the party with the fourth most seats, the New Democrats, led by Mr. Singh. This “marriage” has from time to time, displayed some public criticism from Mr. Singh, but it appears to be mainly for show.
If Mr. Singh did not like the direction of the government, he could have pulled his support. But then Mr. Singh would not be performing as the puppet master, the man behind the curtain achieving things his party could have only dreamed about previously.
Only a few short days ago, just after the PC leader Mr. Poilievre was publicly calling for the NDP to tear up their agreement with the Liberals, Mr. Singh announced just that. It remains to be seen what if anything is impacted by this decision over the next few weeks or months.
For the most part, I describe myself as a policy liberal but fiscally conservative. This is based on my belief that we should help those who need it, but we should be paying our bills as we go.
I have never been a fan of mortgaging our children’s future with levels of spending that they will have to deal with. I voted for Joe Clark the first time I was able to vote because even back then, he was the only leader speaking about debt. That election saw Pierre Trudeau returned to office and the cash register opened again.
My father used to describe the first Trudeau’s deficit policies as a “drunken sailor with a stolen credit card”. His son seems to have learned well, because his spending has reached levels that make his father seem like a fiscal savant. But what does this have to do with Mr. Singh.
Since 2021, none of this would be possible without him. There is no way the conservatives would prop up a Liberal government and it is unlikely the Bloc would routinely provide their support as the NDP have. But the NDP, to their credit and in my view, to the detriment of the country, have used their fourth-place seats to exert an enormous amount of control over the spending agenda of this government. Is that truly what Canadians voted for when they relegated the NDP to fourth place? Let’s look at this another way.
If the Liberals needed five seats for a majority and the Green Party had six seats across the entire country, would Canadians be fine that the Green’s could push their agenda forward? Unlikely given those numbers, so why should we not be concerned with the numbers the NDP have at 24 seats. Is it beneficial to a country when a party with so little support can exert so much influence in the direction of the country? It seems counter-intuitive to how a democracy should work.
I took the COVID vaccine. I believe it was important to combatting an out-of-control health crisis, but I did not agree with everything the government did. I questioned the lack of nuance as more information became available. I question the policies in Ontario that saw Toronto’s rampant spread impact policies up here in the north where the spread was far less, knowing the reverse would never have taken place.
I completely disagreed with the way the Federal government handled the trucker’s convoy. Was the government unaware that the truckers were coming to Ottawa? Why were the trucks allowed into that area? A cynic may think it was intentional. Protests are part of our democratic process but allowing an entire section of Ottawa to be taken over by trucks, should cause us all to pause at what took place.
This protest gave us the Emergency Act. Was that really an appropriate response to what was by most accounts a relatively peaceful protest? Did I agree with the narrative of the protest, no. Do I believe they had the right to conduct a protest, absolutely. But the implementation of the emergency measures act would not have been possible without the blind support of Canada’s fourth party. I am not convinced this is necessarily good for the country.
Countless people will disagree with me. They will say that our multi party system allows other voices to be heard and compromise required but that is far from reality. Whoever has the power will wield it.
When you look to the south when Joe Biden and Donald Trump were the only two choices, I understand the appeal of additional parties, but two parties can be a strength. While there are problems with the electoral college system in the US, limited parties can be a source of good government. For those who believe in our system of five parties, I would ask, why not eight then, or ten?
Mr. Singh is an intelligent man. He knows his path to the Prime Minister’s office is at best like winning the lottery and they may never even reach the level of official opposition. Mr. Singh is doing what any smart leader would, using his leverage to obtain policies and spending levels that before the election, his party could have only dreamed of.
This may have been part of Mr. Singh’s calculation in cancelling the agreement. Mr. Trudeau will need the support of another party to pass a budget or fall into an election. Perhaps Mr. Singh, by seeing the writing on the wall for the Federal Liberals, is going to use this opportunity to wrestle more from the Liberals to keep them afloat. Again, only time will provide us that answer
Not all the programs that have been created are bad, but we are not paying for them. Our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will be. Our lifestyle which we continue to want no matter the cost, will burden multiple generations to come.
I believe that barring some unforeseen calamity, like Covid, we should pay as we go, but this government appears to have never seen a dollar in someone’s pocket that they did not want to spend. That Canadians continue to blindly accept this spending demonstrates who we are at this point in our history.
When Mr. Trudeau came to power, our total debt was 619 billion. It is now at 1.2 trillion. It took 148 years to accumulate the first 619, the next 580 billion came within the last 8 years and it is expected to grow by another 200 billion by 2029.
If a massive infrastructure project for our ports, rail lines or other transportation of goods and people was created, perhaps we could accept this. If massive mobile hospitals to deal with health emergencies like Covid could be deployed quickly around the country, again, we could accept some of this debt. But that is not what took place.
Programs are being added and/or expanded that result in on-going costs that keep driving up government spending all possible, because Mr. Singh supported the current government.
If you are a fan of Bill Maher, which I am, you are likely familiar with a quote of his where he stated: “I am still a democrat. I didn’t change, they did”. That is how I feel. I still feel like a Liberal, but I view this government as being left of the NDP and I simply cannot support a far-left leaning government when I fundamentally disagree with many of the decisions they have made.
A similar thing happened in Ontario when Kathleen Wynn, in what I believe was a desperate attempt to retain power, veered so far left that the party was unrecognizable. Friends of my brothers (former MPP Bill Mauro), huge fans of his that respected him greatly kept telling us they could not support him because of the leader. It appears a similar thing is happening right now in Ottawa.
This government appears extremely unpopular, and the Liberal brand is disappearing. A review from coast to coast reveals how the Liberals are doing in Canada. BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan governments have no liberal members. Manitoba has 1/57, Ontario 9/124, Quebec 19/125. Nova Scotia has 15/55, New Brunswick 16/49 and NFLD has the only Liberal government with 21/40 seats. PEI has 3/27. Being a Liberal appears to make you part of an endangered species.
Could it be because the Liberals have moved so far left that they no longer occupy the middle where they have been historically? Could it be that dividing people by race, religion, or gender does not play well with most of the population who just want people to be Canadian? Could it be failing to make common sense law and order decisions like making arrests when people commit crimes?
There are likely many reasons, but the sad fact is, being a Liberal today is lonely. My positions in the political arena have not changed much, but the party I belonged to is hard to recognize over the past 8 years. The same can be true for parts of the democratic party in the US.
Joe Biden did not win because he embraced defunding the police. He won in part because he stayed away from those policies. The democrats are running against a candidate that cannot speak coherently, that has an ego the size of Mars, and where some of his supporters believe he was sent by God. Instead of running away with this election, the guy might get elected again, in part because middle America was tired of being ignored by a party that became the party of elites or pushed policies that a large majority did not support. With Harris at the helm now, it appears the party is moving back towards the centre in a strong way providing hope for democrats that they can still pull this off.
I do not have a crystal ball and in politics, anything can change in a second. There is no guarantee the conservative will win the next Canadian election although the current polling numbers suggest it could be a landslide.
The problem is if the conservatives win, the books are in such a mess that to fix them, decisions will be made that will hurt some of the same people who are sitting quietly by now. They didn’t vote, because voting doesn’t matter in their mind. We saw massive cuts with Mike Harris. We saw it with the Chretien Liberals, and we may see it again.
Mr. Singh will be fine with the changes that have taken place. Mr. Trudeau may be fine them, but more and more Canadians did not appear to be enamoured by this marriage. Mr. Singh has asked for a divorce and will shall see what takes place as a result.
Perhaps a reporter could ask Mr. Singh “Then why do you continue to support the government”. This lip service Mr. Singh provided over the past 3 years needs to be called out for what it is; deflection to obtain the things he wanted. I do not think this is what Canadians voted for in the last election. We will see if the anger in the polls is real, or just a momentary blip.
An election may be just around the corner. Only voters will decide if the polls are accurate, or will they return Mr. Trudeau for a fourth term. I have just one favour to ask of all Canadians; instead of moaning about this government or that one, leave your couch and vote. Otherwise, can you just accept the outcome knowing you played the part of the court jester by sitting at home and letting other Canadians decide your fate. Get involved. Your grandchildren’s bank account may thank you. Just a thought.
