Parliamentary chicken
Are we headed for an election? RIP Tim Cook. Getting Canada's mining on track. So many Spends.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one: A minority government in Ottawa, barely six months into its term in office presents its first budget in late fall. The budget does not pass, losing a vote in the House of Commons by six votes. The government is brought down, triggering a wintertime election which, by all accounts, nobody wanted.
We’re a long way from Joe Clark’s short spell as prime minister, but his misadventure in House management serves as a perpetual reminder that when it comes to parliamentary game theory, it’s possible for everyone to lose.
And so with a federal budget due next week, Ottawa is once again consumed by its favourite parlour game: trying to figure out whether the government will survive to see another one. For weeks now there have been growing rumblings about MPs quietly scoping out office space for their election headquarters, while the government House Leader, Steven Mackinnon, has been worrying about whether the Liberals have the votes they need.
In the past week, three well-connected political veterans—Bruce Anderson, Fred DeLorey, and Michelle Rempel Garner—all took to their Substacks to offer sharply different readings of what’s about to happen. Taken together, their essays capture the uncertainty of this strange, liminal moment in Canadian politics, when a government that seems secure on paper is starting to look like it is teetering on the edge of collapse.
In Anderson’s telling, the story is straightforward: if an election happens, it will be because the opposition parties decide to cause one. Canadians, he argues, have just had an election and don’t want another. Roughly a third of voters don’t participate at all, another third are locked in partisans, and the swing voters who decide outcomes are not obsessing over Parliament’s daily melodrama. They want calm, competence, and a sense that someone is in charge. Budgets, deficits, and even the ongoing trade stalemate with Washington barely register unless they produce immediate pain in the form of tax hikes. For these voters, another campaign would look like a waste of money and a failure of adulthood in Ottawa.
If Anderson wants to portray himself as the voice of the pragmatic centre, Rempel Garner’s essay is pure opposition fury. In her view, the Liberals are deliberately goading the opposition into an election they actually want. Unable to deliver on their promises to cut the cost of living and strike a trade deal with the United States, she argues that the Liberals see this fall as their last window to capitalize on post-election goodwill before the economic picture deteriorates further. The Carney government’s rhetoric toward opposition proposals, especially from House Leader Steve MacKinnon, suggests a party eager to be defeated rather than one trying to make this parliament work. Rempel Garner suggests that for the Liberals, it is better to run now than to limp into 2026 amid a worsening deficit, spiralling food prices, and collapsing voter confidence.
Fred DeLorey, a former Conservative strategist, tries to split the difference. Yes, he writes, the government’s days are numbered, but not because of conspiracy or arrogance. It’s just math plus self-interest. The Liberals hold 169 seats, the combined opposition 174; every party has its own reasons to vote no. The Bloc Québécois wants to dramatize Ottawa’s indifference to Quebec. The NDP, down to seven seats and with an interim leader, needs to reassert its relevance. The Conservatives smell opportunity and can’t be seen compromising with a government their base despises. In that arithmetic, DeLorey argues, survival is not an option. “This isn’t collapse,” he concludes. “It’s calculation.” Everyone stands to gain from rolling the dice.
Except, perhaps, Canadians, for whom the costs of another election are both financial and psychic. The literal price tag—hundreds of millions for Elections Canada and the parties—is trivial compared to the fatigue of politics without closure. A snap campaign would less than a year since the last one, reinforcing the impression of a country trapped in perpetual rehearsal, unable to govern itself for long enough to accomplish anything. For a government that promised competence and calm after the Trudeau years, another trip to the polls would confirm the suspicion that Canada has entered a permanent minority era, where every budget is a cliff-hanger and every leader governs with at least one eye on the next writ drop.
The irony is that all sides could plausibly claim to be respecting democracy. The opposition can argue that defeating the budget is holding the government to account; the Liberals can argue that asking voters for a majority is the only way to govern responsibly. Yet the cumulative effect is just further erosion – of patience, trust, and the idea that Parliament is a place where Canada’s many problems get solved rather than staged.
We were crestfallen this week to learn of the passing of Tim Cook, the chief historian at the Canadian War Museum, at the age of 54. He wrote 19 books, mostly on various aspects of Canada’s role in the two World Wars. He won numerous awards, including the Stacey prize, the Pierre Berton Award, and the Charles Taylor Prize.
But beyond his writing, it is hard to overstate how important Cook was, not just to the War Museum as an institution, but to Canada’s military history and to the country more broadly. Put simply, Tim Cook was the sort of person no country can do without — the keeper of its past, its memory, and its continuity as a nation. He was close to irreplaceable.
As Christopher Dummitt put it in his lovely obituary of Cook: “A strong, stoic Canadian, Tim Cook gave to his family, his community and his country. He deserves a place of honour as one of our greatest storytellers.”
What’s new at Build Canada
We Need to Revitalize Canada’s Mining Industry
Historically Canada has been the mining capital of the world. Forty percent of all mining stocks are listed on the TSX, and the country has craeted generations of expertise.
But, over the last 10 years, permitting delays have meant we’ve only built a handful critical minerals projects in a time when we should have finished dozens. This has led to a lack of belief in the investment community that Canada will produce the minerals we have and as a result private capital has started to flow elsewhere.
Right now, the world is looking for new mines to provide the raw materials (including rare earths and other minerals) essential to clean energy technologies, AI buildouts and geopolitical security. The question is, where will they get built?
Canada still has both the breadth of natural resources as well as the talent, skills and capital to be the world leader in this industry. However, to get there, the country must start building mineral projects again. This requires both permitting reform to provide confidence that projects will be built as well as a catalyst with short-term government financing mechanisms to bring back private capital.
Many Spends
Canada Spends has launched 3 new Spends: Toronto Spends, Vancouver Spends and BC Spends. See a breakdown of your city or province’s revenues and spend, better understand where your tax dollars go, and how it affects residents and programs. Thanks to Ajay Matharoo and Jonathan Talmi for their work on Toronto Spends, to Boris Tsao for leading Vancouver Spends, and for Sahib K for bringing BC Spends to life.
We always knew that insulin was discovered in Canada — the story of Banting and Best is literally a part of our heritage. But what we learned from this great profile by Build Canada community member Faaiz Bilal is that we also built the system to produce and distribute insulin at scale. Frederick Banting is this week’s Great Canadian Builder.
Watch parties and reading groups and meet-ups, oh my
Budget Watch Party, Nov 4: Join us on Discord for a Budget Watch Party. We’ll be watching as the budget is being read live in the House of Commons, and chatting first takes as socials explode.
Budget Reading Groups: We’ll be reviewing the Federal Budget and reading a few Op Eds from key perspectives across the political spectrum which evaluate it. Join us in:
Toronto, Nov 6 (hosted by Zander Fraser)
Vancouver, Nov 12 (hosted by Annika Lewis)
Halifax, Nov 12 (hosted by Sam Silver)
Meet-ups:
Calgary, Nov 12: After high-demand for the initial meet-up, we’re running it back with a night of networking at House 831
UofT, Nov 13: Fireside chat with Farhan Thawar (Head of Engineering at Shopify), hosted with UofTHacks
And other fun stuff:
Community Spotlight, Nov 5: Join us on Discord where we’ll talk to one of our community members: Javan Wang, a senior designer at Shopify in Toronto, about meeting with City Councillors and being civically engaged.
Ottawa, Nov 10: A luncheon to celebrate the book launch of The Dollar A Year Men, exploring Canada’s wartime builder mindset
Virtual Reading Group, Nov 13: Jorge is hosting a virtual reading group for IFP’s latest piece on “How to Implement an Operation Warp Speed for Rare Earths”
Want to host your own? Join us, get in touch, and let’s get you moving.
What else we’ve been reading
Former deputy premier of Alberta Thomas Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition collected more than 450,000 signatures.
Quebec’s language cop is spending $218k to find out why young people are more interested in speaking English. And the province’s Education minister is upset that francophone graduates from McGill are getting jobs where they speak English.
Canada’s tourism sector had record revenues this summer, thanks to international travellers from outside the U.S. and strong domestic demand.
According to this report from TD, Canada’s stretched social infrastructure is already seeing some relief from the dialling back of immigration.
In 2023, Nigeria recorded more births than all of Europe (including Russia) combined
Lego is going digital! They are hiring a bunch of people who are interested in “Pioneering meaningful, creative, and joyful digital entertainment experiences for future generations.”
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Tim Cook will be hard to replace. By writing for the people while maintaining scholarly rigour, he kept Canada’s culture alive. If we are to avoid post-nationalism we need more like him.
war coming? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FM_Ywis9fM