By Anthony Housefather and Yvan Baker
Over the past several months, we have been amongst the loudest voices in the Liberal caucus calling on Justin Trudeau to step down as our leader. We are pleased that he has done so.
But we also recognize that the resignation of an unpopular leader will not, on its own, be enough. The majority of Canadians we speak to want change. They may well believe the Conservatives are generally too far to the right, but many equally believe that the Liberal party has gone too far to the left.
As centrists we have and will continue to advocate for pragmatic policies that will earn the support of a broad coalition of Canadians.
Let’s be clear — the Liberal party must continue to support a range of priorities such as access to quality health care, protecting the environment, supporting the most vulnerable, upholding the Charter and more.
But there are a number of issues where we would like to see changes. These include:
• Unapologetically showing pride in being Canadian: Canada is not a post-national state. Canada is not just a collection of provinces and territories. Nor are we America’s 51st state. We are the greatest country in the world. We need to do far better in instilling national pride in all generations.
• Focusing on growing our trade relationships: As an export nation, trade is of paramount importance. We need to invest in and lay the foundation for increasing trade with the United States and other growth economies around the world. The federal government needs to show leadership to galvanize all levels of government, the business community, labour and others to build relationships with the incoming Trump administration and Congress as well as allies in the United States. It is up to us to ensure we speak the right language and take the right actions to make the incoming administration into an opportunity as opposed to a threat.
• Prioritizing economic growth: Economic growth accessible to all is critical to our prosperity and quality of life, so we need a country where businesses of all types can thrive and to be the location of choice for business, labour and investment. This needs to be done through co-operation with the provinces in a range of areas such as building critical infrastructure, ensuring our education systems are world class, and that what is important to regulate is regulated but unnecessary trade barriers and bureaucracy are removed. We need the private sector to lead in creating employment and to create a culture where business success is celebrated not scorned.
• Protecting and strengthening the services Canadians value: Services such as health care, dental care, child care, pensions, housing programs and others play a critical role in our quality of life. Working alongside provinces, these could be improved, and their sustainability ensured so that Canadians receive the quality of service and care that they deserve for years to come.
• Strengthening fiscal responsibility: Families and municipalities need to balance their budgets and that should also be the general rule for the federal government. Running a deficit should be reserved for exceptional circumstances rather than becoming standard practice. Spending should be evidenced-based and made with rigorous assessment of all the costs and benefits. This would allow us to deliver better value for the money we are spending, protect key services, and find savings for other priorities.
• Ensuring fairness in the taxes we pay: With economic growth and more efficient spending, we should be able to lower tax rates for everyone.
• Keeping Canadians safe: Over the course of the past Liberal mandates, we have done a good job on gun control measures. We also need to work with provinces and municipalities to ensure that police are properly funded and that sufficient resources are found in the judicial system to ensure that dangerous people are quickly prosecuted and remain behind bars. We need to protect all communities. Different communities throughout Canada have their own unique threats and the government needs to show leadership in helping them feel safe.
• Restoring integrity to our immigration system: Our immigration and visitor levels and mix must be regularly adjusted by taking into account not only economic benefits and costs, but Canada’s capacity to welcome newcomers by considering our housing supply and our ability to deliver critical services like health care. We must also work closely with the U.S. to share information and use the most modern technology to better screen applicants to protect our continent from bad actors and those with links to terrorist organizations, detect fraud and strengthen the system’s integrity. Finally, we need to strengthen our ability to ensure anyone moving to Canada will respect the values we hold as Canadians and will not import hatred to this country.
• Protecting Canada’s Jewish community: Antisemitism has risen faster and more fiercely than any other hate in Canada since October 7, 2023, and every government across the world, from national to local government has not done enough to take action against it. The federal government has a responsibility to set a tone and demand all governments take action whether it’s municipal governments on policing, provincial governments on college campuses and itself on ensuring stronger criminal code provisions to deal with hate. We would implement all of the recommendations from last month’s report from the Justice and Human Rights Committee.
• Implementing a principled and pragmatic foreign policy: The United States is our closest friend and ally and the most powerful country in the world. In addition to our own engagement with the United States we need to align with the U.S. when possible, to further our common interests. These interests should prioritize ensuring that we support other western democracies that are fighting authoritarian regimes and terrorism. Truly supporting our allies means sometimes pushing back on the global group think.
• Securing our borders, meeting NATO targets and strengthening our military: Canada’s sovereignty is being threatened more than it has in decades — China and Russia continue to grow their military and economic presence in the Arctic, foreign actors continue to try to interfere in our elections, and more. We need to meet our NATO targets of two per cent as quickly as possible, but we must also improve and accelerate the purchase of the equipment our Armed Forces need, and ensure more Canadians are willing to serve in uniform. We also need to invest in border security — not just to reassure the Trump administration, but to protect ourselves.
• Disagreeing without being disagreeable: Canadians we speak to are tired of politicians who insult one another and call each other by silly nicknames. We need politicians to work together once again across party lines and we need political leaders on all sides to encourage, not discourage, this. We also need to stop demeaning or lumping our opponents into groups. We should all have learned in recent years the terrible costs of alienating groups by attacking them. Everyone should be judged as an individual and people should be free to disagree with one another without retribution.
These are just a few of the suggestions we have. We hope that these ideas as well as those from other Liberals will spark a lively debate as we figure out what change Liberals will offer Canadians in the next election and in the years to come.
Special to National Post
Anthony Housefather is the member of Parliament for Mount Royal and Yvan Baker is the member of Parliament for Etobicoke Centre.