At its most impersonal, the culture of government relations involves a perpetual gavotte of titles whose paths cross where issues and vested interests – political, sectoral and financial – intersect in a calculated fashion. In a crisis, especially an existential one involving a daily catalogue of loss, that culture takes a lurch toward the personal. Longtime political strategist and veteran consultant John Delacourt describes how the crises of COVID and climate change have affected the way Ottawa moves policy. 

John Delacourt

If you were to attempt something so unfashionable as to write a book about how the pandemic has changed the way things get done in Ottawa since we first locked down in 2020, an apt title might be The Politics of Crisis.

Crisis management, crisis communications and, when possible, crisis preparedness have replaced the more provisional term of “emergency” to reflect our chronic damage control mode. The crucial distinction might be in scale and duration. No previous peacetime event has demanded this level of constant contingency planning and rapid response.

The politics of crisis has dominated and dramatically reshaped policy making across government to such a degree that any new normal, should it ever be established, will be defined by its legacy – from how we will talk to each other (virtually), how government will deliver services (digitally) to the very role (larger) that government will play in people’s lives.

Such a second draft of history would have to put the successive waves of the pandemic in the foreground, of course, but the crucial subplot in this crisis narrative is the threat with the longer tail: the existential threat of climate and ecological breakdown. As Mark Carney remarked earlier this year, soon after he was named UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, “from a human mortality perspective, (climate change) will be the equivalent of a coronavirus crisis every year from the middle of this century.”

That was in February 2021, and by early fall, the devastation of the “heat dome” and forest fires in British Columbia and the subsequent, unprecedented rainfall prompted Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to state, in case anyone had a shadow of a doubt, that we were in the middle of a climate crisis. 

Even more telling a signal, for those businesses who require a sustained, working rapport with Ottawa on the legislative and regulatory implications of the Liberals’ efforts to address this crisis, was a tweet sent out by PMO advisor Sarah Goodman in mid-November, as the situation was worsening in B.C.:

“How I’m feeling in B.C. today: Dear Lobbyists, Don’t contact me if you want to dilute or slow climate action. Just don’t. None of us are going fast enough. We can’t negotiate with science. The costs of inaction are here and huge. Instead, let’s do more, faster, together.”

You could say that such a message was provocative, for what business, even focused on the production of oil and gas, still views its prime motivation as the slowing and dilution of climate action? Providing good jobs and keeping communities thriving, aside from keeping shareholders happy, are more than collateral effects or incidental considerations around a boardroom table, nor should they be diminished as such in a Zoom meeting with a staffer two degrees of separation – and usually two decades of professional experience – away from a cabinet minister.

However, context is important. Goodman’s tweet was also sent out in the midst of the worst reports Canadians were getting on the impact of the devastation in B.C. Images of farmland submerged, livestock starved or drowned, roads washed out and beyond repair for what could be months. Or years. If you are in the Prime Minister’s Office, you are on the front line of these reports. 

And if you have been doing your job for a few years – Goodman has, and well, I’d add – you’ve also been looking at the data. You’ve had to justify your counsel with the hardest evidence, and the strongest counter arguments about economic impact, to the toughest room in the country: there’s the PM, his chief of staff and the environment minister, on Zoom. From the Stern Review on the economics of climate change, first published 15 years ago, to the latest numbers on capital expenditures and investment flows in the oil and gas sector, you’ve got to know what you’re talking about, and why legislation has to be crafted to address it. 

Then there is the additional consideration of what happens in a crisis. The familiar rhetoric about government as a partner with the private sector – or for that matter the provinces – is forgotten when there are urgent calls for action. All eyes look to Ottawa. 

Think of the crises in long-term care or affordable housing that came to the forefront in the first wave of the pandemic. Be the minister who takes “breaking news” questions on these fronts, who calmly and forthrightly explains that these policy areas are not really the domain of the federal government, that there is a historical context as to why … be that minister and put your mind to what life after politics might be like. Who knows, there might be a book in that story. Call it How I Dropped the Ball. 

There is also the not-incidental consideration of how most Canadians have polled on the importance of addressing climate change, literally for years now, well before our current crisis. One of the big changes I witnessed in my time working inside of this government was the rigour and the cadence of that data. It confirmed, time and again, that citizens across the country wanted action, not fine words about the importance of action, and that they recognized the seriousness of climate change and its impact. This was not an abiding concern of Gen Z or millennials. Nope, it spanned three generations, from coast-to-coast-to-coast.

To the fundamental question of how policy can be crafted through a crisis, how businesses can come to the virtual table, these are the terms of engagement. 

Some of the advice could be considered evergreen: don’t “reach out” simply for the sake of exchanging business cards and providing anyone with yet another power point presentation (“is it still loading?”) larded with information the government could get from your website. Don’t speak of any win-win proposition that runs counter to the fundamental tenets of carbon deintensification and making the fastest transition to clean technology that we can collectively make. Don’t attempt to wield the leverage of a provincial environment minister and make veiled threats about the electoral implications of tabling the kind of legislation this government has thought long and hard about before a memorandum to cabinet was drafted. And don’t bring any new data to the meeting that’s even slightly overcooked. That young person in the meeting, on that screen, who looks a little like your niece? She’s seen the latest data, and she’s likely had a department brief her on the granular details. 

Yet the most important consideration is, unfortunately, of this moment. This is a government slowly and incrementally trying to emerge out of crisis mode. Many are ridiculously overworked and under-slept. They might be a little snippy or may not immediately get your dad joke – or unfortunately they did immediately get it. And they, too, have probably been suffering anxiety attacks, reduced to tears at inopportune moments … much like those people we’ve all been working with and hope are okay when we leave the Teams calls. Or much like yourself. 

It is now a shopworn cliché to say these are unprecedented times. It should be equally a given that these times call for unprecedented action, and that’s a huge lift right now for any government. 

But I’d argue especially for this one. Come to the table with the best understanding, and the best constructive arguments you can, for how you can get us out of this crisis to a better place.   

Contributing Writer John Delacourt, Vice President and Group Leader of Hill and Knowlton Public Affairs in Ottawa, is a former director of the Liberal research bureau. He is also the author of three novels.