MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith speaks to reporters in Dec., 2024. Last week, Erskine-Smith offered an assessment on the federal government's budget in a video posted to social media.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
The independent thought alarm went off in the Liberal universe again, and of course, the culprit was Ontario MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith. The MP for Beaches-East York has made a habit of using both his brain and his mouth since he entered politics a decade ago, which is a combination that will earn any MP a permanent seat on the backbench (though Mr. Erskine-Smith did enjoy a brief stint as housing minister in the final and desperate months of the Justin Trudeau government).
In a video posted to social media last week, Mr. Erskine-Smith offered his budget assessment, which was not, to Liberal partisans’ dismay, a four-minute montage of him slapping his fins together and muttering “Leader. Carney. Yay.” His analysis broke down the “good” (investment in infrastructure, defence spending, focus on productivity and so on), the “bad” (stalled climate action, incremental action on housing) and the “ugly” (cuts to international-development assistance). Overall, Mr. Erskine-Smith said the budget “meets the moment – in part” but “it does not live up to its promise of generational investments.”
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It was a fairly unremarkable assessment: the kind that anyone who has been paying attention to the discrepancy between Prime Minister Mark Carney’s rhetoric and his proposed policy would make. But such expressions of independent thought are verboten in the partisan universe, and not just in the Liberal one. Brent Rathgeber quit the Conservative caucus in 2013 after his colleagues watered down his private member’s bill on public service expense disclosures. Then, Mr. Rathgeber had criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper for expecting MPs regurgitate talking points and brainlessly toe the party line.
That’s largely the expectation of all MPs in Canada, which is why gadflies like Mr. Erskine-Smith irk partisans of all stripes. Speaking on a CBC News panel last week, Conservative strategist Kate Harrison suggested that Mr. Erskine-Smith should have aired his concerns privately, ahead of the budget. On the same panel, Brad Lavigne, who has worked as an adviser and campaign strategist for the NDP, accused Mr. Erskine-Smith of “aiding and abetting the opposition and critics.”
“I only see harm to his team and his boss,” Mr. Lavigne said.
Partisans are rarely swayed by the argument that allowing MPs to freelance – and even, to offer mild criticism of their own party’s performance – can actually broaden their appeal among the electorate. Millennials who didn’t see much for them in Mr. Carney’s budget, for example, will know that there’s at least one MP in his government who recognizes the need for Old Age Security reform and who also appreciates their sense of urgency on housing reform. Some might reasonably infer that if there’s still a place for Mr. Erskine-Smith in the party, there’s still a place for them.
Some will suggest that Mr. Erskine-Smith’s budget criticism was a strategic choice, intended to raise his profile ahead of a potential second-run at the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party. And perhaps that was part of his calculus. But this MP has been doing this sort of thing for a long time; for example, on the Liberals’ reluctance to adapt to changing conditions during the pandemic, on his government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act in 2022, on the revision of climate emissions targets this year and so on. It is not noteworthy that Mr. Erskine-Smith would be critical of his own government’s policies, but it is noteworthy that he is one of the few who sees the benefit of doing so.
Rigid party discipline worked for decades, when most of the exposure the wider public had to their representatives was through mainstream media reports. But now, most MPs have X accounts, Instagram accounts, and some have TikTok pages, where they are expected and encouraged to speak and behave as normal people. It doesn’t really work to be normal on certain platforms and then clap and mutter “Leader. Carney. Yay” on others. To the extent that anyone bought that act before, it comes off as even more tired, even more dated, now.
Indeed, there’s something about strict caucus discipline that seems incongruous with modern times, when authenticity is in (for example, on the right, with U.S. President Donald Trump, and on the left, with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani), and when social media provides a window into the private lives of politicians, to the extent they allow it, like never before.
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We all know that there are plenty more Liberals with brains who are concerned about the enormous increase in non-capital spending in the budget; Conservatives with brains who are concerned about Pierre Poilievre’s unyielding dudebro persona; and NDP MPs who are concerned about… how the party will pay its next electricity bill. They’re just not using their mouths, too. The fiction of complete and unanimous caucus cohesion is passé, anyway. Why are we all still playing along?