Back in 1993 things were not going well for Canada’s Progressive Conservative Government.  Brian Mulroney’s government had served 2 mandates and Canadians were clearly ready to move on.  The Conservatives decided Kim Campbell would be the best leader to bring a renewed excitement to their reelection hopes.  Campbell was a fresh face and that was important to the party which was losing support quickly.  She was also from Vancouver, which was a nice change for the party normally represented by leaders from Ontario or Quebec.  Even more importantly, when she won the leadership she would become the first female leader of a country in North America.  As Canadians would discover just a few months later though, no one cared about any of that.  That campaign did not go well.  The Conservatives not only lost.  They were decimated right out of official party standing.  The governing party won just 2 seats in the entire nation (Jean Charest in Quebec, and Elsie Wayne in New Brunswick). Kim Campbell did not even win her own seat.  Henceforth the Reform Party represented the Conservative voice for the next two elections.

For one reason or another, Canadians simply did not connect with Kim Campbell.  One of the biggest gaffes of that election campaign came when a reporter pressed Campbell for details on an issue and she replied “The election is not a time to discuss serious issues.”  That was the wrong answer.  Despite what she may have truly meant, all Canadians heard was “I don’t need to explain anything to you.”.  That was exactly the wrong thing to say at the worst possible time.

Why bring this up now, 28 years later? Well Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made his first major gaffe of this election campaign.   And for those who care about monetary policy (which should be everyone who pays taxes and works or has savings, etc) it’s very likely as stunning a statement as Kim Campbell made three decades ago.

First some background.  In 2021, Canadians find themselves in an astounding situation.  When the covid pandemic hit last year governments all over the world shut down their economies for weeks, and then months.  Government stimulus was the order of the day and Canada’s was among the most generous in the world.  People were paid to stay at home.  Businesses were paid to continue to provide jobs to people working from home.  Landlords were paid to keep tenants afloat.  All in all, government money is being spent at unprecedented rates.

To pay for all this the Trudeau government attempted to pass a bill through Parliament which would allow it to raise taxes at will without a budget and without even coming back to ask Parliament to present a plan or ask for approval.  That didn’t go over so well.  But instead of turning back the taps, or introducing a budget with higher taxes the government worked out a plan with the Bank of Canada.  How this works basically is that every month the Bank of Canada prints out a few billion dollars, and the government uses that to pay for all the stimulus they want.  Over the first year of covid that totalled about 350 Billion dollars!

The Bank of Canada has left the core function expressed in its mandate in order to print all this extra money.  Despite it’s best efforts to decouple inflation from the printing of extra money, it’s not working.  Canada’s inflation rate has been blowing through the target of 2% month after month after month.

This is the the mandate as expressed by the Bank of Canada itself on its website.

The Bank of Canada is the nation’s central bank. Its mandate, as defined in the Bank of Canada Act, is “to promote the economic and financial welfare of Canada.” The Bank’s vision is to be a leading central bank—dynamic, engaged and trusted—committed to a better Canada.

The Bank has four core functions:

• Monetary policy: The Bank’s monetary policy framework aims to keep inflation low, stable and predictable.
• Financial system: The Bank promotes safe, sound and efficient financial systems within Canada and internationally.
• Currency: The Bank designs, issues and distributes Canada’s bank notes.
• Funds management: The Bank acts as fiscal agent for the Government of Canada, managing its public debt programs and foreign exchange reserves.

The Bank of Canada’s mandate is expiring at the end of this year and the new mandate could change.  Some are saying the Bank should continue to print money at an unprecedented rate and Canadians will learn to live with high inflation.  Considering this drives up the cost of everything from our homes and vehicles, to the food we eat there could hardly be a more important issue.  That’s why PM Trudeau’s response to this question in Vancouver this week is so stunning.  When asked if he would consider a higher tolerance for inflation going forward here’s what he said.

Reporter Question about the renewal of the Bank of Canada mandate due at the end of 2021:

-Do you have thoughts about that mandate?  Would you consider a slightly higher tolerance for inflation?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “When I think about the biggest, most important economic policy this government, if re-elected, would move forward, you’ll forgive me if I don’t think about monetary policy.” 

Of course this spurred an immediate reaction from the opposition Conservatives.  That oppostion is perhaps best summed up in this address from Pierre Poilievre.

The question is, will Canadians punish Prime Minister Trudeau for either lacking basic economic knowledge, or not caring about it?  Kim Campbell failed to win her own seat, but she did not seem to connect well with Canadians at all even before that election campaign.  Justin Trudeau has so far been immune to gaffes.  Even though he’s had more than 5 years in government, millions of Canadians stand by him loyally.  Will this time be any different?