The Right To Repair

Susan Delacourt writes that buried in the Trudeau government's budget is something called "the right to repair." What does that mean?

It is intended to give Canadians another alternative when faced with broken appliances, electronics or machinery. Too often, the government says, people “are pushed to buy new products rather than repairing the ones they have.”

This new right to repair, to be launched after the usual round of consultations and establishment of frameworks and so on, is far from a marquee item in the 2023 budget unveiled on Tuesday.

But it is a tiny, fitting symbol of a larger message that Justin Trudeau’s government is keen to underline in its eighth year in power and definitely in this year’s budget: Canada is not broken. There’s no need to buy something new.

The Right To Repair is Trudeau's counter to Pierre Polievre's claim that "everything is broken" in Canada:

Trudeau’s government will never concede that the nation is broken or breaking, but it could not deliver a budget in 2023 without at least offering some large reassurances that the nation can still function for its citizens.

So amid all of the heady talk of optimism for the future — fully intended to match U.S. President Joe Biden’s rhetoric in Parliament last week — this is a budget aimed at connecting, or maybe reconnecting, with a jaded citizenry, and open to the idea that things feel broken.

Health-care spending is obviously the biggest-ticket item on this front, with billions headed to the provinces and the establishment of a new dental-care program. Everyone has a right to repair, and that includes bodies and teeth.

But that right extends beyond big-ticket items:

There is $7 million sprinkled over five years to improve service at airports and collect data on what’s going right and wrong. There is $156 million to improve services for veterans. Faster service is promised on passports and immigration backlogs; money will be spent to investigate overpayments of COVID-19 relief. More than $17 million will be spent to up the game of 1-800 government information lines.

All of it speaks to a government that feels the need to tell Canadians that the system still works for ordinary people, despite what Poilievre or those so-called “Freedom Convoy” people have been talking about. The Conservative leader was still saying after Tuesday’s budget release that the Liberals are keeping Canada divided into “have-nots and have yachts.”

Conservatives these days are trying to sell the notion that it's better to burn it down and start all over again. Progressives think they have a better idea.

Image: The Toronto Star

Not Here. Not Now

The Parliamentary Budget Office has released its report on last month's Federal Budget. Kevin Page should be proud of the work his office has done. As was the case with its reports on the War in Afghanistan and the the purchase of the F35 fighter jets, the report excoriates the government's numbers:

The federal government's most recent "jobs and growth" budget will wind up costing Canada both jobs and economic growth over the next few years, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says in a new report.

The PBO's latest estimates on the impact of the 2013 budget handed down in March show the cumulative impact will be to reduce economic growth by 0.12 per cent and job creation by 14,000 by 2016.

It's all part of what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls The Story of Our Time:"

Let’s start with what may be the most crucial thing to understand: the economy is not like an individual family.

Families earn what they can, and spend as much as they think prudent; spending and earning opportunities are two different things. In the economy as a whole, however, income and spending are interdependent: my spending is your income, and your spending is my income. If both of us slash spending at the same time, both of our incomes will fall too.

And that’s what happened after the financial crisis of 2008. Many people suddenly cut spending, either because they chose to or because their creditors forced them to; meanwhile, not many people were able or willing to spend more. The result was a plunge in incomes that also caused a plunge in employment, creating the depression that persists to this day. 

Yet the Harper government bought the analogy that government budgets are like family budgets. Its response to the financial crisis has been to cut spending. True, it didn't take that path in 2008. But that was because its survival was at stake. Now, with a majority, Harper and Co. insist that they can cut their way to prosperity. They keep on insisting that:

the real problem is on the economy’s supply side: that workers lack the skills they need, or that unemployment insurance has destroyed the incentive to work, or that the looming menace of universal health care is preventing hiring, or whatever. How do we know that they’re wrong?

Well, I could go on at length on this topic, but just look at the predictions the two sides in this debate have made. People like me predicted right from the start that large budget deficits would have little effect on interest rates, that large-scale “money printing” by the Fed (not a good description of actual Fed policy, but never mind) wouldn’t be inflationary, that austerity policies would lead to terrible economic downturns. The other side jeered, insisting that interest rates would skyrocket and that austerity would actually lead to economic expansion. Ask bond traders, or the suffering populations of Spain, Portugal and so on, how it actually turned out. 

In the face of all the evidence, they keep insisting that austerity works. Perhaps on another planet -- but not on this one. Not here. Not now.

Whose Sacred Cow?

Lawrence Martin writes this morning that Canada is about to take a sharp right turn. In the process, several of the country's sacred cows will be sent to the abattoir:

If there’s a theme, it’s market efficiency. If there’s a target, it’s some of the country’s long-standing sacred cows. The transformation, some of which will be outlined in Thursday’s budget, will incense social democrats but find big favour on the right.

From healthcare to immigration, the Harperites intend to send the entire herd to the slaughterhouse:

Start with the health-care system. Mr. Harper and company have outlined plans for funding changes that will allow provinces to spend federal cash as they like, no strings attached. If provinces wish to go the privatization route, they’ll be free to do so.

Consistency of care has gone out the window. Now every province -- like every man and woman -- is on its own.

And the country which used to open its arms to the poor and the needy is going upmarket:

Regarding immigration, on the table is what Jason Kenney calls “transformational change”: a streamlining of the system that’s meant to blast away the backlog and allow provinces to cherry-pick newcomers, with the intent of bringing skilled professionals to the country instead of freeloaders.

The  Conservatives only have one sacred cow. The common thread that ties all of these changes together is that they are all  "market driven."  What's strange is that 2008 provided the world with cascading evidence of what happens when countries worship at that altar. But, like the residents of Jamestown, the prime minister and his party have drunk the Kool-Aide.