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Can the Martin team govern, or just campaign?
By JEFFREY SIMPSON
UPDATED AT 1:17 PM EST         Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004
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When a government chooses to position itself as all things to all people, and when it enjoys a fiscal surplus, it becomes the political equivalent of a sitting duck.
Or perhaps we should change the metaphor and say, a goose easily plucked. Both describe Ottawa as positioned by Paul Martin's government.
This week, Canada's provincial premiers gathered in their newly created Council of the Federation and demanded another $2-billion for health care.
You reply: "Didn't they just get $2-billion?" Yes, but only for one year. Now they want another $2-billion a year, every year.
You might further ask: "Didn't I read somewhere about $34-billion being poured into health care over five years?" Indeed, you did read that, and the money is flowing, therefore, at about $7-billion extra a year.
More, more, more is what provinces demand, because their health-care systems are unsustainable at today's level of taxation, unless they choose to rip spending from non-health parts of their budgets. The path of least political resistance for them (a path well-beaten by them and their predecessors) is to demand further transfers from Ottawa.
So we have provinces clamouring for more health-care funds. The eight provinces that receive equalization are unhappy and are demanding more. Mayors of cities and towns across Canada are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the billions Ottawa will fork over to them courtesy of Prime Minister Martin's pledge to let them have federal tax money.
The Martin government has raised expectations everywhere. The military has been told help is on the way. Farmers hit by BSE are expecting more. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are relieved that Ottawa might let them be greater net beneficiaries from offshore resources. Advocates for the homeless are standing by. Aboriginals, highlighted in the Speech from the Throne, won't accept anything less than more.
Advocates for these and other causes will not take no for an answer. They look at the federal surplus, whatever its real size, and slaver, especially in a pre-election period, when governments once in a while have been known to let politics drive economics. They look, too, at Ottawa's past record of underestimating its surplus. They have heard all the urgent priorities outlined by the new government and assume that their cause surely must be among those priorities.
That Mr. Martin promised "sound fiscal management" in accepting the Liberal leadership -- "keeping a firm grip on government spending" and an "ongoing program review" -- represents the flip side of all those expectations, demands and promises.
He built much of his political reputation on slaying the federal deficit. There can be no economic justification for running a deficit today, when the economy is perking along, nor could Mr. Martin so risk his political reputation.
So a balanced budget, with appropriate contingency funding, it must be, in the face of all these demands, not all of which, obviously, can be accommodated.
That they cannot be, however, will not stop a palpable disappointment among the aggrieved, the price the government will pay for overpromising and, to this point, being apparently unable to identify just which priorities trump others, let alone to summon the courage to say no to anybody.
Transformative change is the Martin slogan, words many Canadians literally will not understand, since normal people do not use them in any context whatsoever. Whatever the intention, the words must mean something big, dramatic, overwhelming -- and none of that can occur with piddling changes here and there.
Transformation cannot mean -- in the real world of government as opposed to the false world of cheap rhetoric -- being all things to all people, trying new things everywhere, promising action on all fronts, while simultaneously holding the line on spending, keeping taxes going down and making repayments on the national debt.
Nibbling at the margins of problems, as in pouring a few more billions into medicare, is hardly transformative stuff. But rhetoric aside, satisfying all the demanding groups under current fiscal constraints likely means a little here and a little there, leaving everyone suspended between marginal satisfaction and relative dissatisfaction.
Choosing and doing is the essence of governing. There has been distressingly little of governing since the Martinites arrived, a strange state of affairs for a group that had so long to prepare.
On March 23, budget day, Canadians will know if the Martinites can govern or just keep campaigning.
jsimpson@globeandmail.ca
© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By JEFFREY SIMPSON
UPDATED AT 1:17 PM EST         Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004
Advertisement
When a government chooses to position itself as all things to all people, and when it enjoys a fiscal surplus, it becomes the political equivalent of a sitting duck.
Or perhaps we should change the metaphor and say, a goose easily plucked. Both describe Ottawa as positioned by Paul Martin's government.
This week, Canada's provincial premiers gathered in their newly created Council of the Federation and demanded another $2-billion for health care.
You reply: "Didn't they just get $2-billion?" Yes, but only for one year. Now they want another $2-billion a year, every year.
You might further ask: "Didn't I read somewhere about $34-billion being poured into health care over five years?" Indeed, you did read that, and the money is flowing, therefore, at about $7-billion extra a year.
More, more, more is what provinces demand, because their health-care systems are unsustainable at today's level of taxation, unless they choose to rip spending from non-health parts of their budgets. The path of least political resistance for them (a path well-beaten by them and their predecessors) is to demand further transfers from Ottawa.
So we have provinces clamouring for more health-care funds. The eight provinces that receive equalization are unhappy and are demanding more. Mayors of cities and towns across Canada are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the billions Ottawa will fork over to them courtesy of Prime Minister Martin's pledge to let them have federal tax money.
The Martin government has raised expectations everywhere. The military has been told help is on the way. Farmers hit by BSE are expecting more. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are relieved that Ottawa might let them be greater net beneficiaries from offshore resources. Advocates for the homeless are standing by. Aboriginals, highlighted in the Speech from the Throne, won't accept anything less than more.
Advocates for these and other causes will not take no for an answer. They look at the federal surplus, whatever its real size, and slaver, especially in a pre-election period, when governments once in a while have been known to let politics drive economics. They look, too, at Ottawa's past record of underestimating its surplus. They have heard all the urgent priorities outlined by the new government and assume that their cause surely must be among those priorities.
That Mr. Martin promised "sound fiscal management" in accepting the Liberal leadership -- "keeping a firm grip on government spending" and an "ongoing program review" -- represents the flip side of all those expectations, demands and promises.
He built much of his political reputation on slaying the federal deficit. There can be no economic justification for running a deficit today, when the economy is perking along, nor could Mr. Martin so risk his political reputation.
So a balanced budget, with appropriate contingency funding, it must be, in the face of all these demands, not all of which, obviously, can be accommodated.
That they cannot be, however, will not stop a palpable disappointment among the aggrieved, the price the government will pay for overpromising and, to this point, being apparently unable to identify just which priorities trump others, let alone to summon the courage to say no to anybody.
Transformative change is the Martin slogan, words many Canadians literally will not understand, since normal people do not use them in any context whatsoever. Whatever the intention, the words must mean something big, dramatic, overwhelming -- and none of that can occur with piddling changes here and there.
Transformation cannot mean -- in the real world of government as opposed to the false world of cheap rhetoric -- being all things to all people, trying new things everywhere, promising action on all fronts, while simultaneously holding the line on spending, keeping taxes going down and making repayments on the national debt.
Nibbling at the margins of problems, as in pouring a few more billions into medicare, is hardly transformative stuff. But rhetoric aside, satisfying all the demanding groups under current fiscal constraints likely means a little here and a little there, leaving everyone suspended between marginal satisfaction and relative dissatisfaction.
Choosing and doing is the essence of governing. There has been distressingly little of governing since the Martinites arrived, a strange state of affairs for a group that had so long to prepare.
On March 23, budget day, Canadians will know if the Martinites can govern or just keep campaigning.
jsimpson@globeandmail.ca
© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
