There are a lot of symbolic gestures that politicians do that I cannot abide, but one of the most obnoxious and corrosive ones is the insistence on cutting their own pay when times get tough – and lo and behold, we have an Ontario senator who is moving a motion to do just that, asking both MPs and Senators to forgo statutory pay increases (to meet inflation) as a gesture. This is not really a symbolic or empty gesture – it is a signal to populist impulses that serve to devalue public life, and treats what they do as somehow being less valuable than people in the private sector – which is ironic considering how much less MPs and senators make than professionals and executives in the private sector.

Without entirely relitigating what I wrote on this before, I wanted to point out some of the fairly offensive characterizations of such gestures that were in the National Post piece, which describes the gesture as “important” for private sector and low-income workers, and the usual suspects at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation trying to insist that politicians aren’t making sacrifices when people are losing their businesses.

The problem with this line of logic is that these gestures don’t do anything. If anything, they come with a dose of schadenfreude, that if I’m suffering then watching politicians or civil servants being forced to suffer as well is satisfying, even if it ultimately makes things worse overall. What good does it serve to make everyone miserable or worse off? How does that make the situation better for everyone? It doesn’t. There are enough trade-offs that go with public life or public service that often make it a fairly unappealing to many people, so why pile on? Pettiness won’t solve the economic crisis or make people’s businesses reopen, and it certainly won’t make COVID go away, so why indulge it?

Good reads:

• The government is considering as much as $20 billion in annual new spending for programmes like pharmacare and childcare.
• Justin Trudeau spoke with EU leaders yesterday, and they reaffirmed support for international institutions (while hinting that they hope the Americans will to).
• Once again, Trudeau says they will take a “cautious approach” to the US election, and is urging his MPs from commenting on it (unlike certain Conservative senators).
• The government is finally rolling out its $750 million to help oil and gas companies slash their methane emissions, and there are complaints it’s not good enough.
• It’s likely that the promised federal support for Black businesses may not roll out until 2021, and there are concerns it’ll be too late by then.
• The bill to reform assisted dying laws passed second reading, with 78 Conservatives voting against it.
• The Ethics Commissioner has ended one of his investigations into Bill Morneau’s conduct, in particular around the WE trip he took and then repaid.
• The Auditor General now says she needs a $31 million budget increase to deal with her increased workload, and the government sounds sympathetic to it.
• The Federal Privacy Commissioner says that shopping mall owner Cadillac Fairview has been using facial recognition technology at digital information kiosks.
• Public Health officials say that holding an election is certainly feasible under current pandemic conditions, and there are lessons learned from the by-elections.
• A Senate public bill to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences (including on murder) could save $8.3 million per year, according to the PBO.
• Here’s a longread about the COVID testing issues in Ontario, and how they were able to get to a point where they had such a devastating backlog of cases.

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