The former mayor of Huntsville and current candidate for the Conservative leadership Scott Aitchison seems like a decent, reasonable man.
 
His calls for greater civility in Canadian politics and within the Conservative Party itself are refreshing.
 
His commitment to end supply management is courageous, and while I don’t agree with bits and pieces of his platform, he certainly wouldn’t scare me if he became the next Conservative leader.
 
Realistically, there is almost no chance of that happening, but in a time of increasingly unhinged and radical political discourse, Aitchison offers a pleasant reminder of what Canadian politics could still be, with a little bit of effort.
 
Perhaps it’s because I find Aitchison’s candidacy so appealing that I can’t stop thinking about how much I disagree with his most recent pledge.
 
Last week, he announced that, as prime minister, he would “end Canada’s ‘One China’ policy and recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.”
 
As a long-time student of Canadian diplomatic history, I cannot see anything positive coming from such a unilateral declaration.
 
The last time Canada freelanced this way on the world stage was in August 2018 when then foreign minister Chrystia Freeland tweeted out opposition to Saudi Arabia’s arbitrary imprisonment of a number of female human rights activists.
 
The Saudi reaction was disproportionate, and punitive, but there was nothing Ottawa could do about it. Moreover, rather than backing us, our “allies” collectively looked the other way.
 
And, of course, Saudi policy didn’t change at all.
 
To its credit, the Trudeau government learned its lesson: Canadian criticism goes much further when it is part of a larger Western, or global, initiative.
 
What’s more, when states are working together, it is significantly more difficult for the subject of their disapproval to lash out in response.
 
In the aftermath of China’s kidnapping of the Two Michaels, foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne quietly assembled a group of over 50 countries before announcing the Declaration against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations. 
 
One can debate the impact of the declaration on Chinese policy, but it certainly expressed Canada’s position just as clearly as a unilateral statement would have; it demonstrated that we were not alone in our view; and it did not incur significant blowback.
 
What makes Aitchison’s pledge even more frustrating is that he clearly knows better.
 
Consider the pragmatism evident in the rest of his position on Taiwan (the emphasis is mine): “We will work with our allies and trade partners to welcome Taiwan into the TPP and support their efforts to join international bodies like the WHO, obtain observer status at INTERPOL, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
 
Aitchison has to know that a more ambiguous commitment to recognizing Taiwan would make it significantly easier for Canadian negotiators to build support for the rest of his policy aims, especially among states that aren’t ready to be so open about their position. 
 
Nevertheless, he seems insistent on puffing out Canada’s proverbial chest – and thereby exposing the lack of force behind our words.
 
His pledge would inevitably lead to massive economic losses for Canadians who do business with China without doing anything for the people of Taiwan.
 
Ironically, to defend Aitchison’s position is to suggest that Canada’s independent voice on the world stage can make a significant difference on its own.
 
Yet, just last year, the Conservative Party’s own election platform claimed that “the Trudeau government has presided over a Canada with diminishing influence on issues that affect our prosperity and security.”
 
So not only is Aitchison’s proposal bad policy, it is also bad politics, especially for a Conservative.
 
Shame on whoever convinced him that promising to unilaterally recognize Taiwan was a good idea.
 
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On the state of Canadian foreign policy, take a look at former diplomat Dan Livermore’s thoughts about the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s ongoing review of our foreign service. I look forward to the committee’s eventual report.
 
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Late last week, the associate chief justice of British Columbia’s Supreme Court, Austin Cullen, released the results of a three-year investigation into money laundering in BC.
 
The National Post’s Sabrina Maddeaux provides quite a good summary of the lowlights. As the title of her article indicates, over the last decade, “Canada became a money laundering capital while Ottawa slept.”
 
In fact, Ottawa did much worse than just sleep. The Harper government all but created the problem when it disbanded the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated Proceeds of Crime Units as a cost-cutting measure in 2012.
 
It then took the Trudeau Liberals four years to launch the Financial Crime Coordination Centre, and their promised new Canada Financial Crimes Agency still isn’t up and running.
 
In the meantime, money laundering in BC alone has become a billion dollar problem.
 
Cullen has so little faith in Ottawa that he wants Victoria to create its own “dedicated provincial money laundering intelligence and investigation unit with a robust intelligence division.”
 
Although I sympathize with his evident frustration, I’m not sure that such a response will do much in the long run.
 
It seems to me that an effective anti-money laundering regime requires a stream-lined, consistent, national response.
 
Unfortunately, I have yet to find evidence of such a recipe for a country made up of 14 implicated governments (federal, provincial, territorial), not to mention a growing number of self-governing Indigenous nations, each of which have their own views on how the regime should be managed.
 
What's more, money laundering doesn’t even nest comfortably within the portfolio of a single federal government department.
 
FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, is housed in the Department of Finance under a minister who has far too many other things to do (not to mention a second portfolio as deputy PM) to make this a priority.
 
But FINTRAC might not be the best lead agency anyway.

The RCMP investigates and lays charges; the Canadian Border Services Agency is often involved because it tracks people who carry large amounts of cash over the border; Public Safety Canada is supposed to coordinate all things inter-governmental on issues like this one.
 
And don’t forget Global Affairs Canada, which leads Canada’s anti-money laundering efforts on the world stage.
 
And that’s before we get to the relevant regulatory agencies (real estate is a big problem in BC; gambling used to be), and the sub-federal governments themselves.
 
In recent years, I’ve asked some of my students to try to solve this quandary.
 
Their suggestions have varied from anointing a czar-like figure operating out of the Privy Council Office (the Prime Minister’s department); creating a new organization within Public Safety Canada that brings all of the actors together (which sounds a lot like what Ottawa is trying to do with the Canada Financial Crimes Agency); or empowering a single existing government department to lead.
 
The problem is that each idea has weaknesses (which is why the assignment works…).
 
A czar in the PCO would further centralize a government that already micromanages too much. Public Safety has proven incapable of corralling its own agencies, let alone their provincial equivalents. A new organization would lack the pre-established relationships with provincial governments that will be critical to success.
 
And none of these solutions integrates Global Affairs Canada.
 
Does that mean that we give up? Of course not, and to that end there’s much to learn from the Cullen report.
 
But the ongoing failure of federal and provincial anti-money laundering policies should serve as a reminder of both the dangerous implications of reckless cuts to critical government programs , as well as the need for humility when thinking about the overwhelmingly complex problems that Canadian governments are regularly faced with today.
 
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For more on money laundering in Canada, you can request a copy of Criminal Intelligence Service Canada's recent report here.
 
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The turnout in the recent Ontario election – at 43.5%, the lowest in this province’s history –
has got me thinking a lot about Canadians’ faith in our political process.
 
A recent poll suggested that our collective trust in governments, businesses, media, and advocacy groups has dropped significantly over the last four years.
 
What’s more, the politician currently generating the most enthusiastic support across this country has based his campaign for the leadership of the federal Conservatives around the idea that government should be as limited as possible because the “gatekeepers” cannot be trusted.
 
In this context, I’m following discussions about the future of Andrea Horwath, the former leader of Ontario’s New Democratic Party and current Member of Provincial Parliament for Hamilton-Centre, closely.
 
Horwath was re-elected as an MPP on June 2nd, but once it became clear that her party would not be forming the next government in Ontario, she resigned as leader of the NDP.
 
Less than 24 hours later, an article in the Hamilton Spectator speculated: “Is run for Hamilton mayor Andrea Horwath’s next move?”
 
The implication was that since she was no longer the NDP leader, Horwath was free to pursue other ways to, in her words, “fight for our everyday working people.”
 
And since the Hamilton mayoral campaign was accepting nomination papers until August 19th, she had (and still has) plenty of time to prepare for a run.
 
I hope Horwath stays where she is.
 
If she resigns her provincial seat – almost immediately after having been re-elected – she will be telling her constituents that it was never about them.
 
She wanted to be premier, sure, but she was only planning to represent the people of Hamilton-Centre because she had to. With the premiership off the table, someone else can look after their interests.
 
This would be a terrible message to send at any time, but it would be a particularly bad one right now.
 
The financial cost to Ontarians also concerns me.
 
If Horwath resigned, the Ontario government would have to call a by-election to replace her, which could cost as much as $500,000.
 
Meanwhile, as a long-time MPP and former leader of the opposition, upon her resignation, Horwath would collect a severance allowance of well over $200,000.
 
To be clear, since MPPs in Ontario have not received pensions since 1995, there is a compelling logic to providing them with financial support as they transition, often unexpectedly, back to a world where their political experience might not mean very much.
 
Doctors who run for office don’t get their patients back. The same goes for lawyers who give up their clients, and accountants, and contractors, and so many others.
 
If we want successful people to interrupt their careers and take pay-cuts to serve us in what are often thankless jobs, and we deny them a pension while they are doing so, surely we owe them some sort of support as they re-enter the traditional workforce.
 
But that contract should work both ways. Running for office should entail a genuine commitment to serve out one’s term.
 
It is one thing for an MPP to resign because of illness or a family crisis. It is quite another to quit because they see a job they like better.
 
If Horwath does resign, I would urge her to do what her fellow New Democrat MPP, Joe Cimono did in 2014 when he left Queen’s Park after just five months: don’t take the severance.
 
Far better, of course, would be to follow in the footsteps of the last NDP leader, Howard Hampton, and serve out the term.
 
And perhaps during that term, why not draft legislation that prevents anyone from collecting severance if they resign within a year (or two?) of being elected.
 
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On the question of whether the Ontario NDP and the Ontario Liberals should consider a merger, see this article by Steve Paikin. In it, Liberal party president Tim Murphy articulates a significantly more compelling vision of what it means to be an Ontario Liberal than anything I’ve heard from an elected official in years. (The federal party could learn something from him, too.)
 
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