As
the pandemic moves into 2021, it’s important to reflect on how Canada
is dealing with its impact. After a summer that included a semblance of
normality, the fall and winter have brought a resurgence that’s taxing
our ability to cope. As the second wave unfolds, various new lockdowns
(with substantial rates of non-compliance) have been imposed, testing
international air travellers on their return has begun nearly 10 months
after the start of the pandemic, the vaccine rollout appears to be
unfolding in slow motion, hospitalizations are rising and death tolls
are creeping upwards.
The current sentiment seems to be that while
Canada may have made a few mistakes along the way, we’ve been doing
relatively well and deserve a pat on the back. Yet despite spending
hundreds of billions of dollars at the federal and provincial levels
with combined budget deficits approaching $500 billion for 2020-21 and
the largest deficit-to-GDP ratio of any developed IMF country, we seem
to have little to show for it.
The virus is surging in our major
cities, we lag behind in administering vaccines to the point where many
spent a long time in freezers. And the virus still runs rampant through
many long-term care homes.
One wonders if in the end, the
disjointed, confused and slow response to the pandemic was partly the
result of the current interpretation of Canada’s federal system by its
leaders.
Federalism is a system of government where units are able
to be both independent and coordinate and should accommodate regional
preferences with the economies of scale and political direction of a
larger country. The Canadian federation has been held up as a model for
the world given our standard of living, the freedom of our population
and the stability and diversity of our political system.
While
Canada’s diversity has meant regional tensions between the federal and
provincial governments and perpetual crises and tug of wars over
jurisdiction, it’s managed to remarkably stay aloft for more than 150
years. Indeed, one pundit remarked how Canada is a “bumblebee nation”
able to fly despite being aeronautically impossible. However, one
wonders if the flight of the Canadian bumblebee is more attributable to
luck than ability.
Given our high standard of living, we’ve come
to think of ourselves as high-flyers, but it increasingly seems that we
are mediocre flyers caught up in gusts of wind provided by the historic
proximity to a relatively benign and wealthy southern neighbour and our
abundant natural resources. Canada’s leaders seem increasingly unable to
solve problems. Our governments are increasingly bureaucratic and adept
at planning but not at implementation. While quite accomplished at
spending large sums of money—especially at the federal level—our
governments seem extraordinarily incapable of getting things done
themselves or harnessing private initiative. Indeed, when it comes to
the private sector, our governments are experts in imposing rules and
regulations rather than incentives. When some private companies stepped
up to produce masks and hand sanitizer early in the pandemic, their reward was to be bypassed by foreign suppliers when the real money was spent.
During
COVID, governments across the country have issued inconsistent and
contradictory statements about masks, the rules for gatherings and so
on. Consequently, many Canadians increasingly don’t know what they’re
supposed to do to stay safe and some may think they’re following the
“rules” even when they’re not. We’re told these are unprecedented
times—but obviously not unprecedented enough for politicians of all
stripes who tell us to stay home while they gallop around the world
demonstrating an appalling lack of leadership.
Our federal
government intones that health is a provincial responsibility, but there
are federal and provincial health ministries and public health agencies
and federal health transfers. Health as a provincial responsibility
should provide experimentation and flexibility in dealing with the
pandemic. But there seems to be little learning going on given that the
relative success of the Atlantic provinces has yet to rub off on other
provinces.
While the discord of the U.S. experience has not marked
Canadian intergovernmental relations, one cannot help but wonder how
much “politics” has marked public exchanges. Take the premiers asking
for more health transfers or the federal response to the provincial
clamour for the federal government to provide vaccines, which was
followed by the expression of federal “disappointment” over the lack of
quick distribution by the provinces.
Finally, the federal
government has used its spending power not to provide early testing and
comprehensive quarantine facilities at international airports or ramp up
domestic vaccine manufacturing and distribution, but to dispense
poorly-targeted transfers.
And again, Ottawa has chosen not to do more to tackle the pandemic
directly by hiding behind a strict interpretation of provincial
jurisdiction over health. This federal government seems to act is if
health is a provincial responsibility when necessary, but not
necessarily a provincial responsibility. Sadly, all Canadians will pay
the price for the failure of our governments.
This was first published in the Fraser Institute Blog, January 8th, 2021.
