Who wants to be a Machiavellian?
For an outsider, the prime minister is a quick study in the dark arts of politics.
Between two politicians I will always favour the one who understands the problem rather than the one who pretends to have the simplest solution. It’s especially important at a time when we are grappling with a crisis of affordability, a crisis of confidence in the justice system and our gigantic southern neighbour causing us issues.
Also? A little deviousness never hurts, provided it’s done with noble intentions.
Enter Mark Carney. I was not one of his early supporters. In fact I was a loud skeptic (I’m usually loud). What I saw was a new version of Michael Ignatieff except with Savile Row suits. A cosmopolitan smart person who speaks in paragraphs complete with subordinate clauses. They used to call Ignatieff the thinking woman’s crumpet, remember? Also he didn’t come back for you?
You have to be smart to succeed in politics, but not too smart. Ignatieff was, clearly, way too smart for the game and it ruined his chances. What indication was there that Mark Carney would be different?
I started warming up a bit to the prime minister after his appearance on Jon Stewart’s show and also the podcast he did with Scott Galloway. This summer I also picked up in 2021 book Value(s) and I’m slowly plowing my way through it.
He gets enormous points for knowing and stating (I’m paraphrasing somewhat crudely) that if all you know of Adam Smith is the invisible hand, you’re very badly read and likely a little stupid, too. For one simply cannot use The Wealth of Nations absent a clear understanding of Smith’s much more important other book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Something I learned in libertarian school many decades ago.
Carney gets it, and many other things besides. No wonder Canadians thought he’d be the best to deal with the current crisis. Not perfect, but the better option among those on offer. There’s no question he is well-educated, well-read and smart. The question was what kind of politician that would make him.
Half a year post election, I’m thinking: he’s ruthlessly and effectively Machiavellian. And I think that’s a good thing. So far, anyway.
He is playing both the Conservatives at home and Donald Trump abroad with moves designed to appear weak or wrong but that in fact solidify his hold on power. At least for now. His biggest weakness is public communications and so far it doesn’t appear to hurt him too much but it might also be his undoing. I guess we’ll see. Like all communications experts, I often underestimate just how little most normal people pay attention to political details…
I want to draw your attention to Bills C-2 and C-9 and how the Liberals are using the legislative process to weaken the Tories and maybe also fool the US President.
Shh, don’t tell anyone.
On its face, C-2 aims to strengthen border control and it included, in its original form, provisions “that would have created the power to demand warrantless access to information from any provider of a service in Canada and increased the surveillance on Canadian networks.” (Read the helpful post by Michael Geist if you want more details on what that would have meant.)
I mentioned on Twitter that if I were devious, I’d assume the government had, on purpose, tabled an original bill that was designed to be unpalatable to just about everyone so as to look tough for the audience of one in the White House, who doesn’t pay attention to anything long enough to notice amendments. And sure enough, the bill was quietly re-introduced without those two problematic provisions.
C-9 is a little different except for being badly drafted. Its goal, ostensibly, is to tighten things up on hate propaganda and hate crimes generally to better protect Canadians from hate crimes by making it easier to prosecute those who commit them. One big, glaring problem: In the original version of the bill, the definition of “hate” is considerably watered down from what was adjudicated by the Supreme Court in Keegstra and reaffirmed in Whatcott.
According to the Supreme Court, hatred is an extreme emotion involving vilification, detestation, and scorn towards an identifiable group, leading to a desire to see that group treated with disrespect and ill-will. It is more than just dislike or disdain, and involves emotions of unusually strong and deep-felt detestation, calumny, and vilification.
In Whatcott, the Court added that “hate propaganda opposes the targeted group’s ability to find self-fulfillment by articulating their thoughts and ideas” and places “a serious barrier to their full participation in our democracy.”
In its first draft, C-9 would add this definition of hatred in the Criminal Code: “hatred means the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike; (haine)”
You’ll notice “extreme” is missing. It shouldn’t be.
(The bill has other flaws, including removing the need to get the Attorney General’s consent and create an offence of promoting hatred through the display of signs as well as an offence of intimidating someone to prevent them from accessing a place of worship, that raise significant questions.)
Fighting hatred and protecting people from hate crimes is a laudable goal, but it must be balanced with our constitutional right to express ourselves — including by expressing obnoxious and reprehensible ideas. There’s a line between criminal hatred and “general assholery” that’s not always easy to define but it must, always, be respected.
The current definition of hatred in C-9 is way too broad and would result in all kinds of jerks being threatened with criminal prosecution for their run-of-the-mill dickish tweets, which cannot be the goal.
I pointed to an excellent grilling of the justice minister by Conservative MP Roman Baber (not someone I’m often in agreement with) at committee. You’ll notice Sean Fraser saying that he is open to amending the definition of hatred to something that gets broad multi-partisan support.
Now maybe I’m guilty of having a twisted mind, but I do think Fraser is agreeing a little too readily to this. Almost to the point where it feels like the whole thing was engineered. The Liberals had to know such a wide expansion of the definition of hatred would make the Tories reach for their high horses (I happen to be with the blue team on that one), and the whole thing feels like it was designed to make the Conservatives look like they oppose protecting victims of hate long enough to get clips they can use in future campaigns.
It also defangs the opposition when you are seen as acquiescing to their better arguments without giving up anything that you can’t live without.
I could be wrong. It’s happened before. But the way I see it, there’s one former bank governor who’s learning the dark arts of politics very quickly.