Reality’s Invisible Hand
One by one, the utopian dreams of yesteryear are getting spanked by hard truths
by George Koch
Within the space of three weeks, ministers in the Ed Stelmach government were recorded saying at least three things that appear…sensible. Also tough-minded, fitted to the circumstances and aimed at fixing an actual problem rather than pandering to neo-Marxist class resentments or riding the sentimental updrafts of messianic Obamaism. Reality gradually appears to be reasserting itself.
Upon being named minister of finance in mid-January, Ted Morton called government spending “like an all-you-can-eat buffet. The buffet is going to start getting closed down tomorrow.” A couple of weeks later, neophyte energy minister Ron Liepert said: “We want to make Alberta the best place to invest. Energy is the core of our economic success and, frankly, we shouldn’t be making any apologies for it.”
Those lines wouldn’t even have been worthwhile jotting down for most of the past half-century. But in signalling the end of four years of industry-bashing, they were revolutionary – actually counter-revolutionary. In early February, Morton reiterated that Canada doesn’t need and Alberta doesn’t want a national securities regulator. Lastly, the government launched its “competitiveness review” aimed at undoing its energy royalty fiasco.
Sure, these are baby steps. And the standard for what constitutes a refreshing turn on the dance floor with tonight’s double-date, Arithmetic and Basic Economics, remains low. The Stelmachites are people who think the concept of “our fair share” is credible economics and a winning political formula in the one province where social class and privilege mean little and success triggers applause rather than jealousy. We’ve got a long way to go. But at least we’ve started.
Elsewhere, the dream-state endures. Exhibit A: Michael Ignatieff. Fifteen months ago the federal Liberal leader tried to topple the Conservative government because its spending torrent of borrowed money was too small. Stephen Harper had agreed to add $30 billion, but the Liberals wanted double, triple, quadruple, whatever it took to feel like they were turning back the world’s economic tides. The frustrated plotter then excoriated Harper for running the federal deficit to $56 billion – never mind that his measures would have doubled that. Yet today Ignatieff wants a multibillion-dollar national child care program.
Exhibit B: the Olympics. Don’t worry, I supported Canada’s athletes. I wasn’t rooting for failure. But really, did it occur to no one that holding the winter Olympics at sea level is an oxymoron? Or that staging certain outdoor, on-snow events at the lowest, most exposed ski area when Whistler’s 7,000-foot-high glaciers were available multiplied the risk? An entire elite convinced itself that good intentions, if heartfelt enough, could make fundamental physical facts something other than what they are. By comparison, Alberta’s rediscovery of fiscal arithmetic, however boring and plodding it might seem, is restoring a hold on sanity.
I often look to the United States for analogies, harbingers or cautionary tales, and I can understand why some readers might think I should go off and write for Montana Venture or Wyoming Mountain Redneck. But the U.S. zeitgeist is likely to affect us. If Barack Obama could get tens of thousands of Berliners not to hoot him off the stage when he mangled their own story of toppling the Berlin Wall, then it’s not impossible that a mass utopian rejection of mere facts might also make its way to Alberta. The notion that energy prices would rise forever and that provincial spending could accompany them unchecked was one.
Since then, the U.S. administration’s attempt to make the downturn go away through trillion-dollar borrowings is Obama’s utopianism made manifest. The citizenry, however, showed a better understanding of reality. The turn in the U.S. public spirit has been dizzying. A Republican running on an explicit platform of limited government, lower taxes, no “Obamacare” and no coddling of terrorists recently took the Senate seat previously held by the late Edward Kennedy, among the most left-wing major politicians in U.S. history. Early policy casualties are likely to include the carbon dioxide cap-and-trade bill. A fine recognition of economic reality in itself, it’s of direct relevance to Canada’s trading relationship and Alberta’s key industry.
The writer Fouad Ajami recently called Obama’s fall from political messiah “an extraordinary tale of hubris undone.” What is Alberta’s tale except a humiliating but necessary retreat from the hubris of believing we could decouple ourselves from the engine of our prosperity and our historical bonds of commodity cycles – a hubris made unforgivable by the historical proof of those axioms in our own past follies and failures?
The U.S. experience also shows that it’s one thing to have a turn in spirit, and another to turn the ship of state. Obama may suspend his campaign to impose state-driven health care and may live without cap-and-trade. But that didn’t stop him from proposing a budget simply mad in its level of borrowing and detachment from fiscal consequences. The U.S. isn’t yet on the right fiscal track by any means.
On a lesser scale, Alberta’s Feb. 9 budget attempted to play some similar tricks, basing its promises of lower deficits in the future on the hope of strong economic growth. Returning to reality will require more than one simple step.
The crucial step one is recognizing what’s real. No, even more basic: step one is recognizing you’re even constrained by what’s real. The public is leading the politicians in America and Alberta alike. In the U.S., the opposition is pushing the government. Here in Alberta, factions within the governing party – prodded by the Wildrose Alliance, in turn riding a wave of popular support – are snapping out of their dream state. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, it isn’t even the end of the beginning. But at least it has started.
George Koch is a Calgary-based freelance writer and commentator. More of his writing can be found at www.drjandmrk.com. Send your comments to feedback.
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