Matt Gurney’s latest Code 47 post reflects on the good and bad of Canadian governance right now (and yes, I agree with his basic take that despite buffoonery and incompetence at all levels of government, Canadians still generally have it good):

Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
Photo by S Nameirakpam via Wikimedia Commons.

In some ways, absolutely. Canada’s relative awesomeness is not an accident. We rest on the accomplishments of prior generations and some of what we do today contributes directly to the common prosperity. A ton of stuff happens behind the scenes, every day, that contribute enormously to our way of life — really, make it possible. But in other ways, the pandemic has revealed just how incompetent and inept our governments have become meeting new challenges. It’s like every last bit of bandwidth our governments have is used up just keeping the status quo running along, and if we ask it to do anything new, it’s like hitting a computer with one process too many for its CPU. It just locks up.

Real-life example: I was watching today as the Ontario and federal governments continued bickering about the proper border controls we should have during what will probably be the last phase of this crisis. And what struck me was the sheer insanity of not having settled this a long time ago. I’m not even saying what I think the answer should have been. There’s a lot of genuinely competing interests there. I have my opinion, you can have yours. But can we at least agree that what to do about the goddamn borders ought not to still be under active decision 14 frickin’ months after this all began?

The federal government, in particular, seems to have fallen into a trap of its own making in that it corporately seems to believe that saying they’ll do something is exactly the same as actually doing something. Often enough, I’m pleased and relieved to find that Trudeau Jr.’s latest brain fart never got further than the press release and obligatory photo op, but it has become a constant in federal affairs. Optics matter far more than achievements, as long as the tame Canadian media play along — and they always played along with their boyfriend PM even before he bought them off with real money — nothing really changes. And everyone seems generally okay with this … except that real problems are not being addressed (ask any First Nations representative about how well the feds are helping with long-standing, known issues, for instance).

Certain provinces have done better than others. It’s tempting to point at them and go, ah ha, there’s what we should have done. And I think this is in large part fair and true. But it’s hard to make direct comparisons. Nova Scotia is not Ontario, and what worked in Nova Scotia wouldn’t necessarily have worked here. Believe me, if I could have swapped in their leaders for ours, I would have. It would have been an upgrade for sure. But the right solution, and personalities, for one crisis, in one time and place, aren’t necessarily the right solution for even that same crisis, at the same time, in a different place. I suspect we’ll spend a long time arguing about this once it’s all over, but I think that’s more or less where I’ve landed. Most of us would have been better off trying to be more like the Atlantic, but that doesn’t mean it would have recreated Atlantic-like successes everywhere.

But all that being said, there have been enormous basic failures, both in leadership and execution. You’ve all heard the joke about how someone new to government is shocked and dispirited to finally seize the levers of power, only to discover they’re not connected to anything. You can push and pull the levers all day long. But they don’t do anything. In Canada, both federally and in some of the provinces, we’ve been shockingly slow, again and again, to pull those levers. And sometimes, even after they’re pulled, nothing happens.

I don’t know if I have this thought through yet in a meaningful, useful way. This is a big, big idea that I’m starting at from different angles, trying to even conceive of its dimensions and scope. But if there is one problem we have — we have more, but if there is a meta-problem — I think it is that Canadian governments have lost the ability to execute new policy agendas. What we already have will generally work, more or less. But new things, or updates to old things? We routinely accept that failure is an option, or that even our successes will be late and overbudget — beyond acceptable real-world margins. (Life is always more complicated than theory.) There are things in my life that I just take for granted will work. If I get into my car and it doesn’t start, that surprises me, even though I am intellectually aware that that’s a possibility every time I try. But too often, with government, there is an entirely justified skepticism that it’ll succeed at all, let alone as intended, and yet, we shrug, because, hey. It’s Canada. Things are still good. How upset can I get about another program failure when I can just go fire up the barbecue and watch some hockey or something.

Governments are generally not very good at solving problems, especially novel problems that don’t already have a template to follow for success in similar circumstances. Set up a bureaucracy, establish processes and procedures, and set it in motion and it’ll carry on until the final Trump, but don’t ask it to cope with a crisis or even just an unexpected event or six. That’s not what they’re good at and they generally lack the organizational flexibility to adapt on the fly. Or at all.