From the people who brought you ‘Choose Forward’: the confusing new cabinet

OTTAWA—In the 1960s, a best-selling book described the wild ride of the advertising industry on Madison Avenue. Said to have inspired the hit TV show Mad Men, its title came from an anecdote the author, Jerry Della Femina tells, about a late-night brainstorming session for a slogan for the then-new Japanese company, Sony. He came up with, “From those wonderful folks who brought you Pearl Harbor.” I was reminded of this story when I heard about the new 37-member federal cabinet. Clearly, this is the cabinet from those wonderful folks who brought you “Choose Forward,” the incomprehensible slogan for the Liberal Party of Canada in the recent election. Which, if you recall, resulted in a minority. As many of my readers know, I have expressed concern about the growing problem of functional illiteracy. And yet, here we have a government elected on a slogan that is essentially nonsense. So why not pile on with cabinet portfolios that make no sense either? Perhaps the cabinet was built by flinging darts at a wall emblazoned with portfolio names. Or perhaps it was meant as a joke: any cabinet with a minister responsible for “Middle Class Prosperity” is just opening itself up to mockery. But then as one digs a little deeper, it gets better: there are ministries for seniors, women, children, youth, and two ministries for “inclusion.” Sadly, no ministry for middle-aged white men, unless you count the ministry for diversity. Then again, there is always Bill Morneau. If anything says “white and middle-aged,” it is finance and its minister. Spare a moment, as well, for the average 13-year-old Canadian. Is he, she, or they a child or a youth, and thus under the aegis of Bardish Chagger (Diversity, Inclusion and Youth) or that of Ahmed Hussen (Families, Children and Social Development)? And then there are the 25 year olds living in their parents’ basements. Are they still youth? There are ministries for Crown-Indigenous Relations (Carolyn Bennett), Indigenous Services (Marc Miller), and Northern Affairs (Dan Vandal). If you are an Indigenous person living in Iqaluit, who do you call? What if you are an innovative entrepreneur in a small town? Is it Maryam Monsef (Rural Economic Development), or Catherine McKenna (Infrastructure and Communities), or possibly Melanie Joly (Economic Development), or Navdeep Bains (Innovation, Science, and Industry), or maybe Mary Ng (Small Business, Export Promotion, and International trade), or could it be Mona Fortier (the aforementioned minister of middle class prosperity) who you turn to? Many people have alluded to Monty Python in assessing the cabinet titles, regretting the lack of a “Ministry of Silly Walks.” That was a classic, but my favourite was always “The Department of Redundancy Department.” Surely, with this group of overlapping ministries, there should be someone in charge there. In fairness, we should always remember it was the Conservatives who had a thing about names, in this case, the naming of legislation. The Harper government came up with cute names that often contradicted their intent: the “Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act,” the “Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act,” the “Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act,” and my favourite, the “Fair Elections Act,” which wasn’t. There was some substance with the appointment of Chrystia Freeland as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Deputy PM. She keeps the NAFTA file, leaving new Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne on the outside looking in. While she is a media darling, she was not that well-liked at Global Affairs, where she set the agenda on Ukraine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China, while rarely setting foot in the Pearson Building. She evidently told officials she did not need extensive briefing notes, because she knew everything already. These were the same officials she derided in a 2017 Globe and Mail profile, in which she said: “My job is not to represent the Pearson building in the world." So much for diplomats, or diplomacy for that matter. If the deputy PM from Toronto takes that attitude in dealing with the often obstreperous premiers of the provinces, notably the one for her putative Alberta homestead, we might be hastening a “Wexit” sooner rather than later. Old-timers who recall the first Trudeau government can’t forget the “Salmon Arm Salute,” when Pierre gave the finger to protesters from a train passing though that B.C. town in the 1980s. It made me think Joyce Murray’s new portfolio, Digital Government, and perhaps the shaping of the entire cabinet, were inspired by that long-ago moment in Canadian history. Andrew Caddell is retired from Global Affairs Canada, where he was a senior policy adviser. He previously worked as an adviser to Liberal governments. He is a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a principal of QIT Canada. He can be reached at pipson52@hotmail.com. The Hill Times