Who gets to set "the Narrative?"
As we debate the facts, our Nation's trajectory is self-defeating and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
I’ve been thinking a lot about “narratives” of late.
What drives them. Who curates them. How they’re sustained. If they’re “truly” true. Whether it is, or is not, permissible to compare one narrative to another — and who decides (so-called “whataboutism”). Why we appear to hold different standards for different actors in the Theatre of Life.
A jumble of stuff, concerning topics with which I’m particularly familiar or galvanized about. Here are two prime examples of what I’m seeing:
Exhibit A: Windsor’s Gordie Howe International Bridge vs. Toronto’s Crosstown LRT
If you have some time, I commend to you The Globe & Mail’s detailed and engaging piece on the pending completion of the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Journalist Jason Kirby did a great job laying out the rationale and opportunity that this exciting new border crossing presents for the Windsor region and the Canadian economy as a whole, choosing not to rehash the mucky reality that 10,000 Ontario Exporters have been waiting for this infrastructure project since it was first hinted at by then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien and then-President George W. Bush in September 2002.
If you didn’t know better, you’d probably accept at face value the new narrative around the GHIB as being one of pure anticipation and excitement.
In July, Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Sean Fraser visited the site and “hinted” that the bridge could open “early.” I credit the Windsor Star journo on site for trying to temper the quick heartbeats and Liberal revisionist history by reminding his readers that construction “began in 2018,” and that the project has seen “delays and cost increases brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.” While the current expected cost of “$6.4-billion” is mentioned, many seem to have forgotten that the original budget was closer to $2.2 billion and that construction actually began in 2015.
Lost in the sands of time, too, is the fact that in 2015, Stephen Harper (our PM at the time), stood beside me in Windsor and made clear his expectation that the new bridge would open in 2020 under his newly-appointed Board; “Get ‘er done,” as Minister Lisa Raitt said at the time. The WDBA’s then-CEO Mike Cautillo knew full well that it would be a challenge to meet the 2020 date, but a tight timeline sure helped all of us plow through bureaucratic roadblocks across Ottawa.
Stretch targets serve many purposes.
While the current Federal government would have The Globe’s Mr. Kirby believe that the project was still “on the drawing boards” in 2015, my WDBA Board started the Canadian Port of Entry Plaza construction process in 2014, and dust began to fly in 2015 with contractor AMICO. The evidence remains on the WDBA website to this day. If there’s any doubt, my last Minister rushed down to Windsor soon after the election that swept in PM Justin Trudeau to have his photo taken in a huge excavator at what was clearly an active build site.
The construction project was very much underway at that point, even though the overall PPP partner — which would have to table its own design drawings and cost proposal as part of any winning PPP bid — hadn’t yet been chosen. In 2016, the Windsor Star’s Dave Battagello sensed the project was going off the rails, and was good enough to call me to discuss things a few months following my resignation as Chairman in December 2015. These are some snippets from his coverage at the time:
Everything remained on schedule and moving at a quick clip until last fall’s federal election [2015] and change in government [Harper to Trudeau].
Michigan lawyer Andy Doctoroff, [Michigan Governor Rick] Snyder’s senior adviser on project, bristled Wednesday at any suggestion it is behind schedule.
“I am not concerned,” he said. “There has been phenomenal progress on the (request for proposals). There is no delay and consistent progress is being made.
Despite the project’s slow place, “the goal remains 2020” for the bridge to open, he said.
Here we are in the summer of 2024, and the bridge may not be in operation for another year.
As I came to say about the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport PPP pedestrian tunnel as we dealt with a host of issues during that complicated project: “it’ll open when it opens.” That wasn’t meant to be a diversion, as I knew how hard the team was working to deliver on that particular project. As much as I’m delighted that the GHIB will soon see trucks moving back and forth, the opportunity cost of WDBA’s Dwight Duncan’s inexcusable five-year delay is very real to every entrepreneur that has missed out on incremental business as a result.
The pedestrian tunnel was about convenience and safety. This one bridge will be part of the fabric of Ontario’s future economy, and help mitigate our multi-decade productivity woes.
The “Gordie Howe bridge may open early” narrative came to mind when The Toronto Star’s Ben Spurr wrote an exclusive story a couple of days later, showcasing emails the newspaper had requested (under Freedom of Information legislation) between Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s office and the management team at Metrolinx. According to the email exchanges from 2023, Metrolinx wanted to make public the anticipated opening date for the much-anticipated Eglinton Crosstown Light Rapid Transit project.
The Star’s headline read: “Premier Doug Ford’s office directed Metrolinx to keep Crosstown opening date secret, emails show”
Like the Gordie Howe bridge project, the Crosstown is also a Public-Private Partnership. Every PPP contract has it’s own nuances, but for the purposes of this blog, think of a PPP as a tool that governments and agencies use to manage costs, delivery timelines, and transfer certain risks.
A key difference between, say, a Yonge subway track alignment TTC project and the PPP consortium behind the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is that the TTC project might be done by that agency’s own full-time staff. The LRT teams beavering away on that project aren’t employees of Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation, and have been assembled by a bidding group of several private enterprises with the necessary (hopefully) skills.
That difference becomes quite relevant when the public is pushing the Provincial government to finish a construction project, yet the politicians in question are largely handcuffed by the reality of their arms-length commercial connection to the undertaking. That doesn’t mean that the project’s promoter doesn’t have a role to play, nor the ability to influence success, but the folks you might see working on the tracks as you drive along Eglinton Avenue don’t actually “work” for you — whether you’re the public agency that signed the contract or the Premier — in the same way as the grass cutting team at Toronto’s Parks Department works for Toronto’s City Manager.
Not in the slightest.
This context is relevant given the dialogue as reported by The Star, where the Premier was said to be opposed to Metrolinx’s communications plan:
According to emails obtained through a freedom of information request, the provincial transit agency supported releasing the estimated completion date in the summer of 2023, and was actively planning to do so when Ford’s office shut it down.
Instead, later that month Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster held a now-infamous press conference in which he declared he had a good idea of when the line would be done, but had decided not to announce it. The agency has yet to publish a timeline for when the LRT will take its first passengers.
Ford’s office says the government didn’t want to release the schedule because it had doubts it would be met.
Objectively, everyone has a valid point.
If you’re the Metrolinx CEO and you believe that you have a good idea of when the Crosstown construction would be done, I understand the desire to communicate that to the public. Whether it would focus the minds of your private construction partners to meet that new now-public date, or give the public something to makes plans around, there’s definitely an appeal.
If you’re the Premier’s Office, and you’ve got some history with the project that leads to a lack of confidence in said opening date, you’d be entirely within your rights to say that (via spokeswoman Grace Lee) the Premier:
“had very little confidence in the opening dates previously provided to the government.” She said none of the previous schedules has turned out to be accurate, including the one referenced in the emails. (The Star couldn’t confirm the accuracy of the date, because it’s redacted in the documents released through the access request.)
“We remain committed to being open and transparent about the issues that have been the cause of the delays of this project and will continue to do so. We will inform the public when we are absolutely confident about an opening date,” Lee said.
In this case, it struck me in hindsight (as a Metrolinx Director) that everyone was trying to do the “right thing” on behalf of the public, as they saw it. Someone has to win-out in such situations, and that’s the luxury and burden of elected officials in most cases. They’re in the deciding business, ultimately.
Unlike Toronto’s Port Authority, which is a financially self-sustaining, arm’s length Federal Government Business Enterprise, the Province of Ontario funds everything Metrolinx does: capital expenditures as well as annual fare “subsidies,” for example. By design. Which makes for a far tighter relationship than you’d see at NavCan, EDC or PortsToronto.
As exciting as these internal emails might have been, it’s the narrative that I want to focus on (from the same Star piece):
The 19-kilometre Crosstown has been under construction since 2011. It was originally supposed to open by 2020, but has been stymied by multiple delays and legal disputes between Metrolinx and Crosslinx Transit Solutions (CTS), the consortium building the line.
We’ll never know how long the Crosstown project would have taken to complete if Covid hadn’t shown up, but I’m reminded that it took ~19 years to build the current version of the Welland Canal — and that was all above ground! More relevant, for this post’s purposes, is that the Gordie Howe bridge was also to open in 2020.
The Globe’s August 2nd piece dedicated 3,280 words to the opportunity for a “rebirth of a regional economy” presented by the long-awaited GHIB bridge, yet there was no mention that construction was about five years behind schedule. Despite it involving “Canada’s single most important economic artery, which carries roughly one-quarter of the goods traded between Canada and the United States.” The missed economic opportunity of a five year delay is probably incalculable, but I’d have thought that an authoritative and otherwise wide-ranging piece on the history of the project might delve into the stickiest issue of all — from the perspective of its inaugural Chairman, anyway.
Had the Liberal government managed the project better between 2016 and 2020, the resulting delays and cost increases (threefold) that could be entirely attributed to Covid’s arrival in 2020, as well as the subsequent supply chain delays and labour expense impacts, would have been dramatically mitigated.
I’m not being critical of Mr. Kirby’s piece, but I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of the coverage on Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown LRT project (media outlet agnostic) is on delays and gotchas, despite the fact that it appears to be closer than ever to the finish line (based on the reported vantage point of Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster). As important as this one LRT project will be to its future passengers and the businesses that spring up around the new stations, it doesn’t hold a candle to the economic impact that should follow the opening of the Gordie Howe bridge.
Could it be so simple as the fact that Toronto-based TV and print journalists haven’t been driving by the GHIB site for the past decade-plus, constantly being reminded that it’s late? I’d hope not.
Animosity towards Queen’s Park vs. Ottawa? Federal funding of most media outlets? Click bait? The public’s preference to hear about local transit rather than soulless, distant infrastructure, even if that infrastructure will be a key driver of future economic growth?
The current narrative around these two projects is tough to reconcile.
Exhibit B: Canada’s “pro-Palestinian” Protests vs the UK’s “Race Riots”
On the third day of August, one of Toronto’s main downtown streets was blocked, yet again, by masked “pro-Palestinian” protestors. ICYMI, Independent journalist Caryma Sa’d posted some footage of the event to her @carymarules Twitter account:
Make of this one particular protest what you will, and the fact that TTC buses and cars were blocked from going about their business on a Saturday. If you were at Wasaga Beach that day, you mightn’t care, but if you owned a retail store near this spot on Queen Street — business was likely down. For Jewish Canadians, this photo (credit: Caryma Sa’d team) was likely more disturbing than the former:
Between the “Boycott Divest Sanction” sign (an international movement that was formally declared by Germany as “anti-Semitic” in 2019), the inverted red triangle (worn as a badge in WWII Nazi Concentration Camps) and the “Long Live Legal Armed Resistance” slogan (who decides where and when this applies?), this protest undoubtedly frightened many of our neighbours.
As the distasteful post-October 7th version of Canada continues to play out, one Jewish friend asked rhetorically of me: “where do we go now?”
I thought of her a few days ago when my Toronto Star Editorial Board wrote a strong piece on “the riots playing out across Britain.” If you’re not already a subscriber, use this discount code www.thestar.com/informed and have a read for yourself.
The Aug. 7th Editorial makes several valid points, and likely reflects the perspective of many Torontonians. This passage stood out for me:
Policy failures, reckless political rhetoric and irresponsible social media platforms have together created conditions out of which the violence in British streets has arisen. It would be naive to believe that the potential for the same lawlessness is not right here.
For different reasons, the Aug. 3rd protest on Toronto’s Queen Street would have been illegal in both France and Germany. That’s one “narrative” that isn’t covered sufficiently well enough by Canada’s mainstream media.
Many of us, and not just Jewish Canadians, believe that Canada has been full of lawlessness for the better part of ten months (see representative prior posts “Cancelled Trudeau/Meloni AGO event marks a new low point for Law & Order in Toronto” March 3-24 and “‘Toronto the Good’ bows down to Iran” April 12-24). Father Ray de Souza had a look at what was going on in the U.K. and wrote what I’ll call a “concurring opinion” in the National Post yesterday. Here’s a key line:
Anti-Israel marauders have already been allowed to run wild in our [Canadian] streets.
That sounds pretty “lawless” to me, even if the mainstream Canadian media narrative generally tilts otherwise.
My Star colleagues are, like me, concerned about the state of play (although our focus differs):
In Canada, the long-standing political orthodoxy that immigration is a solution rather than a problem seems increasingly vulnerable amid our own affordability crisis and a failure of government to make the necessary investments to deliver on the promise of immigration.
Affordable housing availability has become a national crisis, and has fallen well below what is needed for new arrivals, international students, non-permanent residents and temporary foreign workers. The federal Liberals have pledged to keep the proportion of non-permanent residents below five per cent of the Canadian population over the next three years, but this may prove an inadequate remedy to a problem created by governments in the first place. The problem has not been immigration levels needed to fill labour shortages and fuel the economy; it has been the failure to provide the basics for this influx, from services for Canadians like transit and health care to necessary investments for the successful integration of newcomers.
In summary: i) while Toronto’s streets and University campuses have been replete with “lawlessness” for months, it’s just not been “alt-right thugs” doing the lawbreaking; and, ii) “The problem has not been immigration levels,” despite being the highest in Canadian history; it’s that government’s haven’t made the “necessary investments.”
I’d offer a series of facts and perspectives that might counter this narrative.
Ottawa alone will spend $538 billion this year. Whatever “investments” the Liberal government have made over the past nine years have been outstripped by the sheer quantum of “new arrivals, international students, non-permanent residents and temporary foreign workers.” The “build it and they will come” strategy cum cliche wasn’t followed; before adding the necessary extra bedrooms, so to speak, the Grits jammed Urban Canada to the gills. We all are paying the price — through reduced services and higher taxes — for their incompetence.
The Ontario government is spending tens of billions of dollars on new transit infrastructure, but most of the highest-impact projects won’t be completed for years to come. I wouldn’t call that “a failure to provide the basics,” as much as Ottawa’s partisan motivation to dramatically grow our population prior to key parts of Urban Canada being ready to receive these newcomers. If the temporary foreign workers that came to Canada over the past 24 months were drywallers, roofers, stationary engineers, ie. suitably skilled labour — ala the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, according to industry players — we’d be able to build new houses and affordable apartment projects both faster and at a higher quality.
That doesn’t seem to be the TFW cohort that Ottawa has facilitated, unfortunately.
Instead, you may have noticed that many landscaping firms, house cleaning companies, quick service food shops, Jiffy Lubes and busy marinas have suddenly started recruiting folks from various corners of the world for jobs that were being filled by locals in prior years. This change has exacerbated the noted pressures, depressed local wages and undermined traditional youth summer employment hopes, instead of contributing to their resolution.
Former Immigration Minister Chris Alexander makes an excellent case that “Unsustainable population increases won’t solve Canada’s underlying issues,” and you can chew on that piece at your leisure (via the Macdonald-Laurier Institute).
Unlike the Crosstown vs. GHIB narrative, this situation cuts to the core of our nation and the facts are clear. Canadian job-creators and many of our best high school grads are looking longingly at building their futures in the U.S.A. (see Emigration from Canada to the U.S. hits a 10-year high as tens of thousands head south).
Whether you’re a “glass half full” or “glass half empty” type, there’s no narrative that can completely cloud us from this reality: our Nation’s trajectory is self-defeating, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
MRM
(note: this post, like all blogs, is a personal Opinion Piece and has not been reviewed or approved by any other party)
(Photo: Irving Penn, Newspaper Vendor, Paris, 1950)