Thousands of veterans waiting as backlog for disability benefits explodes

The Liberals in late 2017 — sinking in the House, soaring everywhere else

By L. Ian MacDonald. --- Published on Dec 12, 2017


Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had bragging rights Tuesday.

As the fall sitting of the House winds up this week, it’s fair to say the Liberals have been getting murdered in question period.

But you wouldn’t know it from their standing in the polls — where they remain in majority territory — or from their performance in the byelections Monday — when they took a suburban Vancouver seat from the Conservatives.

In Tuesday’s weekly Nanos poll, the Liberals stretched their lead over the Conservatives to 11 points, 41-30, with the NDP at 18 per cent. (In 2015, the Grits won 184 seats in the 338-seat House with 39.5 per cent of the vote, to the Tories’ 31.9 per cent and the New Dems’ 19.7 per cent.)

On the question of who’s the best person to be prime minister, Trudeau trounces Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer 45 to 24 per cent. Part of the leadership spread is due to recognition of the Trudeau brand — but even so, Scheer shouldn’t be trailing his own party by six points.

Of the four byelection ridings, two were Liberal strongholds in Newfoundland and Toronto, with one safe Conservative seat in Saskatchewan. The only riding truly in play was South Surrey-White Rock, which runs from south Vancouver to the U.S. border. The Conservatives have held it since 1974.

Or they did — until last night, when Liberal candidate Gordie Hogg defeated former Conservative cabinet minister Kerry Lynne Findlay by more than five points, 47.5 to 42.1 per cent. The New Democrats were nowhere in sight, their vote plummeting from 10 to 5 per cent. Hogg is a local brand name as a former mayor of White Rock and was a provincial Liberal cabinet minister in the Christy Clark years.

He also had a lot of help from Justin Trudeau, who campaigned with him in the riding not once but twice, stopping in on his way back from Asian summits and then again on his way to China last week. (As he was travelling it was presumably government business, not a campaign expense.)

This is the second former Conservative stronghold to fall to the Liberals in mid-term byelections — a highly unusual occurrence. In October, the Liberals won in Lac-Saint-Jean in the old nationalist heartland of Quebec, a riding held by the Conservatives in the last four elections. Two bad outcomes for Scheer — opposition leaders aren’t supposed to lose seats held by their own party in byelections.

If the Liberals are winning in suburban Vancouver, and the Saguenay region of Quebec, that would make up for expected losses in Ontario in a general election. The current Nanos numbers would result in something like 200 Liberal seats, verging on landslide territory.

What accounts for the divergence between the Liberals’ weak performance in the House and their strong standing in the polls?

Trudeau has been travelling almost constantly of late and possesses unquestioned gifts as a retail politician. The permanent campaign suits him down to the ground.

Well, maybe no one outside Ottawa watches QP. It’s more likely, though, that a strong economic narrative is working in the Liberals’ favour. National unemployment — at 5.9 per cent — is the lowest it’s been since February 2008. In B.C., it’s only 4.8 per cent — the lowest in the country. Since the Liberals took office in 2015, the Canadian economy has created over 600,000 new jobs.

These are strong talking points for Finance Minister Bill Morneau — who actually had a good day outside the House on Monday, when he got a deal with the provinces and territories to give them 75 per cent of the proposed excise tax on legalized marijuana sales, up from his starting point of 50 per cent. That makes sense, since most of the administrative and policing costs will be in provincial jurisdictions. (Besides, you can always count on the provinces to show up with demands for more money. It’s a hallmark of federal-provincial relations.)

Trudeau has been travelling almost constantly of late and possesses unquestioned gifts as a retail politician. The permanent campaign suits him down to the ground and he looks natural on the international stage — especially when compared to Donald Trump. (Trudeau, by the way, has done a very good job of managing Canada’s relationship with the mercurial U.S. president.)

Never mind the string of broken election promises — 38 out of 226, according to the online Trudeaumetre — on everything from electoral reform to deficit spending. (In fairness, I must observe the Trudeau tracker also reports the Liberals have fulfilled 58 promises, with another 72 ‘in progress’.)

But in the House, the Liberals look ragged in QP. Trudeau himself is one of the weaker performers on the front bench. On Monday, when the opposition pressed him on a 50 per cent increase in applications for veterans’ disability pensions, Trudeau blamed the problem on cuts made at Veterans’ Affairs under the Conservatives. Sorry, but it’s pretty hard, after 25 months in office, to blame the previous government for an eight-month backlog. No one’s buying that.

The Canadian Diabetes Association recently ignited the opposition’s fury over the Canada Revenue Agency’s administrative move to restrict the disability tax credit for three million adult Canadians with diabetes. Other health stakeholders — such as Autism Canada, representing the one in 68 Canadian children on the spectrum — are also on the case. Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier has proven to be hapless performer, who can answer questions only in French.

And then there’s Sport and Disabilities Minister Kent Hehr, who on meeting with thalidomide survivors apparently assured them that “everyone in Canada has a sob story. Lots of people have it bad in Canada … not just you.” The survivors’ news conference in Ottawa last week was a jaw-dropper. In all likelihood, Hehr owes his continued cabinet status to the fact that he’s disabled himself.

Not least of the Liberals’ problems in the House is the question of Morneau’s obvious conflict of interest in sponsoring Bill C-27, which would enable federally regulated employers such as CBC and Canada Post to switch from defined to target benefit pension plans — a position advocated by his family’s firm, Morneau Shepell, a leading HR management company.

Morneau also renewed an $8 million a year Bank of Canada contract with the firm, which is doubly awkward in that, as finance minister, he’s the central bank’s shareholder.

It’s not clear whether outgoing Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson will complete her examination of Morneau’s status before she leaves office on January 8, or whether the file will be left to her successor, Mario Dion, who was appointed on Monday. Nor is it clear whether the opposition parties were consulted ahead of the announcement by Government House Leader Bardish Chagger on the appointment of an officer of Parliament.

Three days and counting to the Christmas break. The Conservatives have the momentum in the House. The Liberals have it everywhere else.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

https://ipolitics.ca/2017/12/12/liberals-late-2017-sinking-house-soaring-everywhere-else/