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Kevin Carmichael<\/span> <\/div><\/div>\n<\/picture>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a Liberal Party election night event in Montreal, Sept. 21, 2021. <\/span> Photo by David Kawai\/Bloomberg<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n Too bad we\u2019re not more like Germany. If we were, we might be speculating about which cabinet post Conservative leader Erin O\u2019Toole would be taking in Justin Trudeau\u2019s unity government.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n What about global affairs? An Air Force veteran, former corporate lawyer and leader of the party that won the popular vote would probably be taken seriously in Washington, Beijing and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
But we\u2019re not like Germany, a parliamentary democracy that has a history of forming relatively stable coalitions. In Canada, minority governments buy power, they don\u2019t share it. We are all speculating about what Trudeau will have to pay to get Jagmeet Singh\u2019s two dozen New Democratic members of Parliament to endorse the next budget. It will probably be expensive.<\/p>\n
The hot take on the election was that a campaign about nothing also achieved nothing because the seat count barely changed. Pollsters had been telegraphing a hung Parliament for weeks. We\u2019re a deeply divided country, and it was always going to take more than a world-beating vaccination rate to change that.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n\u201cAnnoyed,\u201d said Adam Froman, founder and chief executive of Toronto-based Delvinia Holdings Inc., when I asked him how he was feeling the morning after the vote. \u201cIt showed how divisive things have become.\u201d<\/p>\n
The election was unnecessary. Parliament was working and, therefore, a nation whose mental health has been battered by the pandemic should have been spared a month of wedge politics. \u201cTrudeau should wear this one,\u201d Froman said.<\/p>\n
Still, the campaign was more than a \u201c$600-million cabinet shuffle,\u201d as Lisa Raitt, the former Conservative cabinet minister, quipped during her television gig on CBC\u2019s Election Night.<\/p>\n
There were subtle shifts that could affect the political discourse going forward. Yes, the campaign was awful, but it might have been something we had to endure so that the next one won\u2019t be. And if Team Trudeau\u2019s biggest weakness is arrogance, it might finally be humbled enough to get better at listening to those with a different worldview.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n\nThe election was so underwhelming, it at least lets us hit reset. Let’s exhale. Let’s move forward<\/p>\n
Adam Froman<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Trudeau is now the tarnished leader of consecutive minority governments, not the young prince who won a surprise majority in 2015. Chrystia Freeland, the Deputy Prime Minister and a former journalist, was reprimanded by Twitter for spreading an aggressively edited video that mischaracterized O\u2019Toole\u2019s position on universal health care. The Liberals are weaker. That could be a good thing for the rest of us, assuming self-preservation forces them to govern more constructively, perhaps by mending fences with the business community, a group Trudeau has alienated.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t all bad for the Liberals. They won a seat in Calgary and another one in Edmonton, so Alberta\u2019s perspective on climate policy will be represented in caucus \u2014 and quite likely in cabinet, too. Former trade minister Jim Carr, who has been advising Trudeau as a special representative for the Prairies, won in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n The next government will have better representation from the West, which should make it more legitimate when it tangles with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe over climate change, an existential threat, but also a generational economic opportunity that Canada\u2019s political class has refused to aggressively confront.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a moment right now as a society where it\u2019s time to start really sitting down and collaborating and listening to one another,\u201d said Alicia Dubois, chief executive of Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corp.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n Looser fiscal policy on the way if Liberals are to woo ‘likely dance partner’ NDP <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n What the election outcome means to the economy, stocks and the loonie <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n David Rosenberg says Trudeau’s win puts capitalists in ‘penalty box’ <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n To that end, maybe the most important outcome of the election is that it forced O\u2019Toole to disclose the distance he would be willing to travel across the political spectrum to become prime minister. The Opposition leader unveiled a vision for a modern conservative party that could become a viable alternative for all those centrist and pragmatic voters in the Greater Toronto Area that the Liberals take for granted. It\u2019s possible now to imagine a stable Conservative government in the future, rather than one that lucked into office on a wave of rural protest.<\/p>\n
Voters will benefit from the competition, so will entrepreneurs, executives and investors. Stephen Poloz, the former Bank of Canada governor, reminded the audience of a virtual event hosted by the Canadian Association for Business Economics earlier this month that political uncertainty has become a significant drag on investment. The Great Recession blew apart a policy consensus that provided a solid economic foundation for two decades.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n The election of Donald Trump in the United States and all that followed is the best example of Poloz\u2019s point, but Canada has also suffered from political polarization, especially when it comes to climate change. The opportunity cost of our inability to decide on a coherent approach to pipelines, for example, was enormous.<\/p>\n
But those are sunk costs now. A serious country would stop fighting over what\u2019s already been lost and set itself to make up for those losses in the shift to a greener and digitally oriented economy. O\u2019Toole\u2019s embrace of a carbon price makes that possible, as does his decision to consider a more active role for the government in supporting technology companies. He broke with his party\u2019s obsession with balanced budgets, meaning anyone thinking of investing real money in Canada can do so without having to worry too much about a sudden shift to austerity.<\/p>\n
Froman\u2019s mood improved somewhat as he searched for silver linings. One positive, he said, is that Canada appears to have achieved political unity on the environment and climate change. That\u2019s more than nothing. \u201cGreen technology is a huge opportunity for Canada,\u201d he said. \u201cThe election was so underwhelming, it at least lets us hit reset. Let\u2019s exhale. Let\u2019s move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Email: kcarmichael@postmedia.com | Twitter: