Former federal finance minister Bill Morneau says that when it comes to COVID-19 relief policy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and top advisers in his cabinet are favoring “political point-scoring” over political justifications, prompting him to feels like a “rubber stamp” before his “inevitable” resignation.
“My job of providing advice and guidance on fiscal matters has deteriorated to serving as something between a figurehead and a rubber stamp,” he writes in his new book, released Jan. 17.
In a personal interview with CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassi Kapelos on her debut episode of CTV’s Question Period, Morneau opened up about the behind-the-scenes tensions leading up to his high-profile departure and spoke to some of the most revealing pieces in the book, titled “Where to from Here : a path to Canadian prosperity’.
“It became unsustainable,” Morneau said of what was behind his decision in August 2020 to resign as both finance minister and MP for Toronto Centre. The move comes six months after the federal government’s rollout of COVID-19 aid and the WE Charity controversy.
At the time, despite the prime minister’s claims that Morneau had his confidence, there were leaks from sources suggesting a growing rift with Trudeau, in part over the federal government’s handling of economic stimulus programs against COVID-19. Programs Morneau now believes the Liberals “probably” overspent.
“Differences of opinion led us to come to mutual conclusions about whether we could work together. So whether it’s a leak or whether it’s that difference in vision, I think it was pretty inevitable that five years was a great run, but it was time to move on,” Morneau said in the interview.
As the book reveals, Morneau feels the Trudeau government and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) are preoccupied with how things are perceived at the expense of good policy, and how this led to one of the worst moments of his political life.
He wrote that while he was impressed by how many positive policy decisions were made “on the fly” in the early days of the pandemic, as the federal government faced pressure to respond to the 24/7 news cycle and be seen to respond to the needs of key voter demographics, such as the elderly, “policy rationales were discarded in favor of political point-scoring.”
“We lost the agenda. During the period when the largest government expenditure as a share of GDP was incurred in the shortest time since the start of the Second World War, the calculations and recommendations of the Treasury were largely ignored in favor of a popularity contest,” he wrote.
Asked about this, Morneau told Kapelos that, to be fair to both parties, what Trudeau and his team are trying to do is appropriately ensure that Canadians have the confidence that they can withstand the health and economic challenges of COVID-19 as finance officials pondered how to navigate the economy through the pandemic.
“I think one of the important threads in my book … is that the challenge of our modern government in the 24/7 news cycle is something that people have an incentive to respond to … And when you do, your ability to focus on a long-term plan, your ability to focus on economic growth, your ability to focus on the energy transition, your ability to focus not just on a one-year health care solution, but on a lasting solution for a generation is called into question,” he said.
Morneau said it was a view he shared while around the cabinet table and a challenge every government faces.
“What I’m saying is that good politics can be good politics … It’s an ongoing challenge and it requires strong leadership.”
IT WAS TENSION WITH TRUDO “ALL THE TIME”
The former finance minister begins his book with a chapter called “A Conversation in an Empty Room,” in which he details the conversation he had at Rideau Cottage with the prime minister in the summer of 2020, when he told Trudeau he was leaving.
He wrote that it was one of the “very few” times the two discussed something in private without other advisers or sources of advice in the room, which “just wasn’t happening” in Trudeau’s world.
“Virtually any topic you wanted to discuss with the Prime Minister – official or unofficial, strategy or gossip – had to be shared in the presence of members of his staff,” he wrote.
Morneau wrote that he was “giving up the work I loved” but that the “differences” between the two had become too great to overcome. He suggests in the book that if the couple had a stronger relationship to fall back on, maybe things could have been different.
In the interview, Morneau said there had been “healthy tension” — as he believed there should be between the finance minister and the prime minister — “the whole time they were in office together.” But once they entered the “pressure cooker” of the pandemic, those tensions swelled even more.
Morneau said that in the early days of the government’s response to COVID-19, the two were “very united” in their agreement on the need to support Canadians who are out of work. But as the waves of COVID-19 continued, he and the Treasury Department were interested in trying to map out how multibillion-dollar aid programs could be scaled back.
“So, it was quite a difference of opinion and it really led to a situation where the sustainability of our relationship was, it wasn’t there.”
“ONE OF THE WORST MOMENTS OF MY POLITICAL LIFE”
One of the examples of differences of opinion Morneau cites in his book is how the Liberals handled the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS).
He wrote that the night before the program was revealed, he presented a package of research done by his department and himself, and believed he had an agreement with Trudeau on how to proceed.
But then the next morning he watched as the Prime Minister revealed “with great pride” that “the amount of money made available to individual firms through CEWS … a figure significantly higher than what we had agreed was the highest, which we should have received the night before!’
Morneau called it “one of the worst moments of my political life”.
“At a time when I saw us making decisions that were more significant than I thought we needed to be, it was frankly extremely disappointing,” Morneau said in the interview. “I think at that point, you know, the seeds of challenge started to be planted. That we just weren’t going to be able to recover.”
The wage subsidy program ended up being the costliest of the package of COVID-19 financial assistance programs, with a recent Auditor General’s report putting the cost at $100.7 billion.
Ultimately, as he writes in the book, Morneau felt that his work had “deteriorated to serve as something between a figurehead and a rubber stamp.”
“That’s not why I wanted the position of finance minister, and that’s not why it was created in the first place,” he wrote.
DO YOU REGRET DEALING WITH WE CHARITY?
In the interview, Morneau was also asked if he regretted how he handled another major political controversy that played out before his departure: the WE Charity matter.
After returning more than $41,000 in travel expenses for two tips his family took with the charity and apologizing for not withdrawing from cabinet talks that WE would administer an ultimately scrapped student scholarship program worth $912 million, in 2021 federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion found Morneau placed himself in a conflict of interest “on several occasions” in connection with the contract.
As he did at the time, Morneau said the government’s motivations were to find a way through the chaos of COVID-19 to support students, but he regrets not leaving the room when the program came up.
“I certainly should have stepped down … I was clear then, I’m clear in the book … I wish I had done things differently then,” he said. “There was a lot going on, but we can always do better. And I think it’s important to remember that in government, that responsibility is, you know, an ongoing responsibility.”
IS HIS TIME RUNNING OUT IN POLITICS?
Asked if now, in hindsight, he would consider a return to politics, Morneau was noncommittal, but appeared to indicate that at this stage he was focused on finding ways to influence the private sector.
“Let me just say that I really enjoyed my time in office. It is exciting to be at the center of what is happening in the country. But more importantly, it’s really meaningful to be able to have a big impact on the country. So I really enjoyed my time there. I think right now the things I can do, I think I can add more value outside of this life,” he said.
Kapelos followed up, asking if that meant never or just not now.
“In politics, everything depends on timing. And I think the time for me now is to go back into the private sector to find a way to make an impact there,” Morneau said in response.
CTV’s Question Period reached out to Trudeau’s office for comment on Morneau’s allegations and had not received a response as of publication.
With files from CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos
Tune into CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos’ debut on CTV’s Question Period this Sunday at 11 a.m.
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