There were a couple of pieces over the weekend that had me scowling a little, mostly because they don’t seem terribly well thought-through when you actually delve in a little. One of them was a piece in Maclean’s that used polling data to posit the idea of a Green Party-NDP merger which is a bit silly because the parties are nothing alike in the slightest. The premise that they both claim to care about the environment and appeal to youth is flimsy on its face, because the Greens aren’t really that “progressive” of a party seeing as the federal party came into being with a lot of disaffected Red Tories in their mix, and if you delve into some of their non-environmental policies, there’s not a lot of millennial progressivity in there. (Seriously, it’s a dog’s breakfast of things, as they discovered in the last election when it turned out that a bunch of their social policies were written by men’s rights activists, given that there is a lack of adult supervision when it comes to policy development in that party). Add to that, the party cultures are essentially night and day – the NDP are centralizing and are about solidarity at all costs (and they rigidly enforce it), while the Greens are decentralized to the point of practical incoherence. I get that there is going to be a bit of a fad in political circles right now that believes that Alberta “proved” that mergers work given the Progressive Conservative + Wildrose Alliance “merger” into the UCP was prototypical, but that would be looking at quantitative data over qualitative – and the UCP is still young.

The other piece that deserves some consternation was Justin Ling’s op-ed that suggested that co-leaders would be a great thing for parties to deal with the problem of presidentialised leadership politics, and look how great it’s working for Quebec Solidaire. Err, except the solution to our presidentialised leadership politics in this country isn’t to share power, but rather to restore the selection and firing process to the hands of caucus. The biggest flaw in Ling’s argument, however, is that it’s antithetical to the way in which our system is structured, which is that it’s about giving advice to the Queen (and by extension, the Governor General/lieutenant governor). That requires a single voice – which is why Cabinet Solidarity is a Thing – and it’s also to create a single point of accountability. If you have dual leadership, then it becomes harder to pin blame. It also has more than enough potential to create factionalisation within parties more than we have already, as different parts of the caucus align themselves behind one co-leader or the other in power struggles. As with so many of these kinds of reform ideas, they sound interesting on the surface, that’s about it.

Good reads:

• While Justin Trudeau visited sandbagging efforts to contain floods around Ottawa, he was accused of holding up things with his security. (This was verified as untrue).
• Trudeau also said that there are conversations that need to be had about rebuilding, and he hasn’t closed the door to federal funds for relocations.
• Trudeau later met with the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, and trade was the big topic of the day, but China was also top of mind (as Trudeau gaffed twice).
• Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz says that trade wars are the biggest threat to Canada’s economy (and no, we’re not headed for a recession).
• Figures show that Saudi oil imports increased in Canada over the past five years – but remember that Energy East would not actually do anything about this.
• After NASA pushed Canada to develop Canadarm3 for their planned Lunar Gateway station, new Trump administration plans could scupper those plans.
• While most of Canada’s allies have come to our defence with the disputes around the two detained Canadians, New Zealand has been fairly conspicuously silent.
• Andrew Scheer totally promised to have a “real” environmental plan unveiled before the House of Commons rises for the summer.
• The premiers of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are grumbling about carbon pricing, but aren’t joining in any court battles as of yet.

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