The themes of the Morena party mirror many of those promoted by the federal Liberal government.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 10, 2024.

OTTAWA—Claudia Sheinbaum made history last week as the first woman president of Mexico.

Elected in a landslide with almost 60 per cent of the vote, Sheinbaum secured a super majority. Her party has full control in both houses of Parliament.

It was a stunning achievement for a party that did not exist 10 years ago. The Morena party was founded by her predecessor who served as president for six years.

During that time, the Morena party became known for supporting the poor, and investing in education for all.

Sheinbaum campaigned on those themes, and promised to increase access to universal education for all.

The themes of the Morena party mirror many of those promoted by the federal Liberal government.

During their time, Liberals have focused on reducing poverty.

And they have impressive results to show for it.

The Liberal focus on reconciliation has also included massive increases in the average budgets for Indigenous education funding on First Nations’ territories, and infrastructure investment to end boil-water advisories.

Like the Morena party, the Liberals have hiked the minimum wage. In the Mexican case, the wage doubled during Morena’s time in government.

The Liberals also plan to do more.

In the last budget they announced a $1-billion national food program designed to reach an additional 400,000 Canadian children. The program is destined to complement existing provincial and local programs.

That announcement was in addition to the government’s delivery on universally affordable daycare across the country, and dental care for those kids whose families cannot afford dental services.

So why is Sheinbaum basking in victory while Liberals are struggling?

In Mexico, a leader can only serve one term. Sheinbaum is a new face even though she is closely aligned with her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, also known as Amlo. Amlo will step down when Sheinbaum takes over in October, and he is still running at 60 per cent popularity after six years.

Back in 2018, Amlo promised to drastically reduce the millions of dollars the previous government was spending on media advertising. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to do the same.

However, the Mexican president’s first budget included an advertising allocation that was US$50-million more than his predecessor. Historically, Mexico’s governments have enjoyed long runs in power. Part of their success has been tied to advertising.

The Canadian government’s 2023 advertising budget was $86.1-million. Government total spending during the same period was projected as $456.8-billion. That represents .0188 of total spending.

In Mexico, during the same period, government advertising totalled almost $20-million of a budget slightly greater than $600-million. The Mexican government spent 3.3 per cent of its budget on advertising .

According to Business Development Canada, the average advertising spend for a Canadian small business should be between two to five per cent of their revenue. For business to customer companies, that number jumps to between five and 10 per cent.

BDC is a Crown corporation providing advice to the private sector. Governments certainly won’t match the private sector in advertising, but to spend less than .02 per cent of the budget on advertising is definitely one of the factors contributing to the disconnect Canadians feel from their federal government.

When Quebec came within a hair of leaving the country in the 1990s, the cabinet set up a committee designed to specifically review federal communications in that province. It’s budget was $25-million, and that was almost 30 years ago in one province.

Over the past nine years, Liberals have accomplished many things worth bragging about. From pharmacare to dentalcare, from universal daycare to future national school lunch programs, Liberals are making a tremendous effort to make life easier for Canadians who are struggling financially.

But even when it comes to the carbon rebate, most Canadians have no idea why their bank accounts are being topped up by hundreds of dollars. When an explanatory letter finally came out, it was signed by Bob Hamilton, Revenue Canada’s commissioner. Why didn’t the letter come from the prime minister?

If the federal Liberals want to reverse their lagging popularity, they need to take a page from the Mexican political playbook.

A hike to 3.3 per cent of federal spending would see Canada’s federal advertising budget jump to more than $15-billion.

Obviously, such a hike would be intolerable. But it gives you some idea how successive Mexican governments secured landslides, and Mexico appears to have little appetite to dump governing political parties.

Money talks, and Mexicans were listening.

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

Notwithstanding government advice, I have travelled south and am currently coviding in 30-degree temperatures on the sunny beaches of Mexico. To be clear, we left home two weeks before the government issued an anti-travel advisory to all seniors last week.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on November 23, 2020.

I am a snowbird sinner.

Notwithstanding government advice, I have travelled south and am currently coviding in 30-degree temperatures on the sunny beaches of Mexico.

To be clear, we left home two weeks before the government issued an anti-travel advisory to all seniors last week.

The government advice did not mince words: “avoid all non-essential travel outside Canada and to avoid all cruise ship travel until further notice…. If you are an older traveller, you may be immunocompromised or have chronic medical conditions such as obesity…. By choosing to stay at home…you can help protect yourself, your family and those at risk of more severe disease.”

Judging by the absence of northern vacationers in Mexico, most people are heeding that advice.

In what is usually the beginning of the high season, in our condo there is literally only one other Canadian couple from Calgary that has made the trek south.

Rules require us to quarantine in our unit for two weeks before accessing the pool or any other common facilities.

And we are extremely diligent in self-distancing and masking whenever we venture into any public spaces.

The good news is that most of the activities in Mexico take place outdoors. We walk on the beach daily and can easily eat outdoors at home or elsewhere.

We did not make the decision to travel lightly and even had several discussions with family members who are front-line medical workers.

But the bottom line: it is much easier to survive the social isolation in warmer weather.

The notion of simply staying in our Ottawa apartment would likely prompt risky indoor social gatherings.

The announcement of a potential vaccine has lifted the spirits of all, but it is definitely going to take up to a year to cover the country.

Already, disputes are erupting between levels of government on how many vaccines will be available by province and when they can be accessed.

Health Canada has yet to approve the vaccines.

There will be tremendous pressure on the federal government to fast-track treatments as American neighbours start receiving emergency injections before year’s end.

There are several vaccines on the verge of approval, two of which have announced results up to 95 per cent efficiency. U.S. President Donald Trump can take credit for that news, as he launched Operation Warp Speed to propel the race for a safe vaccine.

That has buoyed health-care workers in the United States, where at press time, almost every state in the union was on a negative COVID trajectory.

Canada’s numbers are also continuing to trend in the wrong direction. The premier of Ontario is expected to announce deeper lockdowns in Peel, York, and the city of Toronto because of the prevalence of COVID in the GTA.

As the numbers rise, there is confusion about the best way to flatten the curve.

Just as the Canadian government is telling snowbirds to stay home, the Ottawa medical officer of health is tearing up on television publicly discussing thousands of mortality statistics that aren’t covered in COVID death counts.

Dr. Vera Etches cited spikes in suicide and cancer deaths caused by delayed treatment as two examples of an indirect death toll wrought by the world pandemic.

One of my friends confessed recently that her aging mother is musing about assisted death because she can no longer tolerate the isolation of an assisted living environment where, for months at a time, not a single family member had been allowed to visit.

Further lockdowns prompted by the second wave have beaten down an already exhausted population, and some are simply ignoring restrictions on indoor gatherings.

That takes me back to my decision to pre-empt the travel advisory ban issued by the federal government.

Facing minus 20-degree weather locked inside in an apartment in Ottawa would make it far more likely that my attendance at risky indoor social gatherings would increase.

By travelling south, and exercising caution in masking, distancing, and social isolation, I fully expect to endure the winter with less risk of receiving or transmitting the COVID virus than would have happened in Ottawa.

The only issue we were truly concerned about was the trip to our destination, as we travelled through three different airports.

But the measures taken before we got on board, including temperature taking and masking on flights, led to a safe arrival.

Our commitment to good COVID avoidance practices will not waver. But it is much easier to stay safe in the sand than the snow.

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 on Monday, August 14, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—Canada’s effort to include climate change in the North American Free Trade negotiations is worth a try.

But it is likely to get the same kind of reaction from American President Donald Trump that he levels to all climate comers.

In Trump world, climate change is in the same category as the real media world of fake news. It is part of a hidden agenda by political elites to ignore the wishes of ordinary people and Trump will have none of it.

A 700-page report on climate change, co-authored by 17 United States government agencies that have been tasked with writing the National Climate Assessment for the past quarter century, will have no influence on the president.

Their scientific analysis, prepared for presidential review, is unequivocal.

Excerpts of the unanimous report were published in The New York Times last week.

At first, the newspaper was claiming the scoop of a leaked document, but two days later, a correction clarified that the material had been publicly available since last January. The White House jumped on the false claim, as the president correctly identified an opening for his ongoing allegations about fake news, including claims about climate change.

But the global warming report was not a media product. It was the result of scientific research by multiple American government agencies that concluded the long-term link between climate change and human activities is “unambiguous.”

“There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate,” the report says, drawing its conclusions from thousands of studies. “Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans.”

Trump will respond to the substance of the report next week, but it is unlikely that he will embrace any conclusions.

The Canada government’s plan to replicate the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement inclusion of climate change in the NAFTA is ambitious, popular and likely doomed to failure.

Unlike the United States, the European Union has been leading the charge on greenhouse gas reductions for years. German Chancellor Angela Merkel authored the precursor to the Kyoto Accord when she served as Germany’s environment minister and chaired the first United Nations Climate Conference in Berlin in 1995.

Germany has been at the forefront of greenhouse gas emission reductions, far outstripping commitments made and delivered by Canada in the last two decades. The CETA template is definitely worth copying, but it is unlikely to get any traction in trade discussions with neighbours south of the border.

Trump will be hard pressed to embrace science, given he has long characterized the climate change claim as a hoax. He will simply dismiss the report, characterizing it as a product of the very Washington swamp mentality that he is trying to drain.

Increasing evidence that forest fires and floods are directly linked to warming climate need not disrupt Trump’s obstinacy.

He cares little of the study’s claim that even if humans stop spewing heat-trapping gases today, the world will warm another 0.3 degrees Celsius over today’s temperatures.

So the chance of incorporating the report into an American government strategy on climate change is slim to none.

There is another factor that puts the Canadian desire to include climate change in NAFTA at risk.

Mexico, which has a heavily petroleum-based economy, is not likely to be a great supporter of climate change inclusion either.

An American refusal to embrace climate change could also negatively impact the Canadian government’s aggressive carbon pricing targets and greenhouse gas reduction plan.

Business leaders have been notoriously slow to recognize the reality of climate change economic costs, notwithstanding domestic examples of severe storms, fires and floods.

They will plead their case that the integration of the two economies is so intertwined that a weakening of the American commitment will necessitate a similar move by Canada.

Ironically, an integrated NAFTA approach would actually be the most successful way to tackle common climate problems in a shared air space.

That proposal has been hanging around since the creation North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation back in 1994. The trilateral Commission for Environmental Cooperation was launched as a result of the first NAFTA agreement.

Almost 25 years ago, the CEC explored the possibility of having trilateral air agreement that would regulate automobile emission standards and shared air sheds.

Canada, the U.S. and Mexico were unable to reach a consensus then. It is unlikely the three amigos will change their minds.

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 on Monday, May 22, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—Like it or not, we are back in the free trade debate.

But chances are, it won’t be as divisive as the one we experienced in the election of 1988.

This time, there will be a fair bit of unanimity around the big issues. But be prepared for a few Canadian sacred cows to be sacrificed in the process. When I speak of sacred cows, I am of course not referring to the beasts themselves, but rather what they produce.

U.S. President Donald Trump has his sights squarely set on the abolition of the supply-managed Canadian dairy system.

Trump believes that Wisconsin carried him to the White House, and in so doing, it brokered a favour and secured a champion to open northern borders to state milk.

Canada can trot out all the data it wants to prove that the United States is getting as good as it gives in the North American Free Trade Agreement. The figures prove it.

But in the alternative Trump truth, what matters is politics. And he has supply management in his crosshairs.

It is also true that support for this unique made-in-Canada solution to dairy productions has been facing mixed reviews at home for years.
 
The latest politician to line up against the dairy farmers is none other that the likely future leader of the Conservative Party, Beauce Member of Parliament Maxime Bernier.

The strongest political support for the existing system comes from Quebec, but the loudest voice to kill it belongs to Bernier.

Ontario dairy farmers are not as vocal but they are equally political, with strong lobbying efforts in Ottawa, and direct contact with every Member of Parliament in rural Canada.

Those members punch above their weight. But given the vocal opposition of Bernier, if the government is forced to sacrifice supply management, it will be less politically damaging.
 
Most Canadians are too young to remember when supply management was introduced into Parliament. The system was the brainchild of a former minister in the Pierre Trudeau government, colourful Windsor-area Eugene Whelan, whose signature green Stetson was recognizable across the country.

Whelan left politics after an unsuccessful run against John Turner for the Liberal leadership back in 1984.

But his unique contribution remains to this day, and the beauty of the system is that the government offers no direct subsidies but, instead, controls the supply of milk to secure better financial yields for farmers.

The unique process drives most economists crazy and opponents often cite the high cost of Canadian milk to justify eliminating the tool in every international trade negotiation.

It survived several rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiation, it survived the Free Trade Agreement and its’ successor NAFTA. It survived the Trans Pacific Partnership, despite fierce opposition from dairy-rich New Zealand. It even survived the recent Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) signed with the European Union.

But it may not survive Trump’s bombast. Dairy farmers and their cooperatives have been preparing for the end for years. They have been economically savvy in developing and marketing their own value-added milk products, through companies like Agropur, which is tapping into the burgeoning yoghurt market, and producing other dairy-based foods.

If the Canadian government is forced to put supply management on the chopping block, the blow could be softened with some value-added transformation financing, like that offered to the grape growers during the first round of bilateral trade agreements almost 30 years ago.

The reopening of NAFTA may offer opportunities in other sectors.

With the United States facing a world backlash based on some of Trump’s protectionist, wall-building pronouncements, Canada can actually become a stronger North American business hub.

In the growing fin-tech, creative and service sectors, our country could pick up where the United States is leaving off.

Certainly, Trump’s diminishing political capital in Washington may blunt his negotiating force.

As we saw during the recent British Columbia election, Canada has a few weapons of our own, when it comes to Canada-United States trade disputes.

Any border blockage of resource-rich materials actually wreaks havoc with manufacturing facilities down south that are dependent on raw product for transformation.

The reality for both countries is that a seamless North American border is a sine quae non to confront the onslaught of Asia-Pacific competition. From China to India, the world economic poles of influence are changing. Like it or not, Europe and North America are no longer privileged players.

America needs seamless northern borders as much as we do.

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