Canada’s ship of state is sinking. While U.S. president Donald Trump threatens massive damage to Canada’s economy through the imposition of tariffs on Canadian imported goods and further threatens our sovereignty by loudly proclaiming a desire to make Canada the 51st state, Canada’s parliament is at a standstill having been prorogued by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Prorogation followed months of parliamentary deadlock caused by Trudeau’s government refusing to surrender documents required by law to parliament.
The country also finds itself ill-prepared to respond to Trump’s threats but also to threats posed by China and Russia with regard to Canada’s sovereignty over the Arctic. In addition, there are manifold domestic issues including housing affordability, health care, crime, border security, and economic stagnation. The government’s pursuit of a climate change and woke identity politics agenda has resulted in policies that thwart economic growth and social mobility. Trudeau has effectively run the Canadian ship of state aground.
As the captain of the ship, Trudeau has demonstrated little to no competence and a penchant for making grand gestures while delivering little of substance. The nation has veered off its historically measured and successful course under Trudeau’s captaincy. Too far into the voyage, Canadians began to realize that things were going badly wrong and called out the government. Support for the Trudeau Liberals started to crumble. He blamed broad public dissatisfaction on the public’s own inability to grasp what a tremendous job he and his crew were doing. Trudeau denied that he was in any way responsible or that a correction was needed and instead doubled down on his talking points until, finally, his own caucus and senior ministers began to quit their watch and leave the bridge. When it became clear that the nation, and his own political career, were about to run aground, Trudeau prorogued parliament and jumped ship. While the ship continues to list badly, Trudeau carries on as if he is still at the helm and sailing in calm seas.
In January 2012 Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized after striking rocks off a Tuscan coastal island. While 4,200 people were saved in the ensuing rescue operation, 33 perished. The disaster, completely avoidable, occurred when the captain, Francesco Schettino, ordered the helmsman to swing the vessel closer to Giglio Island to execute a maritime salute that included sounding its horn. The maneuver was purely for show but went horribly wrong because the Indonesian helmsman and the Italian captain had difficulty communicating due to language differences. The helmsman steered the ship in the wrong direction and although Schettino ordered him to change course again it was too late, and the Costa Concordia struck some rocks, suffered a 53-metre tear in its hull, and began to take on water.
With a damaged rudder and no power, the ship veered toward the island, ran aground and began listing to the starboard (right) side. As the vessel drifted toward shore a frightened passenger called her daughter in Italy who, in turn, contacted the Italian coast guard. The latter called the Costa Concordia, but Schettino told them they had only experienced a blackout. The coast guard contacted the ship again minutes later and the captain replied that while they were taking on water, they only needed some tugboats.
About fifteen minutes after the first rescue vessel arrived, Schettino ordered that the ship be abandoned by all passengers and crew. The captain left the bridge twenty-five minutes later and soon left the vessel, later claiming that he fell off the ship and landed in a lifeboat. The last crew member left the bridge thirteen minutes later even though 300 people were still aboard. A coast guard captain ordered Schettino to return to the ship to supervise the rescue operation, but Schettino refused.
After more than 21 months of preparation culminating in a massive 19-hour salvage operation that required specially designed equipment and 500 people, the Costa Concordia was righted, removed and towed away to be scrapped.
Schettino was tried and convicted and, following an appeal, finally sentenced to 16 years in prison, but not before he held a panic management seminar in 2014 and published a book, The Submerged Truths, which he dedicated to those lost in the disaster and in which he cast himself as a hero.[1]
In a letter directed to a maritime safety conference in London in 2018, Schettino wrote from prison, “I have always stressed the importance of the Bridge Team efficiency and effectiveness. In my life I have never left things unplanned. Notwithstanding my attitude, that night I have experienced that a whole team of conning officers, three of them including a deck cadet while on duty at their radars and ECDIS stations, did not detect that the ship was running aground”.[2]
On two prior occasions, he was involved in maritime accidents that resulted in damage. A woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair was on the Costa Concordia’s bridge the night of the disaster.
The tragic story of the Costa Concordia is a parable that Canada should have paid careful attention to. The moral lesson it delivers is a simple one. A person who exhibits poor judgement, who asserts that all is well when demonstrably things are going badly awry, who denies responsibility for the disaster they have orchestrated, and who ultimately deserts their post when everything is all but lost should never have been given the role they had in the first place. Such people are not invisible. They are dilettantes and narcissists. They are glib when seriousness is required and at other times feign seriousness to obscure their shallowness and incompetence. They also surround themselves with sycophants who lack the moral courage to do the right thing until it is well past time to throw the engines into reverse and bring things back under control.
The solution to righting the Canadian ship of state and getting back under way is not to replace the captain with someone who sails using the same set of charts as the previous captain, who thinks themself heroic, and who similarly regards themself as above criticism or challenge from the same crew that served under the previous captain. The solution is to choose a captain and crew who understand that the whole vessel needs a refit and a new set of charts, and who collectively possess a full appreciation of the hazards that lie ahead but who are laser-focused on navigating those hazards to successfully reach the promised destination. A captain and crew who don’t have a predilection for grand gestures, preferring, instead, operational effectiveness.
To right the ship of state, Canadians needs to carefully consider the Costa Concordia parable, remove any trace of Canada’s own Captain Schettino and anyone who ever served on the bridge with him, and select a captain and crew ready and capable of beginning the wholesale refit and relaunch the country needs and deserves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Schettino
[2] https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/regulations/letter-from-captivity-former-costa-concordia-captain-francesco-schettino
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