Book Review: Where To From Here: A Path to Canadian Prosperity

Where To From Here: A Path to Canadian Prosperity

Authors: Bill Morneau with John Lawrence Reynolds

Publisher: ECW Press, hardcover, 327 pages, including: Introduction, Reflections, Index, and Acknowledgements

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Authors 

Bill Morneau was Canada’s finance minister in the Liberal government from 2015 to 2020. He graduated from Western University (BA), the London School of Economics (M.Sc. (Econ.)), and INSEAD (MBA), prior to joining the benefits consulting firm founded by his father and growing it into Canada’s largest human resources company. He is the husband of Nancy, and the father of four children. 

John Lawrence Reynolds has authored/co-authored almost 40 books. He is the winner of 3 Arthur Ellis Awards and a National Business Book Award. 

Brief Observations 

The main content of this volume consists of 18 chapters, which focus on a variety of aspects of Bill Morneau’s experiences as the minister of finance in the federal Liberal government of 2015 to 2020. Morneau is a firm believer in hard work and building relationships with others/networking, in the pursuit of political and economic success. In the introduction, he states the purpose of writing this book: “I wrote this book to provide a record of the many successes and multiple stumbles that occurred over the years immediately following the 2015 election (p. 15).”

One of his important learnings was from a previous Liberal finance minister, and later Prime Minister, Jean Crétien. Crétien advised Morneau that he should expect tension between the Prime Minister and the minister of finance. This tension, according to Crétien, was necessary and healthy—since the Prime Minister will want to please the public as well as many of the various other ministers in the government, whereas the finance minister will want to be a wise steward of the budget, and not overspend, especially in areas which may be less important than others. Morneau laments a few times in this volume that his advise was not followed by the Prime Minister or the staff in the Prime Minister’s Office. 

Even though Morneau valued personal relationships with other elected Members of Parliament, he found Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be rather formal, not too eager to share matters of a personal nature with him. 

In this volume, Morneau takes great pride in his accomplishments, two of which were the Canada Child Benefit, and improvements to the Canada Pension Plan. 

Although he speaks of dealing with the issues of climate change/crisis, and further reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, he does not seem to take—in this reviewer’s humble opinion—them seriously enough. He goes on about carbon pricing as a means of dealing with climate change/crisis, however, I am not convinced that it is going to prove to be as effective as he thinks it will be. He also thinks that Canada’s dependency on the oil and gas industry will continue for at least two more decades. I hope he is wrong, but who knows?

Another area I found to be problematic was Morneau’s view of private ownership vs government/crown ownership. He thinks that private ownership is, in most, if not all cases, better than government/crown ownership. I disagree, privatized healthcare is inclined to favour the wealthy. Another example is campgrounds and parks. Government managed campgrounds and parks are much superior to privately-owned ones. 

For Morneau, one means on the pathway to Canadian prosperity is to improve the rate of productivity. “Out of 36 OECD countries measured from 2000 to 2019, Canada rated in 25^th place when it came to productivity growth (p. 289).” Also, according to Morneau, future projections of GDP growth for Canada was lower than several countries, including the U.S., India, China, Denmark Australia and Japan. Morneau offers several suggestions to improve Canada’s productivity and economic prosperity, which may prove helpful for future finance ministers and governments. He is hopeful that Canada will continue to be a successful democratic nation in the future. 

For Canadians—and perhaps those from other countries—interested in politics, economics, and history, this may be a volume worth reading. Although I disagreed with Morneau on several issues, I did empathize with him concerning the need for careful ethical considerations in making important decisions, and the need in politics for cooperation, compromise and a passionate vision for and commitment to the common good.