Brown-John: Trudeau Liberals following same path as Harper Tories

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By: Lloyd Brown-John

Sometimes the rhetoric of Canadian politics reminds me of our dog. Tip was his name.

With ease, this German shepard could be convinced to chase his own tail in circles. I’ve thought about my old canine friend as I reflect on the last 20 years of Canadian politics.

As Pierre Poilievre presses the other opposition leaders to support his Conservatives in a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons to bring down Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, it might prove useful to remember that Paul Martin’s Liberal government fell on such a confidence vote in late 2005. Just 19 years ago we were indulging in the same style of recriminations we are hearing today.

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In case you have forgotten, Martin was replaced by Conservative Stephen Harper in 2006. By 2015, only nine years later, Harper was struggling to survive. He was replaced by Justin Trudeau. Now, almost nine years, later the political knives are out for Trudeau.

In the past we might have benefitted from term limits on prime ministers akin to America’s two-term presidencies. However, recent federal electoral history suggests that rule wouldn’t be necessary as we’ve tended to toss out prime ministers rather regularly.

Having arrived at the waning months of 2024, we have Poilievre salivating for an election and the coveted prime minister’s office, a bewildered NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, who may well be beyond his best-before date, and a single-purpose Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet causing Albertans enormous indigestion because Blanchet represents only one province and it ‘ain’t Alberta!’ or even Ontario.

Despite a capacity to impact a minority national government such as Trudeau’s Liberals, the Bloc Québécois has little more purpose in Parliament than as an impediment to national governance or now as a Liberal prop.

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Much of this could either be humorous or scary for younger voters. But for those of us who have kicked about elections for generations, often it is repetitive.

Ottawa journalist Les Whittington, a former Toronto Star national reporter who now writes weekly political columns for Ottawa’s Hill Times, published a delightful book in 2015. In “Spinning History: A Witness to Harper’s Canada and 21st Century Choices,” he discusses, from close proximity, the collapse of Stephen Harper’s government.

What makes Whittington’s book so timely again is that many of the noises leading up to Harper’s Conservative collapse are the same sounds now tearing at Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

At both federal and provincial government levels in Canada power to govern has been aggregated in the office of prime minister or premier. The democratic autocracies into which our parliamentary system has decayed suggest that the life-span of any incumbent government is but a few years.

Real power in today’s Canadian politics rests firmly in the office of prime minister or premier, usually populated by non-elected and non-accountable dedicated loyalists.

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As Les Whittington notes, by summer 2014 “Canadians were having second thoughts about Harper.” Byelection losses were imminent.

Much of Harper’s centralized PMO style of super-control finds parallels in Trudeau’s PMO. Harper was thrown out of office and Trudeau was tumbled into office.

Trudeau seems destined to a similar fate as Harper and for the same reasons.

The top-down Prime Minister’s Office and the minions in control are not parliamentarians but loyal, appointed and often fanatical hangers-about or shiny-shoe lickers.

The PMO costs Canadians amazing amounts of money. In fiscal year 2019-20 the PMO budget exceeded $9 million. By 2023-24 it had risen to over $11 million. Exercising political power costs money.

Despite his nonsensical “axe the tax” bleatings, Poilievre would have no reason to return political power back to elected parliamentarians.

Odds are that if Poilievre is successful in his salivating passion for the PMO, within a few years he’ll be looking for another job. So the aggregation of consequential political power will continue to accumulate in the PMO to the detriment of elected MPs and certainly to the detriment of Canadians.

The circles of politics always return.

Lloyd Brown-John is a University of Windsor professor emeritus of political science and director of Canterbury ElderCollege. He can be reached at lbj@uwindsor.ca.

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