The Liberals are not good at implementing provincial programs
Posted April 19, 2024
Advertisements for cars and trucks are mostly similar. The pictures show happy owners and their vehicles having a good time in an attractive location, with the voiceover proclaiming some sort of discount (“six thousand dollars off!”) without ever revealing the actual discounted price.
There are occasional exceptions. Perhaps the most distinctive offering occurred in the early sixties, in which the makers of Volvos wanted to emphasize the durability of their cars. The video shows the car racing recklessly along rutted dirt roads with the tag line, “You can drive a Volvo like you hate it.”
This came to mind while witnessing the rollout of the new federal dental program. It is not a Liberal priority. It is part of the payoff to the NDP for supporting the minority government. The Liberals are driving it like they hate it.
Gail Lethbridge’s article last week tells the story. People are confused about who is covered, whether they have to pay anything for the insurance, and where they can be treated.
Dental offices point out that they will have to hire more staff to do all the new paperwork and are unsure about how or how much they will get paid. Across the country participation is low. In Nova Scotia only four dentists have signed up.
Alberta says it will not join the dental program. Quebec says the same, asking instead for $3 billion from Ottawa to broaden the existing provincial program.
P.E.I. Premier Dennis King calls it an “unmitigated disaster” and worries that the federal school lunch program will be the same. Both are intrusions into areas of provincial jurisdiction.
So is daycare. Ottawa has inserted itself into that area as well, with a promise of $10-a-day care. It has not gone well. A new report from the non-partisan Macdonald-Laurier Institute shows problems with bureaucracy similar to those with dental: “There is also abundant evidence of a heavy administrative burden on top of the billions of dollars in annual taxes needed to fund the program…”
“Despite billions of dollars in new government spending, in 2023 there were fewer children in child care arrangements of any sort than before the pandemic in 2019. Centre-based child care attendance was up, but this was offset by a larger decline in other forms of child care, including home-based child care businesses…only 56.1 percent of children aged 0 to 5 years were in child care in 2023, down from 59.9 percent in 2019 – a decline of 118,000 children attending child care.”
Perhaps the implementation problems on these initiatives arise because the federal bureaucracy is not used to implementing provincial programs.
The latest big announcement is about housing, for which there are many multi-billion dollar programs. Available housing for renters or buyers is hard to find because the Liberals stopped controlling the number of non-permanent residents.
Prime Minister Trudeau asserts that “It’s a plan to build housing, including for renters, on a scale not seen in generations. We’re talking about almost 3.9 million homes by 2031.”
Achieving that goal would mean a pace more than double what was achieved in 2023. If only that just meant throwing money at the problem. There is a much bigger obstacle.
As anyone building or renovating a home knows, construction workers in almost every trade are hard to come by. Building twice as many homes will require twice as many workers.
BuildForce Canada is a national industry-led organization that informs and enables workforce planning. In 2023 it estimated that 20% of the 2022 construction labor force (approximately 245,100 workers) is expected to retire soon.
To address the housing supply gap identified by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) of 3.5 million additional housing units this decade over and above what it normally builds, the residential construction sector would need to grow its labour force by 83% above 2023 levels – to just under 1.04 million workers. Trudeau’s goal for new homes is even higher than CMHC’s 3.5 million.
The Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities was asked about what their plan is for achieving the necessary workforce. The responses indicate that there is no plan, nor any anxiety about the shortage of labour.
Throwing a lot of money at a stagnant workforce will do some harm and no good. Every available tradesperson is already busy. Putting more money in the pockets of renters or buyers will simply inflate the cost of getting things done, without increasing supply.
It would be good government to develop programs thoughtfully, considering the need for possible solutions to issues, and the viability and collateral impact of proposed responses. Then they can send a well-informed message that realistically describes impacts.
This government seems to work backwards, starting with the desired sound bite and leaving the implementation details to sort themselves out later. Like advertisements for cars and trucks, they never reveal the actual price.
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