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What follows is a lightly edited version of the speaking notes I prepared ahead of a conference on political economy at Toronto’s York University last week. Since the conference wasn’t streamed, and because time constraints compelled me to give a somewhat truncated version of my remarks, I thought I might as well publish them here in full.
A point I don’t engage below is the fact that the Carney government remains broadly popular. This is something I hope to write on in more detail in the future, but suffice it to say for now I think it mainly comes down to 1) the profound weakness of the Conservative Party at the moment; 2) some widespread misconceptions about the nature of the Carney government’s agenda; 3) the ongoing presence of Donald Trump as the single biggest thing on everyone’s minds.
Relatedly, since it had yet to be published when I was preparing my talk, I’ll quote here from some recent reporting in the Star, which notes that “American-controlled multinational corporations have dominated the most lucrative federal contracts under [Mark] Carney’s leadership, a Toronto Star analysis of government data shows. The share of government contract dollars going to U.S. companies also increased.”
Good morning. Before I begin my remarks, let me first say a warm thank you to the organizers of this conference for inviting me. I’m delighted to be in the company of so many remarkable scholars, policy experts, and writers and am looking forward very much to the various other panels later today. Thanks as well to my fellow panelists. I’m also looking forward to the discussion we’ll be having as well.
Less than two years ago, something quite extraordinary seemed to be happening in Canada. A species of Canadian nationalism that had seemed to be dormant, perhaps even dead since the free trade election of 1988, suddenly arose from its slumber. The catalyst, of course, was Donald Trump’s abrupt shattering of the continental trade consensus and its accompanying threats of annexation. But in the midst of this, we collectively experienced not only a sudden flourishing of civic patriotism but also, I would argue, a sense of political possibility unlike any this country has experienced in my own lifetime.
Suddenly, all bets were off. Fundamental, even existential questions, concerned with Canada’s democratic sovereignty and economic independence, indeed the whole of the broad policy approach taken by successive Canadian governments as a corollary to our integration with the United States, were back on the table. If the advent of free trade had gone hand in hand with the era of neoliberalism and concomitant weakening of our civil society, our social welfare model, and much else too, maybe its terminus would mean the fundamental transformation of our domestic political consensus as well.
