Did Trudeau just change the campaign?

Don Lenihan, Canada2020

Justin Trudeau’s infrastructure announcement may have changed the campaign. It places two potentially powerful themes side by side: the economy and trust. The question now is whether he can cement the link between them in voters’ minds. Let’s start with the economy, then turn to trust.

Until now, the discussion on the economy looked quite different. Stephen Harper had all the party leaders lining up behind conservative economics, as though the mere mention of a deficit would leave one sounding like a drunkard or member of the Flat Earth Society.

Several developments suggest this inverted world is finally righting itself.

First, Conservatives are having a hard time explaining why deficits are so bad, given that they’ve been running them for seven years straight, topping out at a whopping $56 Billion in 2009.

In fact, experts on the left and right agree that deficit financing is not necessarily bad fiscal policy, especially when the amounts are relatively small one-time investments, made during an economic downturn.

The real concerns are over excessive or wasteful spending; and/or spending that becomes “structural,” such as new programs that require ongoing funding.

Second, after the stock market plunged, credible “mainstream” economists like Vice Chair of BMO Financial Group, Kevin Lynch, and former Deputy Minister of Finance David Dodge quickly stepped into the breach to speak in favour of deficit financing to stimulate growth.

With interest rates so low, others added, the timing couldn’t be better.

Finally, it is increasingly clear that most Canadians aren’t opposed to investments to stimulate growth. An Angus Reid Institute (ARI) survey released yesterday found that 55% of respondents identified either “the economy,” “jobs/unemployment,” or both as the top issue in this election. Only 13% singled out deficits/government spending as a particular concern.

So a counter-narrative has been building and now appears to have exploded the group-think that defined the first month of the campaign. But will Trudeau’s new willingness to talk of “investment” really change anything?

The ARI survey and other polls agree that, while Tom Mulcair still enjoys a significant lead among voters, many are not fully or finally committed to the NDP. But if there’s lots of volatility out there, they also agree that little of it is likely to help the Conservatives.

If these unsettled voters go anywhere, it will be to the Liberals; and the economy is the issue most likely to drive them there. That’s where things could take a major turn.

Most of these voters are likely open to, perhaps even welcoming of, measured talk about investments to promote jobs, especially if the economy gets worse. Trudeau’s announcement thus gives him a direct and meaningful link to things they really care about.

So the challenge now is not so much to convince them that some investment is good, as to get them to trust him to make some good investments—and that is a very different thing.

This kind of trust shifts the focus away from economic theory and onto leadership and values. It is not just a matter of trusting the leader’s policies, but of trusting his/her character. Trudeau appears to be wagering that this is the real thing Canadians are now weighing.

Unfortunately, trust in politicians is in short supply, especially the kind politicians usually ask for in elections. But Trudeau may have an answer. He is hoping to establish his trustworthiness by promising to tie deficit financing firmly and fully to transparency.

In this view, the only real guarantee against waste, bad management and abuse is to throw open the window of government and let Canadians see for themselves how it is managing their tax dollars and how their investments are performing.

Governments don’t work that way now. They are fiercely protective of such information. They hate bad news and will go to great lengths to hide it.

This is exactly what we’ve learned from the Duffy trial. The proceedings have laid bare the extraordinary and secretive control the PMO now exercises over the whole of government. And the way the government will use that control to hide the truth. This is the real scandal to emerge from the trial.

I think it is also the real backdrop for Trudeau’s infrastructure announcement. In an interesting if largely ignored interview this week with CTV’s Bob Fife, Trudeau talks about the revelations from the trial. He candidly admits that the trend toward centralization in the PMO goes back a couple of generations. Indeed, it began with his father, Pierre Trudeau.

And now, Trudeau tells us, it is time to put an end to it. If elected, that is what he vows to do. “There is a certain symmetry that the concentration of power that began under my father would end with me.”

I think Trudeau is trying to stake out some very important ground for the next phase of the campaign. It’s not just that we need to be able to trust our leaders, whether on deficits or anything else.

He’s pointing out that trust can’t be compartmentalized. We cannot trust a leader to manage the economy who manipulates the truth on everything else. And the acid test for a leader’s trustworthiness is his/her willingness to submit to scrutiny.

So what should we make of this?

After 25 years working with governments, I believe the only way to rebuild and maintain public trust in government is through a massive increase in transparency.

Whatever one thinks of Justin Trudeau, he is the only major leader who is giving serious thought to the role of transparency in renewing government for the 21st century.

In the process, he has assembled an arsenal of proposals that could be marshaled into a plan that would not only protect public investments, but reverse the long, centralizing trend in the PMO.

I, for one, would like to hear more about such a plan in this campaign.

Dr. Don Lenihan is Senior Associate, Policy and Engagement, at Canada 2020, Canada’s leading, independent progressive think-tank. Don is an internationally recognized expert on democracy and Open Government. His recent projects include chairing an expert group on citizen engagement for the UN and the OECD; and chairing the Ontario Open Government Engagement Team. The views expressed here are those of the columnist alone. Don can be reached at: Don.Lenihan@Canada2020.ca or follow him on Twitter at: @DonLenihan