Prime Minister Mark Carney during Question Period in Ottawa on Wednesday.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
For the last year, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been the political equivalent of a movie screen, with voters able to project their individual hopes on to him, and chalk up any gap between that image and Mr. Carney’s actions to the exigencies of minority government.
If only the Prime Minister did not have to worry about the support of the NDP, he’d be able to move more aggressively to roll back the civil service. Or, if only he did not need to keep the Conservatives from triggering an election, he’d be able to roll out a full-fledged version of pharmacare. Whatever your political leaning, Mr. Carney’s blurry centrism and the real need to secure the support of other parties has given him a political alibi over the last year.
All that is over now, with the Liberals having poached enough MPs to secure a narrow working majority. The time of “if only” is done; Mr. Carney’s actions, or lack thereof, can no longer be chalked up to compromises with the opposition.
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The question then, is whether Mr. Carney will simply hoard the power of a majority to consolidate his party’s grip on Parliament, or will spend that political capital in the pursuit of the kind of ambitious change that he has talked about since winning the Liberal leadership.
An early test will be how the Liberals use their newly acquired majority to control Commons committees. In a minority situation opposition MPs outnumber the government and can prod the government in embarrassing ways – call it accountability or obstruction, depending on your partisan vantage point. That ability could shrink dramatically once the Liberals rework the composition of committees.
If the government uses its control of committees to shut down questioning, the Liberals will have made clear to Canadians what they see as the utility of a majority.
There are some worrying early signs. The day after his hat trick of by-election wins, Mr. Carney said he expected there to be less “showboating” in Parliament (while also promising to work with other parliamentarians). Then there was MP James Maloney, chair of the Liberal caucus, criticizing opposition “obstruction” in comments to the CBC.
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Serious times call for serious debate, for sure. But what looks like showboating or obstruction to the Liberals might be viewed as something more akin to not letting the government gloss over embarrassing facts. We’re about to find out what a non-obstructionist Parliament, in the Liberal definition, looks like.
Assume for a moment (and why not?) that the Liberals intend to act in good faith and their only aim is the expeditious operation of government. What ends will they pursue?
There is no shortage of major issues that the Liberals have taken half-measures, taken fuzzy decisions or simply punted. Mr. Carney has, to date, been able to rely on voters’ forbearance as he manoeuvred on the international stage and made promises of major change, coming soon.
Now, he can start delivering on major change that will need years to put into effect.
Take the paring back (and it is barely that) of the federal civil service. Attrition and early retirement may have avoided triggering the opposition of the NDP. But Mr. Carney can move more boldly now: a vision for a lean and more effective public service is needed.
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Tax reform is another file awaiting the expenditure of political capital. The need to create a Canadian tax advantage could not be more obvious. But the politics are daunting: Selling lower taxes on business investments while Canadians struggle with an inflated cost of living will take finesse, and time. Mr. Carney is thought to have the finesse; he now has the time.
Economists agree that interprovincial trade barriers would galvanize GDP growth, yet the provinces continue to slow-walk the changes that would have the greatest benefit. The Liberals need to lead on this front, too.
Speaking of cumbersome regulations: Mr. Carney has made much of his detour around federal red tape, the Major Projects Office. Now, he can get down to the less glamorous work of reducing regulatory barriers for all players, not just a chosen few.
A road map for rearmament. A path back to federal fiscal sustainability. A pipeline to the Pacific Coast. There is no shortage of big questions awaiting Mr. Carney. “If only” can no longer be the answer.