Bill Morneau has been Finance Minister for nearly four years. So when is he going to make his mark? (Subscribers)
Bill Morneau, Canada's Minister of Finance, is photographed after a Globe and Mail interview in Toronto, on March 13 2019.The spotlight has not always been kind to Bill Morneau. Take, for instance, a town hall meeting held in Oakville, Ont., in September, 2017. A couple of months earlier, during a sleepy summer, Mr. Morneau unveiled a package of changes to the small business tax regime. The issue soon blew up in his face.
He is not, by his own admission, a natural politician. He has sometimes appeared uncomfortable or stiff in front of cameras, his statements bogged down with talking points. “I guarantee you this will happen this year. On Monday, the day before the budget, I will get five or six people calling me, saying, ‘You really need to put this in the budget,’ ” he says in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “People don’t understand the process, and that’s just the reality.”That sounds decisive and reassuring. And no one has ever doubted Mr. Morneau’s credentials.
His contributions are substantial, but largely unheralded, they say. The voting public doesn’t get to see the deal-maker and negotiator behind the scenes. Mr. Morneau was appointed president in 1992 and later added CEO to his title, overseeing acquisitions and eventually taking the company public. By the time he left the firm, now called Morneau Shepell, it was pulling in more than $560-million in annual revenue.
But in February, 2014, he appeared as a keynote speaker at the Liberal Party’s convention in Montreal. As Justin Trudeau looked on adoringly in the crowd, Mr. Morneau attacked the governing Conservatives’ economic policies. “As a business person, I can tell you, we can’t slash our way to success. We must invest in the things that matter,” he declared.Mr. Morneau became one of the Liberal Party’s star candidates and he was rewarded with the finance post.
Canada has added more than 900,000 jobs since the Liberals’ election win. At 5.8 per cent, the jobless rate is near its lowest level on record. Average annual job growth under the Liberals is roughly in line with historical averages.Evan Siddall, who heads the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and has known Mr. Morneau for years, recalls giving Mr. Morneau a briefing shortly after the Liberals took office. As protocol dictates, he referred to his friend as “Minister.” Mr.
Mr. Morneau is the type of leader who asks questions rather than assert his opinion, Mr. Barton says. He recalls a cabinet discussion last year focused on putting trade talks with China on hold in light of NAFTA negotiations and because of growing tensions between the United States and China. The purchase was controversial, of course. Environmentalists were dismayed. A recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer concluded Ottawa likely overpaid, too. “That was a project we didn’t want to take on, but took on because we knew it was the right thing to do for the country,” Mr. Morneau says. The government contends the purchase will prove to be a worthwhile investment, leading to new jobs and increased tax revenue – should the project proceed.
One of the most difficult periods proved to be the controversy over Mr. Morneau’s personal finances. In October, 2017, The Globe and Mail reported he had not placed his substantial private financial holdings into a blind trust, prompting months of heated questions over his personal ethics. Mr.
The minister eventually backed down considerably from his initial proposals, and also lowered the small-business tax rate. But the debacle may have caused permanent damage to Mr. Morneau’s reputation. “It would have been a lot easier to kiss and make up, but the rhetoric is burned in business owners’ minds,” Mr. Kelly says. “This is still a pretty hot issue with small-business owners.”
Mr. Morneau’s restrained approach is made all the more apparent when contrasted with Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre. He is Mr. Morneau’s polar opposite in practically every way, quick with a retort, instinctual rather than considered, and clearly relishing his job to make the Finance Minister uncomfortable. He often smirks when he asks a question he knows Mr.
The hallmark of Mr. Morneau’s tenure, however, just might be deficit spending. The Liberals ran on a campaign of modest, short-term deficits and a balancing of the books by 2019, then promptly tossed that plan aside after winning. Mr. Dodge says Mr. Morneau is essentially borrowing money for the wrong things at the wrong time. He doesn’t fault the government for spending money on large infrastructure projects, but says that also borrowing to essentially drive consumption puts unnecessary strain on finances. “If the economy really does hit the tank, then they’ve built a problem for themselves that’s going to be very difficult to deal with,” he says. “They’ve used up their fiscal room.
They grumbled about deficits, tax rates, the slow pace of infrastructure spending and the fact that Canada still faces huge challenges exporting crude oil.
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