PSAC should ask for one more thing.

The Liberals seem to be employing a set of familiar political tactics on striking public sector workers.

Over the weekend, reliable Liberal communicator and federal cabinet Minister Karina Gould sent a clear message to Canadians who need a passport. 

Speaking to the impact of striking Public Sector of Alliance Canada (PSAC) workers on already slow passport processing times, Gould said on Global News' West Block, "My best advice to Canadians is not to make that application right now because it just simply won't be processed." She went on to make the implied part clear. "[Canadians who need a passport]...will not be able to apply for a passport while the strike is ongoing." 

The translation was clear - if you're a Canadian who is frustrated about being able to get a passport, blame the striking workers, and don't look at the Liberal cabinet.

Unfortunately for PSAC workers, this example demonstrates Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is willing to employ tactics they have previously relied upon when they found themselves in a spot where they may have to make a politically tricky decision: cast blame for the issue on one of the affected parties, deflect responsibility for the situation, and drag out the decision-making process as long as possible hoping that it resolves itself without the government having to take a stand.

Trudeau has taken this approach before. For example, he delayed a decision on the Northern Gateway project to the point where the industry couldn't find a viable path forward after a long history of stoking divisions between the industry and opposing stakeholder groups instead of acting as a conciliator. The result was devastating - anger from the public against environmental groups and first nations communities seeking a path forward that addressed their issues while creating a regulatory environment so uncertain that many large capital investors now seek Canada as a place that is too risky to do business.

An even more relevant example was Trudeau's response to a superbly researched report issued by the Royal Society of Canada in April 2021. The report outlined the litany of reasons why Canadians were vaccine-hesitant, including a lack of trust in the government and cultural sensitivities. But instead of doing the hard work of developing a holistic, thoughtful plan to address each area of concern, Trudeau chose a different path. He othered Canadians who had decided not to take the vaccine by calling them names and blaming failures in the healthcare system and continued pandemic restrictions on their vaccination status. Not once did he take responsibility for finding an inclusive path forward or attempt to put salve on the deep rifts that his decisions exacerbated. 

Regardless of how someone felt about the vaccine debate, in Canada, there now urgently needs to be consensus across political lines that politics of division - where political actors deflect their responsibility onto others by creating false "good guys" and "bad guys" - needs to stop. The cost to Canada's pluralism is too great - Canadians need to be brought together even during difficult political moments. In that spirit, no Canadian should allow the government to use that tactic on striking PSAC workers.

The Trudeau government has made nearly eight years of decisions that have had consequential outcomes on the current cost of living crisis every Canadian worker faces. Their decisions have led to a deficit so high that the government is now facing a lack of capacity to cover its employees' increased cost of living. The strike shows that Trudeau's Ministers did not have a plan to address expiring union worker contracts when they made massive expenditures in other areas. And if there are productivity concerns within the federal government, it is not the fault of rank-and-file employees; it is the job of Ministers to set standards and find ways to get their departments to meet them. (The New Democratic Party shouldn’t escape scrutiny here either, as they have voted in favour of many of the Trudeau government’s decisions.)

If the strike drags on, Canadians will continue to experience poor service (frankly, a problem that existed before the strike), and PSAC's workers will continue to lose their daily salary. In that scenario, if Canadians allow the government to position public dialogue on strike as public sector workers against everyone else, everyone loses. And that's because the government must be held accountable to find a fair deal for workers, show respect for public funds, while ensuring that Canadians get a better standard of service from the government than they have experienced over the last several years. 

That is squarely the responsibility of the Trudeau government. But, finding a path forward that accomplishes those goals after posting years of big deficits and failing to enforce service standards in the middle of a high-inflation environment will take hard work and decisions that will take political courage to make. And that may be why the Trudeau government is starting to pit public sector workers against every other Canadian. It could be that they hope PSAC and the public accept the narrative that the buck for this mess doesn't stop with the cabinet.

That can't be allowed to happen. Canadian public and private sector workers alike all deserve action from the federal government to address the fact that wages aren't addressing rapid increases in the cost of living. Any suggestion otherwise from the government is a demonstration that they are not willing to take responsibility for finding a smart path forward, and frankly, is not what a “good-faith” negotiation looks like.

In that, we can only hope that PSAC's list of demands also includes a Prime Minister and a cabinet that is more willing to take responsibility for its own actions and less eager to blame problems on the people it's supposed to serve. 

And that’s something all of us should stand in solidarity with.