A Modest Proposal for a Dangerous Time
Why a National Unity Government May Be the Right Tool in the Moment
We’re one week away from the Inauguration of Donald Trump for the second time. One week away from he and his team getting the keys to full power in the United States, and with at least two years ahead of full control over the House of Representatives and Senate. In such a circumstance, there are normally few guardrails that could slow a President in such a position down, but even here those are weaker. The biggest one, the courts, is already packed with previous Trump appointees and the Supreme Court, which ruled last year that Trump has immunity from prosecution for “official acts” has already showed how weak a protection they are.
Of course, that would be the picture of what’s going on with out southern neighbour if we ignored one abundantly clear fact that has come into stronger focus over the past few weeks; rules and guard rails mean nothing if you don’t plan to follow them anyway. Respect for other countries and their sovereignty means nothing if you decide it’s in your own best interest to ignore them. And leading through cooperation is thrown aside when you decide that it’s better to be “strong” and turn your guns way from your enemies and point them to your allies instead.
And folks, that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now. Donald Trump is openly musing about “acquiring” Greenland and the Panama Canal, through any means because he’s refused to rule out using the military to do so. He continues to talk about using “economic force” and getting rid of that “artificial line” between us, which is an amazing about face from a guy who owes his entire political career to ranting against “open borders.” It’s all so eerily reminiscent of this political ad from my youth:
Yes folks, remember that one from the Free Trade election of 1988? I doubt that Trump or his team knew the added and poignant significance of talking about “erasing artificial lines,” but that ad is a very good reminder of what we are facing as a country. With a week to go before the next Trump administration takes over, here’s what’s ahead; a President who doesn’t respect any of his allies, is talking about conquering neighbours with the same language and zeal that Vlad Putin speaks of Ukraine and the Baltic States, and has deliberately shunned any voices that would dare to disagree with him.
If there ever was a time in our history that the emergency sirens should be blaring in official Ottawa, it should be now. It should be clear to our political leaders that we are not facing a normal threat from a friendly neighbour who has normal, respectable goals in what they are pursuing. This is a time when all options should be on the table for the benefit of the country, and given our current prorogued state in Ottawa, there is one option that I believe needs to be explored; a National Unity Government.
We’ve seen National Unity Governments used both at home and abroad in times of crisis. We saw it done here in Canada during the First World War, when the then Conservative government of Sir Robert Borden invited the Wilfred Laurier Liberals to join the government to deal with the Conscription crisis of 1917. While Laurier himself didn’t join, many Liberals did take Borden up on that offer and took part. Also, Independent and Labour members also joined the group, although in much smaller numbers. This move wasn’t without controversy, given that conscription was an extremely divisive issue between English and French Canada but did serve the purpose in a time of war.
We also saw this same approach taken by the Brits in the Second World War. After Neville Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister at the outbreak of the war, Winston Churchill formed a coalition of Conservative, Labour, and Liberal members to govern starting in 1940. Churchill was PM, and his main opponent, Labour Leader Clement Attlee, was his Deputy PM, for the duration of the arrangement. That lasted until the war in Europe ended in May 1945, but during that five-year period, all those parties governed together and focused on the very narrow and existential issues they faced at that time.
When I look at those and other examples of National Unity governments, they feel very much like the approach that we should take in Ottawa right now for various reasons. Firstly, the current government is in flux and clearly not in the strongest position to deal with the Trump threat. On top of that, we have an official opposition who is determined to focus on carbon pricing and refusing to let go of those issues, rather than focus on the very real and more existential one right in front of us. We have other opposition parties who are floating in between, trying to remain relevant in various ways. And amongst all of that, we have the Premiers trying to fill a void, with a mixture of what appears to be some coordination and some freelancing. This is far from an ideal situation.
This is a moment when we need our leaders to really step up, put their personal and political interests aside and come together around this one very important issue. Ironically, I would argue the prorogation that we are now in actually provides an opportunity to do this. Imagine that we see a Unity Government formed, with twelve Cabinet ministers: 5 Liberal, 4 Conservative, 2 Bloc and 1 NDP. We have a Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, but neither of them can be the current/outgoing Liberal PM nor the leader of any other party. Hoping that this arrangement won’t need to be a long term one, let those party leaders focus on when that next election is coming while we have this unified group focused on dealing with the focused list of issues regarding the Trump threat.
That Unity Cabinet would then put together a Throne Speech and an agenda that if focused around two key things; paying the bills for already approved funding initiatives (basically keep the lights on) and dealing with the threat from the Trump administration. That’s it. No new spending on other pet projects or initiatives, no slashing other stuff to the bone. None of that. Focusing simply on dealing with this threat and getting us to a position where we can have the luxury of having normal partisan discussions about policy and such. Essentially, the idea is the parties put their usual crap aside and focus on this and this alone.
To me, that offers a few advantages. Firstly, it gets Parliament up and running again, being available to react to whatever Trump throws our way. Secondly, it allows the Liberals to go through their leadership race without holding the entire country hostage to their process. And maybe most importantly, it is a show of political force towards our American neighbours. It shows that while we have our differences, we all agree on our pride in being Canadian and will fight back against any attempt to annex us or otherwise. It would show the Trump team that we’re not distracted and won’t be picked off one by one, turned against one another, like Putin has tried to do in Ukraine and Eastern Europe for a decade.
In a perfect world, this Unity Government wouldn’t need to last long and like the Brits did in May of 1945, it could be dissolved and the country sent straight into elections, hopefully close to the same timelines that we were looking at for elections here now. And if it needed to continue longer, then it would just further prove why it was so necessary to do in the first place.
Folks, we’re not in normal times and we need to snap ourselves out of whatever stupor we’re in that has us thinking it is. There is nothing normal about what Trump is threatening us and others with. We do not have the luxury of sitting back and waiting until Trump’s true desires are. Through out his time in politics, he’s been very clear with his intentions more times than not. And in many of the occasions where he didn’t follow through with his bombastic threats, it was usually one of those guardrails (human or otherwise) that kept him from doing it.
He’s learned his lesson from that experience, which is why he’s surrounding himself with the biggest of yes-men and yes-women, who aren’t questioning his pronouncements. They are openly backing them up, to the point where we’re seeing his usual backers saying stuff like this:
And if you think that Congressman Gill doesn’t believe what he says, I got that clip straight from his own YouTube account. Yes, how dare we insult the Americans by being proud of being Canadian and not wanting to be invaded or annexed. That’s serious talk, from media and elected politicians supportive of Trump. They aren’t brushing this off as “Trump being Trump,” they are embracing it, internalizing it, and trying to advance it. That right there should be the alarm that we all hear loudly and clearly. That right there should be what pushes our leaders to come together and push back as one.
Am I convinced that our political leaders can put their usual stuff aside to do this, to form a Unity Government? No, honestly, I’m not. But I still believe that this can be done and there are enough MPs in our Parliament who will put country above all else, I must believe it. If I don’t, then that is tantamount to giving up on my fellow Canadians and all our contributions to this World as Canadians. And sorry folks, I may be many things, but I’m not a quitter. So I put this on the table, hoping that our leaders take to this charge in this time of need. It’s time to stand on our own two feet and show that we aren’t going anywhere.