A Time for Everything, Including Political Cooperation
David Campbell is a Moncton-based economic development consultant and co-host of the Huddle podcast, Insights. The following piece was originally published on his blog, It’s the Economy, Stupid!, on Substack.
According to Churchill, democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others we have tried.
Occasionally, on big, long-term challenges and opportunities, we should expect our political parties to put aside the political differences and agree on a path forward.
I was thinking about this when I heard federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault talking about new policies related to the government’s Net Zero 2050 plan. There were 2030 deadlines, 2035 deadlines – around things like carbon taxes, curbing natural gas use, green grids, banning of ICE vehicle sales, and more.
The problem is there is virtually no way this government will be in power in 2030; maybe 2035, maybe 2050, but who knows?
The point is that after 30 or more years of being around politics, in my opinion we should try to work for political consensus about the big stuff that will be difficult and will likely span multiple governments.
When I was at the Jobs Board Secretariat, we spent a lot of time building the Growth Plan. I won’t restate what this plan was but nearing its completion Susan Holt suggested we bring it to the opposition parties and try to get broad consensus on the big themes and direction. There wasn’t much interest at the top for this approach as the worry was the opposition would just play politics.
When you think about the big challenges and opportunities facing New Brunswick, almost all of them will outlive any specific government: the need for sustained immigration, the multi-billion-dollar energy sector transition, key economic development opportunities such as mining. You could go further and say that even K-12 education reforms should be widely supported because we can’t have every new government coming in and fiddling with French Immersion, as one example.
I continue to worry politics will intrude and on the big challenges and opportunities we will get suboptimal outcomes.
On the federal side, I think the train has left the station. There is too much acrimony there to think there will ever be a consensus. When the government changes there (and it always does), I suspect there will be big changes in the long-term stuff.
On the provincial side, I hope there is more room for consensus.
Huddle publishes commentaries from groups and individuals on important business issues facing the Maritimes. These commentaries do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Huddle. To submit a commentary for consideration, contact our editor, Trevor Nichols: [email protected].