After 8 years in power, the exit looms for Justin
In the late 1960s, Pierre Elliott Trudeau became my favourite political leader. Like a great athlete, he could bring a full house to its feet. He was charismatic, refreshingly brash, unconventional. A new star in the political sky. I still recall each successive ballot of the April 1968 Liberal leadership convention, like a thrilling season of hockey playoffs. The old Liberal Party heavyweights were knocked off, one after the other, by flamboyant upstart Trudeau.
Trudeaumania erupted, a dizzy Beatles-like exhilaration across Canada that reigned for months, which is hard for post-Boomers to imagine today.
In my 1970s student years, I admired his book Federalism and the French Canadians, a sparkling political read: spirited, cerebral, full of contrarian stances, along with private-school jibes and witty retorts in Latin. Unlike most Quebec intellectuals, he rejected separatism outright. Among his core arguments: a federal state is more flexible and tolerant than a unitary one. Built on checks and balances, it is correspondingly better for minorities.
As PM, Trudeau became steadily less popular as the ‘70s wore on. I was not alone with growing reservations about his leadership: he outraged left-leaning supporters by invoking martial law in 1970; he ridiculed wage-and-price controls while campaigning, but then quickly imposed them; and he doled out provocations against Western Canada and its interests. Power eroded his shiny image of liberal reformer.
Voters grew eager to move past Pierre Trudeau. The Conservatives won the election of 1979. Trudeau resigned the Liberal leadership and prepared to move on. (There was a postscript; more on that below.)
Justin, au contraire
Justin Trudeau followed in his father’s footsteps. His birth in 1971 was a national event, but he eventually left the spotlight. His funeral oration for his father in 2000 relaunched him into prominence.
On entering politics in the early 2000s, he displayed good instincts and resilience. After being rejected by the Stéphane Dion Liberals for the sure-win Outremont riding, he knocked on thousands of doors in 2007-08 and managed to be elected MP for Papineau. In his autobiography Common Ground, he recalls having the door often slammed in his face there by nationalists still angry at his father.
The family name did set him apart. It is often said that, if he were named Tremblay or Thomson, he would not be PM. Likely so, but first he had to win over a third-place party in which he was a junior member. He looked out of place. When he ran for Liberal leader against veteran MP Marc Garneau, the latter openly derided JT’s “lack of experience”. In 2013-2014, as a young leader, he again looked vulnerable: Quebec was not enthusiastic. His gamble didn’t seem to pay off.
Then came the 2015 federal election campaign. A sweeping victory totally changed his fortunes.
To my mind, Justin’s TV-debate style had been wooden and shrill. He endlessly repeated canned lines against then-PM Harper. One national columnist caught the flavour of his speaking style by reprinting it in all-CAPS (“MR. HARPER, YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS FAILED TO … ” etc.).
Aside from this over-rehearsed speaking style, what soured me on Justin that year was his irresponsible pile of promises: Canada would get an entirely new electoral system. Every single recommendation of the Indigenous reconciliation commission would be implemented. Government transparency would be massively improved. Postal service would be restored in urban apartment blocks. There would “small and temporary” deficits for stimulus spending. —Enough, already.
Paint by numbers
Once elected, the new Justin Trudeau government, to its credit, fulfilled commitments to welcome Syrian refugees, to review emissions restrictions, to appoint more women to Cabinet, and to end late-term Harper negativism. But even then, image often trumped substance. Trudeau embraced the Paris climate proposals while flying hundreds of civil servants there, often in Business class. Wouldn’t sending just 4-5 have been symbolic and effective?
An actor can never let us see that they are performing. Justin always seemed to be standing near a microphone, insisting discreetly on his benevolence.
Several ill-advised campaign commitments collapsed. After repeating 265 times on the campaign trail (someone kept track) that 2015 would be the “last election fought under the first-past-the-post system”, JT precipitously dropped the idea. The Liberal Party was projected to lose 30-40 seats under most forms of proportional representation, so its members pushed back. Goodbye, reform.
Over time, the PM’s performance style wore thin. An actor can never let us see that they are performing. Justin always seemed to be standing near a microphone, insisting discreetly on his benevolence. And he needed a script. When his chief of staff was forced out, he looked lost.
Trudeau also sees everything – and everyone – through an identity-politics lens. This paint-by-numbers approach led to fiascos. For example, appointing a Governor General who was, yes, a scientist, astronaut and francophone. But she totally lacked the key requirement for the post — diplomatic skills. Or, as ex-Justice minister Judy Wilson-Reybould repeatedly complained, she felt her professional judgement was overlooked and she was just “the Indian in the Cabinet”. Identity cannot be everything.
This approach has generated a backlash. Men now mostly reject Trudeau. The political paper Hill Times recently headlined: “It’s a guy thing: will male voters’ hostility sink Trudeau?”.
Justin Trudeau has been in power for almost eight years. As pollster Nick Nanos reports: “The Liberals don’t want an election any time soon […] they are dealing with a more serious challenge – that they are hitting their best-before date”.
In the Western world, 10 years is often the endgame for elected leaders. Even titans like De Gaulle and Thatcher were pushed out in their 11th years, while Tony Blair lasted exactly a decade. Pierre Trudeau, as noted above, was also defeated in his 11th year, before … the Conservative government unexpectedly fell, and he was called back for overtime.
Barring such a miracle and given his falling public support, voters may conclude: time’s up, Justin. Let’s look for a new star.
Article originally published in Sherbrooke Record weekend edition, April 2023.
