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jeffrey simpson

Politically speaking, Ottawa, the nation's capital, should be called during the Justin Trudeau years: Toronto-on-the-Rideau.

Of course, the Prime Minister is from Quebec. His ministers come from every province of Canada, a fine reflection of a decentralized country. But behind the scenes, the moving vans have been heading up the highway from Toronto, and especially from the Liberal government at Queen's Park, to help run the entire country.

Some of the people from that city coming to Toronto-on-the-Rideau are not native Torontonians. Gerald Butts, for example, Mr. Trudeau's closest aide, is from Cape Breton and attended McGill University. David Herle, the party's pollster, is from Saskatchewan, and proudly so.

Whether native Torontonians, or people who moved there for career purposes, the Prime Minister's staffers are disproportionally from that city. By contrast, the paucity of francophones from Quebec in a government led by a Quebecker has been widely and disapprovingly noted in the Quebec media.

Many of those coming from Toronto have been close to the Liberal provincial governments since 2003 of premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne. That applies to David MacNaughton, the newly appointed Canadian ambassador to the United States, who worked in both the McGuinty and Justin Trudeau campaigns, among others. Ditto for Matthew Mendelsohn, who created the Mowat Centre think tank for Mr. McGuinty and has been appointed by the Trudeau Liberals to a very senior position in the Privy Council Office, deputy secretary to the cabinet.

The Toronto-on-the-Rideau influence reflects not only sheer numbers but, more importantly, a certain way of viewing government. If you like(d) the way Liberals have approached governing Ontario, you will admire what is already unfolding in Ottawa. Or the contrary.

Like them or not, the Ontario Liberals have dominated provincial politics for a decade. They have been blessed, as lucky governments sometimes are, by particularly inept opposition parties and leaders. But the Liberals have also found sweet spots in public opinion and held them in good economic times and bad.

The Ontario Liberals have presided over a doubling of Ontario's debt in the past decade, some of which reflects damage from the financial recession of 2008-2009, some from very expansive spending before that recession for renewable energy, early kindergarten, K-12 education, health care. And, of course, the province's manufacturing sector has been hollowing out, costing jobs for people and revenue for them and the government.

Pre- and post-recession, Ontario Liberal governments assisted a host of private enterprises with public money. The government's whole thrust into renewable energy during the phase-out of coal, whatever else its ambitions, reflected an industrial policy built on huge subsidies for private industry. The idea of government as industrial designer has infused itself into federal Liberal thinking.

So has the Ontario Liberal idea of aggressive social spending for poverty reduction, a new provincial pension plan, assisted housing, renewable energy. The state as social engineer and moral arbitrator inspires the provincial Liberals, as in attitudes toward sex education about gays and transgenders in schools, and recognition, however symbolic, of aboriginal rights and claims.

That Ontario ministers, including Ms. Wynne, ritualistically begin speeches by stating "we stand on the traditional lands of the (fill in the blank) peoples" is reflected in the "nation-to-nation" rhetoric of the Trudeau government.

The notion of kick-starting and sustaining an economy through spending on physical infrastructure, hardly unique to the Ontario Liberals, is certainly a mantra for the Trudeau Liberals. They are counting on pouring money into physical infrastructure, social spending and tax cuts for the middle class to invigorate the economy. Like the provincial Liberals, the federal ones will push way down the road the inevitable hard fiscal decisions that will come with exploding deficits.

These Ontario Liberal attitudes, preferences and traits have obviously brought electoral success. A careful reading of the latest report of the Ontario Auditor-General, however, is a sobering, even devastating indictment of the government's performance.

Chapter after depressing chapter, Bonnie Lysyk outlined policies poorly designed and executed, often at considerable cost. She describes a government that made announcements of new programs, spread money everywhere, but had little sense of management once the announcements were made and the headlines secured.

If these habits are imported to Toronto-on-the-Rideau then taxpayers across Canada are not going to like what they see. Then again, who reads reports of the Auditor-General? Against her indictment is juxtaposed the undeniable political success that the Ontario Liberals have enjoyed.

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