Roundup: From the Bank to Finance

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Tongues were set wagging late Sunday night as word came down that the government was planning to appoint Michael Sabia, currently the head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, to be the new Deputy Minister of Finance. There had been a bit of concern over the last week when it was reported that Freeland was interviewing five candidates to replace her deputy, who had announced his resignation the day after the fiscal update, given that it’s unusual for this to happen in our system. But deputy ministers are Governor-in-Council appointees, so while it’s unusual for ministers to choose their own deputies rather than the Clerk of the Privy Council recommending one to the prime minister, capacity for such decisions do exist. One does wonder, however, what signal this sends to the Infrastructure Bank, given that they just put Sabia in charge a couple of months ago, and now they’re moving him again.

This having been said, it was not unexpected that the outgoing deputy would not last there too much longer, because he too was of the generation in the public service for whom it is 1995 and will always be 1995 – and already the pundit class for whom this is the unifying theory are already chirping about his departure. Why this may turn out to be important is because we are going to have to start thinking out federal finances in a different way as the pandemic moves into recovery mode. Why? Because the old obsessions around debt and deficit (which is the mindset of the 1995 crowd) may lead to more damage than good, and we could see ourselves in a Japan-like situation if we’re not careful. And while yes, there are “guardrails” and planned “anchors” once we’re fully into the recovery stage, it may be time for a fresh mindset in the senior ranks – though given how much attention they put on Sabia when they brought him into the Infrastructure Bank, moving him to Finance right away seems mighty cozy, and this will no doubt launch another round of the current witch hunt going on in committees.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1335269637769060352

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1335270894571237378

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1335271066701344768

Good reads:

  • One of Pfizer’s top executives says that Canada could be getting vaccines within 24 hours of Health Canada approval, possibly by the end of this week.
  • Major-General Dany Fortin says they are expecting a constant flow of vaccines into the country by January once approvals are completed.
  • A (small) rise in cases in PEI has the province moving to a “circuit-breaker” lockdown before the cases start rising – like other provinces should have done.
  • An internal review at Global Affairs found no standard process for vetting honorary consuls, and they have since developed a new code of conduct.
  • Speaker Rota reflects on his first year in the big chair, at a time of pandemic, “virtual” and hybrid sittings.
  • Susan Delacourt details how the Liberals are preparing for a possible election in the spring, even though they don’t necessarily want one.
  • Chantal Hébert evaluates Erin O’Toole’s first 100 days as leader, and finds it wanting, not only for the lies, but also the evasion on his own plans.

Odds and ends:

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: From the Bank to Finance”

  1. Sabia doesn’t have the high profile that the Kielburgers did, and nobody seemed to care much about Baylis either, so it’s possible that with the vaccine and the holidays on its way, the public outside of political junkies may tune this one out. The opposition really needs to refresh their memory on the story of the boy who cried wolf. When everything is a conspiracy theory about the “deep state swamp,” they look as unserious as the orange man downstairs.

  2. The Canadian cons have rattled on how the government has failed in providing vaccines. Could it happen that now that vaccines are going to be on the ground in just a few week that O’Toole et al will apologize? Wait for it…….. oh! well just a thought. No, the cons will just have to sit in their perches like crows who have eaten too many eyeballs and complain of indigestion. What a sorry lot!

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