Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference at a cabinet retreat in Ottawa, on Sept. 14, 2020.BLAIR GABLE/Reuters
About seven weeks ago, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau slipped away from the Prime Minister’s Office for a two-week vacation, a new direction was whispered by senior government figures. The PM was convinced the country must move out of the pandemic with bold, transformative change, expansive social programs and green policies. He was to signal a new direction in the fall.
Now the order of the day is caution. There may be a second wave of COVID-19 arriving. Many Canadians believe one is coming, anyway. A few weeks ago, it dawned on the Liberals that too much talk about building the Canada of future years might seem disconnected from Canadians' anxieties about next month. The fall direction, and the Speech from the Throne to reopen Parliament, was going to have to be more about those anxieties.
A prime minister in two minds is about to present his agenda for the future.
It is probably a rare occasion when people outside Ottawa might care about the vague words of a Throne Speech. Government priorities matter right now, whether they are virus testing, job-creation incentives, long-term-care funding or climate change. People want to hear a plan.
Roughly two-thirds of the speech will be about the here-and-now priorities of pandemic health and economic supports, according to one adviser. Those are the kinds of things people liked hearing Mr. Trudeau talk about in March, April and May. He climbed in opinion polls.
The Liberals have items to fill those boxes. More accessible coronavirus testing to help prevent further lockdowns, support for local areas experiencing a surge of cases, and adjustments to benefits or plans to get people back in jobs. Those kinds of things remain front-and-centre of Canadians' concerns. A Leger Marketing survey conducted Sept. 11-13 found 45 per cent believe “the worst of the crisis is yet to come.”
But Mr. Trudeau’s first instinct was to look to this fall as a crossroads in a crisis – a moment to transform the country. The details of the agenda he had in mind were never clear, except that he had decided that after hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency spending, and with a $343-billion deficit, it was not the time for retrenchment but for once-in-a-generation expansions of social programs, climate-change policies and economic-innovation stimulus.
How much will be left in the speech Governor-General Julie Payette reads on Wednesday?
Of course, the Liberal reboot always had to include both near-term crisis management and recovery plans. Some around Mr. Trudeau suggest the plan hasn’t shifted much. But the emphasis, the ambitious rhetoric that was the rationale for the relaunch, has.
The Justin Trudeau who pondered a new wave of expansive government in early August wasn’t sure if then-finance minister Bill Morneau was the right person to quarterback the plan, and when he came back from vacation, Mr. Morneau was out. Mr. Trudeau replaced him with Chrystia Freeland, prorogued Parliament and declared the pandemic was “also an unprecedented opportunity” that “won’t be open for long.” The Throne Speech, he said, would be a “roadmap out of the pandemic” to a fairer, healthier, safer, greener country.
When we hear that roadmap Wednesday, will it still go as far?
The sections about recovery plans surely must include increased health care funding for provinces, notably for long-term care. It has to talk about getting people back to jobs.
But in other areas, it’s not quite so clear. Mr. Trudeau signalled there will be something about child care; will he move from funds to combat pandemic shortages that hamper efforts to get people back to work to a full national child-care program? Mr. Trudeau has previously talked about steps toward a national pharmacare plan, but will he actually go there? Will the green recovery plan really be the big, bold thing many on the left want?
Some of those answers won’t really be clear until a fall mini-budget or a spring budget. What we now know is that part of this Prime Minister realizes the country wants him to focus on the current crisis, and that many might not be sanguine about a big-spending gamble on the future when there is a scary and costly present to get through. What we don’t know, yet, is how much of Mr. Trudeau is still looking for an opportunity in this crisis to make that leap.
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