Granted, the Business Council of BC crowd is not your basic cross-section of provincial society. Its expectations and evaluations of the federal government’s economic strategy are bound to be more testing and testy.
With that lens upon him, though, it would have been difficult to miss the disconnection Tuesday in the hotel conference room as Finance Minister Bill Morneau talked through last week’s budget and the wider scenery of national and global business.
Morneau is certainly a disciple, perhaps a high priest, of the Sunny Ways School of Thought. But at some point the inherent optimism gives offence. Yes, true, fair enough, we have low unemployment, but the great news ends there for many in the audience, even though it only begins there for the minister.
His remarks and his subsequent discussion onstage revealed much about why the business community – and it’s a diverse one, so a difficult one to generalize – doesn’t much feel the love and doesn’t much sense the empathy.
Where other jurisdictions appear to be buying plywood and sandbags for the coming storm, Morneau placidly talks of unworrisome deficits and debt, perceived progress on crucial U.S.-China trade talks and U.S.-Canada tariff talks, and the nuisance of quarterly Canadian economic results that will spring back when the good weather shortly hits.
“We will turn to growth,” the minister pledges, placing the blame for any problem on international and not domestic factors.
He points to other countries – the United Kingdom “literally tearing itself apart” with Brexit, France and the yellow vest violence, America and “divisive politics” where it “is difficult to get things done” – and tries to convince the crowd that in that context we are not at all bad off. Heads do not nod.
These socio-economic conditions could be seen in 2015 as the Liberals campaigned, he said, thus providing a clue on his government’s obsession with broadening the middle class and transferring wealth.
As for getting things done in Canada, the problem for the minister was a roomful of people whose feel their initiatives and enterprises are stymied by regulatory burden, permitting delays, and excessive costs of doing business.
They do not see progress on the capital cost allowance issue as more than an asterisk on the scorecard. They see an astounding uncompetitiveness in the landscape and can correctly trade his assertion about low unemployment for their assertion about low supply of talent due to the unaffordability and inertia of Vancouver. They can pile on the larger questions internationally about Canada’s ability to get projects done, about the disastrous state of foreign investment, and the trade uncertainty with our two largest partners.
It didn’t help anyone in the room that Morneau deflected to the point of dismissing questions about the need for tax cuts (“a continuing question”) or to reconsider the stress test to determine mortgage eligibility (“I can’t tell you that we have any plans.”)
He is so polite in doing so, by the way, that it can outrage. To wit, his strongest statement on the economic record: “We think we’re broadly getting it right.”
By the end of the luncheon, you could easily sense many left without feeling like the tide had turned and business was back in the front seat for the Liberal government as it seeks re-election. Which is probably the way the minister wants it, maybe even the way he feels he needs it. Little comfort for those in his audience, but they aren’t necessarily where the votes are.
Kirk LaPointe is editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
