The Globe and Mail interviewed business leaders about Dominic LeBlanc’s appointment as finance minister, so it set the parameters for the resulting story. Those whose comments were reported on the front page of the Report on Business Dec. 18 were less than impressed with LeBlanc.
“Here is a guy that’s never been in business and never been in finance,” said one fund manager. “The fact that we have another person who doesn’t have a lot of finance experience is not the greatest thing,” said the chief investment officer at another firm.
These men are entitled to their opinions, but their assumption that Canada’s finance minister needs to be “one of us” shows a lack of regard for broader concerns. Although LeBlanc is the minister of “finance,” it does not mean his decisions should kowtow to the finance industry.
I am not a fan of the deficit budgeting that plagues almost all of Canada’s governments. Deficits and debt privilege the interests of the present generation at the expense of those who will come later. A finance minister should deliver balanced budgets.
However, one doesn’t need years of experience working for a bank or running a business to accomplish that goal. A finance minister has a large staff to advise him or her of the economic implications of possible courses of action. LeBlanc, having earned law degrees from the University of New Brunswick and Harvard as well as spending 24 years in elected office, can surely understand a balance sheet.
The finance minister should have broader concerns. Those include economic prosperity but also, and primarily, the good of all. Enhancing the common good is not a business decision. It prioritizes overcoming the trials and tribulations of all.
I do not hold an elevated opinion of politicians, although I do wish they deserved a high level of respect. But any political candidate who spends time going door to door will be able to put faces on every social issue they have heard of and some of which they were unaware. If elected, they will then hear such concerns daily.
One, of course, can turn a deaf ear to those concerns or focus on feathering one’s nest. Former minister Chrystia Freeland pointedly wrote that Canadians “know when we are working for them, and they equally know when we are focused on ourselves.”
Still, extensive political experience is likely the best preparation for national leadership, including the position of finance minister. Canada has suffered because so few capable people remain in politics for more than two terms. The term “career politician” has become an epithet for someone drinking heavily from the public tap rather than one who devotes their best years to public service.
The angel of the Lord, in announcing the forthcoming birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah, described the sort of leader we might best desire. “He will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.
“With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:15-17).
As a young man, the Baptist described his “political” program: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise” (3:11).
To expect our finance minister to have a background in business or finance is not to ask too much. It is to set our sights too low. The best leading officials do more than run the bureaucracy and balance budgets. They lead the people in virtue and righteousness. They inspire us with dreams of what we could be if we worked together.
I know little of Dominic LeBlanc and whether he is an apt choice. He won’t be a modern-day Elijah. However, we should not limit our expectations of a leader to the financial dimension of the job. The minister should have a broad focus and aim at the betterment of all Canadians.