Article content continued

Gone is the contemptuous “beer and popcorn” dismissal of cash payments

This all happened 20 years ago, and I only bring it up to illustrate how much has changed since the last time the Liberals returned to government. While it is possible to disagree with the Liberal platform on many points — for example, the narrative of a middle class in decline contradicts my reading of the evidence — its level of economic literacy is remarkably high for a political manifesto. If the Liberals still fear the political consequences of reversing the two-percentage-point cut in the GST, they have at least abandoned Michael Ignatieff’s proposal to increase corporate income taxes. And what is probably the most important policy plank — the Canada Child Benefit — is firmly based on what economists have learned about the benefits of direct transfers to low-income households. Gone is the contemptuous “beer and popcorn” dismissal of cash payments.

[np_storybar title=”Read & Debate” link=””] Find Full Comment on Facebook

[/np_storybar]

Trudeau likes to make references to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and he could make a worse choice of a predecessor from whom he could draw inspiration. Not necessarily for the “Sunny Ways” theme, but for what the Liberal Party stood for while Laurier led them: free trade and open markets. When Laurier led the Liberals, it was the Conservatives who were the party of the ‘National (sic) Policy’ of high tariffs and special treatment for the favoured interest groups concentrated in central Canada. For reasons too long to get into here, the two main parties traded places on this issue at some point during the 20th century. But the Liberals’ attitude to freer international trade has moved from grudging acceptance in 1993 to increasingly enthusiastic support, from NAFTA to the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with the European Union to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. While they (sensibly) refuse to offer unconditional support for a TPP agreement that they have not yet read, neither have they specified any deal-breakers that would lead them to abandon the TPP.

Chrétien came to power campaigning against the consensus of opinion among economists. Even though he did eventually incorporate that consensus into his policy agenda, he was obliged to spend valuable time and energy engineering several 180-degree turns before his government could get traction. Justin Trudeau has not made that mistake.

National Post

Stephen Gordon is professor of economics at Laval University.