The boost in polling that Democrats have enjoyed since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the race would not be shared by the Liberals if Justin Trudeau were to do the same.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 2, 2024.

OTTAWA–The post-Biden bump for the Democrats in the United States has not passed unnoticed in Canada.

One of the first questions asked of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the summer cabinet meeting in Halifax last week was just that: Could the Liberals get a similar bump if the prime minister were to step down, and the voters were presented with a different face at the head of the party?

Trudeau sidestepped the question, and continued to insist that his job was to “be there to invest in Canadians.” But his close friend and cabinet colleague Marc Miller did say that robust conversations were taking place within the confines of the caucus, without public disclosure.

Other ministers, including potential leadership candidates Mélanie Joly and Chrystia Freeland, were quick to support the prime minister’s leadership. But the party is roiling, as ministers and Members of Parliament seek their own Canadian bump.

It has been a year since the Conservative lead entered into double-digit territory, and nothing the government does seems to narrow that gap. But the notion of a parallel result if Trudeau were to resign is misdirected.

First of all, the hike for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has resulted in an increase of three to four per cent for her party.

Three to four per cent in Canada would not be enough to return to government, as the current polling differential between the Liberals and the Conservatives is much higher.

The United States is essentially a two-party system, so a small shift can make or break a victory. Even an independent with the name recognition of Robert Kennedy Jr. managed only six per cent support at the apex of his campaign. It is doubtful that six per cent would even follow him into an election. Now that he has thrown his support behind Republican candidate Donald Trump, his supporters will probably split between the two main parties.

Also, a two-party system lends itself to a smooth transition. In the U.S. case, the Democrats were able to replace U.S. President Joe Biden with Harris without a full leadership convention because opponents were edged out by the current vice-president.

The fact that she would have replaced Biden in the event of a presidential illness or incapacity made it simpler to rally around her at a national convention less than three months from the election.

In Trudeau’s case, his succession would trigger a full leadership process. Contrary to some media reports, Mark Carney is not a putative leader in waiting. There are several current cabinet ministers who have been quietly setting the stage for their own leadership ambitions.

Pundits would suggest that it is better to have someone from outside the current crop of politicians, and Carney certainly has a polished Canadian and international pedigree. But the Liberal Party’s previous experience with global pedigree has not been positive.

Michael Ignatieff is a brilliant scholar with a renowned global reputation who was supposed to be the party’s saviour. Instead, he was quickly rejected as someone who came back to Canada only to run for office. Carney has declined multiple offers to run for office, and that doesn’t sit well with those working in the trenches.

While the public may be tired of Trudeau, the party’s volunteer base is actively working to explain why his leadership and the current government are worth supporting.

The checklist is long for Liberals. National childcare, dental care, pharmacare and school lunch programs send a message that the party is working for all the people.

But the government has been telling that story for several months, and so far, it seems to be falling on deaf ears. Party members are ready for a leadership change, but also realize that the decision is in the hands of the prime minister.

Meanwhile, from François-Philippe Champagne to Dominic LeBlanc, many are weighing their future chances. Former parliamentarian Frank Baylis, who sold his heart-device business for $1.75-billion in 2021, is also actively assessing a potential campaign for the top job.

Baylis, son of a Barbadian immigrant, served in Trudeau’s government for one term, from 2015 to 2019, as the member of parliament for multicultural Pierrefonds-Dollard in Montreal, Que. If successful, he would be the party’s first non-white leader.

All of the foregoing means Liberals will not follow the American example and force out their leader. Multiple candidates are already planning their own robust campaigns, so there would be no shoo-in for Carney.

No huge bump, and multiple candidates rule out a smooth post-Trudeau transition in Canada.

Vive le Canada.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Social housing should be national in scope, and part of a major income reform. Immigration and refugee support should be regionally based, and there should be incentives for moving to underpopulated regions.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on February 5, 2024.

OTTAWA—Immigration Minister Marc Miller made a $362-million refugee housing announcement last week.

Instead of garnering positive impact, the announcement opened the door for provincial governments and critics to claim that the amount in question is simply too little to deal with the problem.

Quebec is looking for a cheque for $470-million, as outlined in a letter from Premier François Legault last month.

Legault is also asking the federal government to stem the flow of refugees finding their way into the country by land, sea, and air.

Miller’s announcement seemed to reinforce Legault’s concerns.

“I think we owe it to Canadians to reform a system that has very much been a stopgap measure since 2017 to deal with large historic flows of migration.”

Miller is speaking frankly, but his admission simply sets the government up for further criticism.

If 2017 is the date when things went sidewise, the federal government has had seven years to come up with a solution.

Like the housing crisis, the Liberals are taking the full brunt of criticism for immigration spikes.

The link between the two is tenuous at best, but the government doesn’t seem able to convince the public about who is responsible for the housing crisis in the first place.

It is not refugee spikes.

It was bad public policy foisted on Canada when the federal government was convinced by the provinces to get out of the housing field back in 1986.

For 30 years, the provinces had full responsibility, including federal transfer funding, for housing construction in their jurisdictions.

For the most part, they did nothing to fill the gap in social or Indigenous housing, while city hall used housing payments for new builds as a way to finance municipal coffers.

The responsibility for housing was completely in provincial hands for three decades until Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the courageous step of getting back into housing in 2017.

The refugee housing problem would not exist if sufficient social housing had been built over 30 years for residents in need. Help should be available to anyone who cannot afford market solutions.

Meanwhile, the cost of market rental housing for those who can pay continues to rise as demand outstrips supply.

That is a completely different issue from the cost of immigration and refugee services.

For the federal government to defend itself against accusations that it caused the housing crisis, it needs a national strategy engaging cities and provinces in the solutions.

There are a few provinces that have continued to support social housing in the past three decades but, by and large, the availability of housing for the poor has not been increased.

The Liberals have worked to tackle child poverty, and some of those direct payments have definitely made a difference.

According to statistics, more than two million Canadians have been lifted out of poverty because of the Canada Child Benefit.

But as incomes grow, the cost of living grows along with it.

The Liberals need a big new idea that goes beyond simply ministers making announcements in their own bailiwicks.

At one point, the government was looking at the creation of a Guaranteed Annual Income for all Canadians.

That idea needs to be dusted off, and the feds need to invite provinces and municipalities to the table to see who can help in what manner with the creation of a guaranteed income.

Basic housing should be a human right for all Canadians, with the guaranteed income built on the cost of housing by region.

Social housing should be national in scope, and it should be part of a major income reform.

Immigration and refugee support should be regionally based, and there should be incentives for moving to underpopulated regions of the country.

A big vision on how to house the underhoused, feed the underfed, and finance the poor would get everyone to the table.

In the current system, everyone is blaming the federal government for a problem that has largely been caused by provincial indifference and municipal greed.

The country also needs to understand what constitutes a basic housing right.

What should be the average housing size for socially funded financing?

Many Canadians live alone these days, which changes the type and size of housing we should be building.

There are no magic bullets. But the federal government needs to think bigger than single housing announcements if it wants to spread the responsibility—and the blame—for the current crisis.

A guaranteed income is the answer.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 18, 2023.

OTTAWA—It’s nervous Nellie time in the Liberal caucus.

As the Conservatives climbs in the polls, the Liberals’ angst increases exponentially.

If one were a fly on the wall at the recent Liberal caucus in London, Ont., they would have been privy to some serious rumblings of discontent.

For most of the caucus, it was the first meeting after the cabinet shuffle.

One of the by-products of a shuffle is internal dissent. Those who were not promoted likely believe this was their last chance to accede to cabinet.

So, the discipline of power that usually muffles those who wish to remain in the favour of the leadership is weaker than it was before the change.

In addition, the caucus is spooked by the continuing poll climb by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

His simple, negative messaging about the country is obviously hitting a raw nerve with many Canadians.

That messaging, especially on social media, has resulted in a slow, steady climb in popularity to the point where most polls have the Conservatives substantially ahead of the Liberals.

That also contributes to the nervousness. Many Liberal members have little or no experience with running behind in the polls.

Since 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his team have managed to lap the Conservatives in just about every part of the country except Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Now the numbers in Ontario, and even Quebec, are changing, which has people asking questions of the leadership.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller weighed in on the rising temperature, saying Liberals have not decided exactly how to counterattack Poilievre’s “garbage” attacks. He told the media that his colleagues did not want to bring themselves down to a level of politics that they have foresworn.

“There’s a tension as to how to engage … whether you fight fire with fire and bring yourself down … there is a struggle and attention generally as to how to deal with a person like that, that Canadian politics, in particular, hasn’t seen much of,” said Miller.

The minister is right that the negativity in Poilievre’s messaging is not politics as usual. Most official opposition leaders try to build their image as thoughtful prime ministers in waiting.

But messaging on social media has changed radically in the past decade.

The depth of anger is amplified by voices that feed on negative posts from like-minded political naysayers.

Back in the last century, those negative voices also existed. “Nattering nabobs of negativism,” was a term coined by American vice-president Spiro Agnew, when he was complaining about the media coverage of the Nixon administration.

He accused the media of forming their own 4-H club, a riff on rural youth organizations, made up of “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”

The same and more could be said today, but the reach of social media is much broader now.

The fact that Poilievre’s numbers have increased most rapidly amongst young people reinforces the power of social messaging. They are the ones gathering most of their information from social media sources.

They are also least likely to vote, which makes the short-term focus on numbers a bit of a mug’s game.

Those numbers could change and change drastically. When former prime minister Kim Campbell called the 1993 election, her party was in majority government territory.

At the end of the campaign, the party ended up with two seats.

Nothing is written in stone.

But the prime minister and his team would be well-advised to heed the ‘nervous Nellies’ in the caucus.

Caucus members are like the canaries in the mine, giving the leader a hint of the toxic atmosphere that the party is facing in the body politic.

It may be nice to be nice. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said back in 2015, sunny days were back again.

But when storm clouds are on the horizon, they cannot be ignored.

The leadership needs to start responding in kind to Poilievre’s negative attacks. Learn from nature. You need to fight fire with fire.

The government also needs to start telling Canadians how it plans to make life better.

It is not enough for politicians to make housing announcements. Announcements need to be followed up with focused media buys to let people know what major federal initiatives are under way.

A $4-billion housing accelerator program is worth talking about.

That means serious advertising dollars to accompany the work that is actually being done.

It is fine to be the nice guy in politics.

But, unfortunately, everyone knows what they say about nice guys. They finish last.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

This is not only the shame of the Catholic Church and other churches that ran the schools on behalf of the Canadian government. It is the shame of all of us.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 1, 2022.

OTTAWA—Mission accomplished. Pope Francis’ apology tour was a long time coming.

Former Assembly of First Nations’ national chief Phil Fontaine first broached the subject of a papal apology more than two decades ago.

The issue was reiterated as one of the recommendations of the report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

Delegations repeatedly made the request to the Holy See.

Having the Pope speak from the heart on Canadian soil, to express true sorrow and penitence for the atrocious treatment of Indigenous children in residential schools, was the real first step in reconciliation.

You could witness the pain in the eyes of elders listening to the Pope’s first apology in Alberta.

In some instances, tears streamed from their faces when they weighed the meaning of the message they had waited a lifetime to hear.

If you had not lived the Sixties Scoop, or multiple relocations of children over the past century, it is hard to fathom how horrifying that must have been for six-year-olds to be stripped of their language and culture.

One story that has stuck in my mind was that of an elder who was explaining his first experience in residential schools.

His mother had made him a beautiful tanned leather jacket, replete with traditional fringing and beading, to wear proudly on his first day at school.

Love and history went into that garment, which should have warmed the lad and reminded him of his far away family every day of his young life.

Instead, the moment he arrived, the jacket was torn from his body and thrown in the garbage. He was warned never to try to get it back.

That coat was a symbol of his lost culture. He subsequently tried to escape from school on more than one occasion, only to be found and brought back by police.

The foregoing is not only the shame of the Catholic Church, and other churches that ran the schools on behalf of the Canadian government.

It is the shame of all of us.

We may not have known what was being done in the name of Christianity.

But we all share responsibility.

And, just as the Pope said last week, this is not the end of the journey of reconciliation. It is only the beginning.

The church needs to open up its records so those who were buried in anonymous graves after dying at school can be properly buried.

It also needs to be transparent with the financial resources that were supposed to form part of the original settlement signed off with the Government of Canada.

The response to the Pope’s visit definitely depended upon the demographics of who was hearing the apology.

For young people, it was generally viewed as too little too late, while the elders appeared generally appreciative of the content and authenticity of the Pope’s message.

Criticism did not only come from the young. An Indigenous priest from St. Basil’s Church was very direct in attacking the lack of Indigenous messaging during the mass performed by the pope in St. Anne’s, Alta., a well-known pilgrimage for Métis Catholics from Western Canada.

He also pointed out that the pope did not accept responsibility in the name of the Catholic Church, but rather in his own name and on behalf of certain evildoers amongst the clergy.

But, as Fontaine said, if the head of the church makes this historic apology, he is speaking for the whole church.

There will, no doubt, be many who can weigh in to diminish the gravitas or sincerity of the pope’s penitence.

But for those who have been waiting a lifetime for the simple words, “I am sorry,” it has finally happened.

The last time a papal visit occurred in Canada, it took a year’s planning and happened in one location at a youth mass in Downsview, Ont., in two languages.

This time, in three months, the pope was able to visit three provinces and deliver a message of penitence in 15 languages, including 12 Indigenous languages.

Elders were able to finally hear in the apology in their own language, which was also a really important step toward forgiveness. That effort was supported by funding from Minister Marc Miller, who is studying the Mohawk language himself.

Many can find fault with some elements of the pope’s message, and will attack the things that he did not say.

But he made it very clear that the Catholic Church was turning its back on the old missionary ways of hierarchical conversion.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

While reconciliation is a process that cannot happen in a week, one gets the feeling that Canada is moving in the right direction.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 4, 2022.

OTTAWA—Watching Justin Trudeau in Williams Lake and Indigenous leaders in Rome last week was compelling.

For the first time in the history of Canada, it feels as though we have a real chance at reconciliation.

That is not to say that all will be satisfied with papal promises. The Catholic Church has been notoriously slow on all fronts. First, the promise of a $25-million compensation package has been languishing for 16 years. Second, sexual predators parading as priests have been protected by the hierarchy for years.

Even with all the roadblocks, all the leaders at the Vatican gatherings expressed real hope that the differences with the Catholic Church could be bridged.

The same message of reconciliation came during the prime minister’s visit to Williams Lake.

Chief Willie Sellars lauded the prime minister’s presence with eloquence, suggesting he finally felt like a leader in his community and in Canada.

Many chiefs, especially in British Columbia, believe that the colonial reach of the Crown in taking over their lands and subsuming their cultures precludes any attachment to Canada.

The pain of Indigenous Elders was reflected last week in the telling of their stories.

It is understandable that bitterness influences the perspective of young leaders who had seen their cultures and languages annihilated by government policies taking their parents and grandparents from their homes and buried dead children in unmarked graves.

Instead, we witnessed hope for the future.

Hope from Chief Sellars of Williams Lake that he and his tribal partners would work with governments to identify the anonymous burial grounds and heal the families. They plan to commemorate these atrocities by forgiving but not forgetting.

With a focus on education, language, and reconciliation, the Indigenous leadership is ready to move forward, working with governments for solutions.

Governments have to be ready to do their part, and that includes the government of Vatican City.

Indigenous leaders visited the Vatican museums and witnessed some of their own artifacts that were stolen or traded out of their possession, only to end up in a foreign museum in a foreign land.

But those same leaders expressed an interest in working with the Vatican museum on a co-management agreement that could see some artifacts repatriated to their territories while others remained in Rome for all to see.

In Rome and Williams Lake, there was a sense of conciliation in the words of leaders on both sides.

But words alone are not enough. The Vatican has a responsibility to follow through with specific actions. That will not nullify the Catholic Church’s participation in the government-licensed residential schools. But it will underscore that truth and acknowledgement are the first steps toward healing.

The painful stories of those elders that were heard in Rome and Williams Lake will not be forgotten. But there is a way to move beyond that, with educated young people free to speak their languages and embrace their cultures.

From 30-year-old Métis National Council president Cassidy Caron, to 46-yer-old Natan Obed of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, to Williams Lake Chief Willie Sellars, all are leaders.

While all Canadians can view this leadership with optimism, when it comes to the colonial powers or the Catholic Church, one can also expect some skepticism.

When Trudeau spoke of his early experiences with his father, getting a first-hand look into the world of pain caused by residential schools at a young age, he was animated and genuine.

And when Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller spoke about the journey for healing, he too appeared committed to the process and not simply mouthing the words that people expected to hear.

While reconciliation is a process that cannot happen in a week, one gets the feeling that Canada is moving in the right direction.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

For the first time in my lifetime, all Canadians have become engaged. We have not found all the answers, but we are asking the right questions.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 4, 2021.

Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation posed more questions than answers.

A court-upheld Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision to compensate Indigenous children taken into care was the subject of much reflection.

The decision puts the government on the hook to compensate Indigenous children living on “reserves” who were taken into care for the last 15 years.

During the election, the Liberals appealed the decision and at press time, it was unclear whether that might happen again.

Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said the government was reviewing the judgment before deciding on whether another appeal would be launched.

But to those Canadians who embrace the need for reconciliation, including leaders in the Indigenous community, a possible appeal soured the significance of the day of Truth and Reconciliation.

As children’s shoes were strewn across the lawn of Parliament, the reflection of little feet stood in stark contrast to jackboots of oppression that those children have felt over the centuries.

The more we learn about the horrendous deculturalization of residential schools, the more that Canadians would like to be able to make amends for a horrible historical legacy.

But the racism and discrimination identified by the Canadian Human Rights Commission did not end last week.

The first-year anniversary of Joyce Echaquan’s death coincided with a call to recognize racism in public sector services in Quebec. The mother of seven, while on her deathbed in a Joliette hospital, was called stupid, and the author of her own problems, by staff caught on a recording.

One employee was ultimately fired but Quebec’s premier Francois Legault continues to deny the existence of systemic racism in his province even though a provincial commission report has already found it “impossible to deny …systemic discrimination” when it comes to Indigenous people.

One day of the year will not change the systemic discrimination that has existed since the beginning of Canada.

But it is fair to say that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the first leader who has actually engaged in a real reconciliation conversation.

For the first time in my lifetime, all Canadians have become engaged. We have not found all the answers, but we are asking the right questions.

The first time I visited an Indigenous community was the Six Nations of the Grand River, Canada’s most populous First Nation, just 30 kilometres south of the place where I was born.

My parents took me for a visit when I was about eight or nine years old. We attended a community celebration.

To this day, I vividly remembering watching the drummers and the dancers in a cultural celebration that was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

Over the years, we visited again, and I was always struck with how different this world was, and how little we even knew about it.

I wondered why the history books in my school in Hamilton made no mention of the people who had populated our lands long before the arrival of the first Europeans.

We knew a little bit about Pauline Johnson, because of her poetry and Tom Longboat because of his athletic achievements, but for the most part, our understanding of Indigenous peoples was net zero.

How many Canadians know that the people of Six Nations helped us when the Americans were trying to take the country over. Every child was educated about the battle of Stoney Creek, a turning point in the battle for Upper Canada.

But not a single history book explored the Haldimand Proclamation, a 1784 decree that promised a tract of 950,000 acres in recognition of Six Nations loyalty and assistance to the British during the American Revolution. Only half that land was ever awarded.

In modern times, disputes arising from this agreement are covered as Indigenous protests. In reality they are only seeking what was promised in multiple settler agreements.

So many promises have been broken, it is understandable that Indigenous leaders view the current government plans with skepticism.

It is also true that while reconciliation preoccupies many Canadians, it was certainly not the top-of-mind subject in the last federal election.

Last week’s national day gives all of us a chance to engage in a deeper reflection.

From the sixties scoops to the shame of residential schools, to the appropriation of Indigenous lands by developers and governments, Canada has a sorry history to atone for.

When pundits reflect on Justin Trudeau’s potential legacy, they don’t need to look far.

Without Trudeau, this journey toward Truth and Reconciliation would never have begun.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.