John Ivison: Political parties will do literally anything for marginal advantage at this point

It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives helped hammer home Yves-François Blanchet’s wedge in the House of Commons on Wednesday, making Justin Trudeau look like an uncharitable ageist for voting against a 10 per cent increase in Old Age Security payments for 65-74-year old seniors.

It was a classic parliamentary intrigue, the kind that backroom tacticians love to contrive.

But in the real world, the scheme could have backfired — and may yet — to commit the government to spend another $16 billion over five years that the country can ill afford, on a segment of the population that is already doing better than younger generations.

It was an irresponsible gamble and a concerning indicator that the Conservatives are prepared to bend their principles for votes. This is the party seeking to get elected on the mantra of “fixing the budget,” after all.

Blanchet brought forward the motion to cause maximum distress to Trudeau. It called on the Liberals to grant a royal recommendation to a Bloc private member’s bill — C319 — that is at third reading in the House of Commons. Without the Liberals’ blessing, neither the bill nor the motion is binding, since private member’s bills can’t compel governments to spend money.

Before the vote, the Liberals made clear they would reject the idea on the basis it would set a bad precedent for an opposition day motion to force the government’s hand. Worryingly, that does not mean they won’t ultimately support the Bloc bill.

The Conservatives appear to have relied on the non-binding nature of the vote: It allowed them to help the Bloc turn up the heat on the Liberals without consequence. One experienced practitioner of the parliamentary dark arts said that, if you view the vote strategically as a means to an end — forcing a snap election, it’s a worthwhile risk.

The vote certainly widened the rift between Blanchet and Trudeau, and its outcome suggests the Bloc will soon withdraw its support for the government in future confidence votes. “Why get in the way?” said the former parliamentary strategist.

But this is appalling legislation and voting for it was an error in judgment. How appalling?

I wrote about this last week and received incoming missives from seniors who raged against anyone interfering with their Canada Pension Plan income.

But this has nothing to do with CPP, a lifetime contribution pension that is completely separate from Ottawa’s seniors’ benefits.

The OAS is a straightforward spending scheme paid from general revenues, not contributions. The $8,492 a year payment is made to all seniors, with some clawback for those earning more than $80,000 or so. But payments are still made to seniors with very comfortable incomes of over $150,000.

The case can be made that there are poor seniors and the government has a separate benefit for them — the Guaranteed Income Supplement, with an income cut-off of just over $20,000. Nobody would complain much if the increase was targeted at this group, given the price tag would be much lower.

But as University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe has illustrated time and again (most recently on Thursday in The Hub), many seniors are doing relatively well and should not be the recipients of more benefits at the expense of less well-off members of society.

He noted that recent increases in interest and investment income for the over 65s have outpaced interest costs by three to one; for the 35-44 age group, that ratio is reversed. The Bloc bill would widen that gap.

Tombe said that there used to be a link between seniors’ benefits and taxes — if one went up, so did the other.

He calculated that, if the link were still in place, the 10 per cent OAS boost (including the one for the over 75s, which started in 2022) would raise taxes by $200-400 a year for individuals.

“For those in their 40s with two kids, I estimate the cost would be roughly $500 a year,” he said.

That the additional expense of the OAS increase would just be lumped onto the national debt, does not make it free. It would have to be paid off sometime by future generations.

Given Poilievre’s decisive lead among younger Canadians, you might have thought he would be more conscious about intergenerational inequity.

But he was prepared to risk the substance of the support from young Canadians across the country to grasp at the shadow of more votes in Quebec, where polls suggest the Conservatives are not only trailing the Bloc but also the Liberals.

Quebec remains the last bastion of Liberal resistance and if his numbers start to slide further, Trudeau could yet reverse himself and back the Bloc bill that is still before the House, regardless of the impact on his claims about intergenerational fairness or the public finances.

We are now at the stage of the game where the political parties will do literally anything for marginal advantage.

As Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor at Carleton University, wrote on X: “Once the Commons starts deciding — against the judgment of ministers and with the implied threat of non-confidence — that the executive provides a royal recommendation for a private member’s bill, we should elect a new Commons.”

[email protected] Twitter.com/IvisonJ

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