Justin Trudeau is in a spot of trouble.
Of his own making. Of the dirty work of his loyal anonymous sources. Of course.
His pandemic rift with Bill Morneau, his finance minister, has for a time within select circles been no great secret. His pandemic recruitment of Mark Carney, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor, has for a time within these same circles been a great secret. They are now open secrets.
Every so often when the house is silent and the leader is on vacation, those little anonymice conveniently emerge from the woodwork, reeking of cheese and leaving their little droppings all over the floor – in this case to assure Canadians the prime minister is devising a plan.
But they, through their unattributed criticism of the incumbent minister and reverence of the man who might replace him, are the menace of the moment. This leak of rift and recruitment does not wear well on the PM.
You would think the last thing the prime minister needs now is to look anything other than in charge. His brand is fading. He is in trouble over his casual ethics involving the WE Charity. He has run out of schemes to wallpaper the country in minted currency. Surely he cannot turn to others for answers and keep his superpower cape and ring.
And you would also think the last thing the prime minister needs now is to appear in the shadow, either by throwing shade on his sidekick or by standing small as a saviour looms large. Yet here he goes, kicking Morneau to the CERB curb, even if his office tepidly expressed the same confidence in him that hockey coaches hear shortly before their walking papers. And yet here he also goes, drawing upon Carney as if Carney will not ultimately be the vampire to draw upon him.
To be charitable, Carney was not a home-run hitter abroad. The sky did not fall upon Great Britain post-Brexit, as he predicted, and he ventured out of his lane as a bank governor to be a climate change warrior with middling fanfare. By the time his term was complete, his charm was complete.
But he is the flavour of the month, the Liberal dream candidate that once was John Turner, even head-shakingly Michael Ignatieff, and if he is in the tent now, there will be many restless nights on the campground. Trudeau will not long be his No. 1, any more than Jean Chrétien could keep Paul Martin at bay.
That all being said, the prime minister recognizes he has no second act in the pandemic play. Perhaps it is not Morneau’s fault, perhaps the system fails him, but he has appeared stingy with compassion. His wage subsidy miscalculations – too little at first, too quick to dial them back of late – have businesses more anxious than those receiving income support. He is less architect as handyman when it comes to vision.
So the prime minister is risking his own authority and cabinet loyalty with an outsized outsider, summoning the wisdom of Carney. No doubt, the country can use in the pandemic the shrewd Bank of Canada-era Carney of the financial crisis a decade-plus ago, even if some credited the banking system and not its governance that kept Canada from collapse.
This will be a time to think big: how to restore confidence, reset support programs, revive the right indices, regenerate revenue without making us feel like we’ve been shaken down and reconcile the layered demands for a greener economy and a more equitable income distribution without making losers of earlier winners.
This might make the prime minister appear to be the man with a plan, but it more likely would make the outsider the man people want inside.
Unless he is indeed stepping down, Trudeau needs to worry he has just summoned his successor. •
Kirk LaPointe is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and the vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
