Morneau unleashes on Trudeau’s economic policies

OTTAWA, Ont. — Justin Trudeau’s former finance minister Bill Morneau had choice words for his former colleagues in a rare public speech Wednesday night in which he criticized the Liberal government’s economic policies.

Morneau, who has kept a low profile since leaving politics amid controversy nearly two years ago, told a Toronto business audience that during his time in office too much energy was spent on finding ways to redistribute Canada’s wealth.

“There was little attention given to the importance of increasing our collective prosperity — let alone developing a disciplined way of thinking and acting on the problem,” Morneau said in prepared remarks of his address to the C.D. Howe Institute think tank.

“There is no real sense of urgency in Ottawa about our lack of competitiveness … It’s not that this is one of the big problems facing Canada’s economy, it’s that this is our fundamental problem. Nothing else is solvable if we don’t put this issue first.”

Morneau’s blunt, public critique of the Trudeau government marks a stunning shift for someone who served for nearly five years as one of the most-powerful figures close to the prime minister.

His address offered an extraordinary glimpse of the tensions in Canada's halls of power.

At another point in the speech, Morneau blasted his critics — and said, at times, his troubles were created by those on his own side.

“Sometimes it’s other MPs who think they can do a better job than you,” said Morneau. “Sometimes it’s staff in other offices or the (Prime Minister’s Office) who also think they can do a better job than you.”

There had been signs of significant differences between Trudeau and Morneau. Around the time of Morneau’s resignation, media reported a schism between them over such major issues as emergency Covid-19 spending.

During his speech Wednesday, Morneau said many of his initiatives — including policy recommendations brought forward by his council of economic advisers — were never acted on because they became too “politicized.”

“I struggled to get our government to focus on the need for sustained economic growth because it was constantly crowded out by other things that seemed more politically urgent, even if they weren’t truly as important,” he said.

Morneau, who was executive chair of the Canadian human resources giant Morneau Shepell before entering politics in 2015, also zeroed in on recent policy decisions of the Trudeau government.

For instance, he said it’s “baffling” the government moved forward with new commitments on public dental care while a long-promised national pharmacare plan remains unresolved.

Morneau resigned in August 2020 when the country was in the thick of economic fallout caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. He was replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who still oversees the finance portfolio.

His departure came after he revealed to a parliamentary committee that he failed to pay for more than C$41,000 worth of travel expenses from trips he and his family took with WE Charity in 2017. Canada's ethics watchdog ruled last year that Morneau broke the country’s conflict-of-interest law in relation to a controversial C$900-million contract awarded to WE.

In his report, Mario Dion said he found an “unusually high degree of involvement” between WE’s representatives and the then-finance minister’s officials.

During Wednesday’s address, Morneau offered numerous recommendations to those still in office.

For example, he urged the government to create a permanent national body that focuses attention and discussion on Canada’s need for economic growth.

Morneau also said Canada’s energy sector must be at the forefront of the global energy transition. The country, he added, should put emissions targets on the resource sector and encourage exports if the benchmarks are met.

“Give business firm targets, not restrictions,” Morneau said.

More generally, he said the country needs to find a way to depoliticize important public policy decisions.

“Our system of government is partisan and adversarial by design and for good reason,” he said, citing the need for opposition MPs to hold government to account. “But political competition doesn’t have to be ‘winner take all.’ It doesn’t have to be stupid.”