It's the season of change, and if you feel strange, that's probably good

Words in The Hub, the Toronto Sun, and some recommendations.

Post-election dopamine withdrawals and ‘summer-slowdown’ fundraising lulls are a reality of life in the Canadian political sphere. On occasion, the two overlap, leading to all the expected existential questions, pockets of suburban ennui, and dashes of, “Gee what the heck do we do now?”

The answer — still — is “the work.”

Particularly given the stakes. Particularly given the start.

---

I was pleased to debut in The Hub this week, in a piece alongside economist and professor Trevor Tombe, professor Royce Koop, and Twitter pal and educator Kelden Formosa. (An inherently thoughtful young man.)

Read my snippet in “Need to Know, The Hub’s roundup of experts and insiders providing insights into the biggest stories, political developments, and policy announcements Canadians need to keep their eyes on”:

What comes next for ‘generation screwed’?

Alexander Brown, Director of the National Citizens Coalition (click to read in The Hub)

Canadian under-40s can be forgiven for being too deflated to join in on the Carney coronation. One whole week into a new Liberal cabinet that looks a whole lot like the old one, and the spectre of Housing Minister Gregor Robertson already looms large.

With youth unemployment again hitting record-highs outside of pandemics and a tangible exit plan for millions of temporary foreign workers yet to be communicated to working-age Canadian citizens, Nate Erskine-Smith’s quick hook on the housing file, for one of the founding fathers of the Canadian housing crisis, former Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, leaves much to be desired.

That Robertson immediately validated those concerns, by claiming that housing prices shouldn’t come down, as long as the government makes hundreds of thousands of public-housing units—a plan criticized by industry experts and layman alike as being rental-heavy, and more of the dog-crate-condo variety (which are now un-sellable on the real estate market)—couldn’t inspire less confidence.

This tone-deaf stance, his apparent refusal to understand basic principles of supply and demand, coupled with his track record of overseeing Vancouver’s affordability crisis, where the price of homes soared by over 179 percent on his watch, suggests the Liberals have no real plan to deliver on their promise to allow millions of young Canadians into the housing market for the very first time.

For those who can’t afford to wait years for another federal election, let’s hope these are growing pains for a cabinet truly committed to “transformative change” of the less-destructive variety, instead of what so far feels like another Brantford-Boomer middle finger.

This gets ugly, fast, if the status quo on housing continues. Good luck inspiring any displays of “elbows up” among a class of underemployed, forever renters.

---

I also happened to spend my post-work hours Thursday connecting with Bryan Passifiume of the Toronto Sun (a terrific reporter), who was looking for comment on the Carney camp’s bizarre decision to run with only one mandate letter to ministers, over the expected (but yes, largely ceremonial) dozens.

You can read that story that ran in the Friday edition of the Sun here, or block-quoted below:

OTTAWA — The prime minister’s decision to forego separate mandate letters for his cabinet is being met with raised eyebrows.

Former MP Kevin Vuong told the Toronto Sun the decision to issue a single mandate letter — instead of the customary individual directives to each cabinet minister — is yet another concerning diversion from the norm that’s become typical of the Prime Minister’s Office under Carney.

“No budget, no itineraries and now no mandate letters. Somebody should tell Prime Minister Carney that that’s not how a democracy works,” he said.

“By refusing to share, we have no choice but to ask: What does he have to hide? Is there something in his ministers’ mandate letters that he doesn’t want Canadians to see?”

On Wednesday, Carney issued a single mandate letter — free from Justin Trudeau-era platitudes like diversity, climate change and social justice and instead emphasizing trade, the economy and rebuilding Canada’s relations with the United States.

“This seems to be a government that is running less on emotional intelligence and virtue signalling,” said Stephen Taylor, a partner at Shift Media who nonetheless added Carney’s decision to withhold mandate letters does little but consolidate the power of the PMO.

“There’s some good words in the mandate letter, but a cabinet appointed full of Trudeau ministers just makes it suspect because that’s the government that will be implementing that agenda.”

He said a cabinet boasting members such as Steven Guilbeault and Gregor Robertson should give Canadians pause.

Alex Brown, a director with the National Citizens Coalition, said forgoing mandate letters is another worrying sign of this government’s tendency to err on the side of unaccountability.

“Justin Trudeau produced 38 of these mandate letters in 2021,” he said.

“And yes, all 38 of those ended up being historic dumpster fires, but to just cut the corner here already — by the end of the summer this group will have only sat in the House of Commons for 20 days in total.”

While he said the mandate letter had some encouraging signs, Brown said what it lacked most of all was substance aside from almost peripheral mentions of key issues like immigration and housing.

“It’s as if they ran the Conservative election platform through ChatGPT and asked them to distil it to 1,000 words and then take out the details,” he said.

“It’s so high level it’s almost insulting — it doesn’t get into anything specific.”

---

And for those interested in a reading list, two pieces caught my eye, in addition to one report on immigration worth putting on a pot of coffee for.

The great

Sam Cooper

brings his A-game in retracing the cardinal lies and sins that launched Carney’s fear campaign, and the utter farce that was “elbows up!”

Fleecing the Electorate: Timeline of a Campaign Built on Fear

"He campaigned on the word build. But we can’t become a superpower on a foundation of disillusionment and trickery."

Friend and fellow B.C. “centre-writer” Geoff Russ threw six-innings of scoreless ball in the Friday edition of the National Post, with ‘Canada’s populist moment will have its day.’

Choice quote:

Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government oversaw the great decline of Canada into a more barbarous, low-trust and hopeless society. Unless Carney has a plan to truly turn the page, his political ascension will only have deferred the Liberals’ day of reckoning.

The longer that Canada’s present condition persists, the more vicious and hard-line the blow-back will become. Establishment parties across Europe have learned this the hard way, with many right-wing populist parties having decimated their more moderate rivals.

Canada’s populist moment will come, either through a challenger to the status quo who embraces breaking down our sclerotic, parasitical economic model, or a government that beats them to it.

And before I go, I wanted to draw your attention to ‘Repairing the fray: Improving immigration and citizenship policy in Canada,’ an extensive and vitally important roadmap to fixing immigration from Dr. Michael Bonner; published by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.

It’s free. It’s robust. It’s eleven clear points to save a country and its future generations. It’s making the rounds inside major policy-making circles, and it’s incumbent upon us to ensure it reaches as many eyeballs as humanly possible.

We have the right and the obligation to raise the value of Canadian citizenship, and to demand more of our citizens. Above all, however, efforts at integration should proceed not from a dislike of other places, but from a love for Canada.

Amen.

See you next week.