Apparently it’s grand being a Liberal in Canada. You’re the best, you know it, and you want the world to see you dance before your own tabernacle. Which might not be the best approach just now.
It doubtless seems weird to emerge from the heady atmosphere of the Shaw Centre to a lecture on political tactics from me, of all people. Ditto on humility. But according to the Angus Reid “tracker,” Trudeau’s net approval rating is now minus 20 so those sunny ways aren’t casting much warmth.
Obviously I don’t expect the party or its leader to share my philosophical or political views entirely. But could the adults in the room not see, after a string of scandals, divisive rhetoric, and this ghastly Chinese electoral meddling debacle, that what the party needed at its national convention was “Still progressive, but older and wiser,” not “Only enemies could criticize our brilliant leader”?
So let them boast of protecting the world’s most permissive abortion rules against a phantom American threat, legalizing marijuana, and being so into fighting climate change they hesitated before whooshing by private jet to the King’s Coronation then back again. But are they not slightly chastened that they haven’t curbed emissions, balanced the budget, reformed the electoral system, or brought us together? Was this really the moment for a victory dance?
Yes, because for them it always is. The reason they blithely bring in censorship, invoke the Emergencies Act, skip a budget one year, and patronize or smear critics, is that nothing dents their sublime confidence in their own radiant excellence. While checking the PM’s coronation itineraries I even encountered a flowery tweet: “May 8 to 12 is Gender-based Analysis Plus Awareness Week” (with Trudeau high-fiving a kid), which was absolutely typical in that merely bringing in boring ordinary path-breaking gender-based analysis isn’t enough for these saviours of the universal human race.
Every day must transcend reality to infinite social justice and beyond. Even though the technical drudgery of successfully doing such analysis, let alone basing policy on it, is utterly beyond them. Years ago they noticed implementation might matter, paid a deliverology guru a bunch of your money, discovered delivering was hard, and rushed off to some shiny new progressive cause thinking, whee great being us.
Not everyone agrees. So if they read books I’d suggest Bob Plamondon’s “The Truth About Trudeau,” an exasperating reminder of how Pierre Trudeau’s initially dazzling style increasingly alienated Canadians as his “Trudeaumania” façade of depth, charm, and confidence peeled off, revealing cold, frivolous self-absorption.
In these post-modern times a major Canadian commentator responded that people experience things differently: “Plamondon has his Trudeau and I have mine.” Which worried me because it threatened to multiply the number of Trudeaus we must contend with and because I think Little Potato is much more like his father than most people realize.
When people object that Pierre was a deep thinker, I challenge them to recall anything he said that (a) still seems wise and (b) was related to his actions. He emptied the treasury, wrecked the economy, praised Castro, and flipped off Western Canadians, and did lasting damage.
As for the Trudeau we have now, he did at one point claim to be sorry he’d been so incredibly, reflexively nasty about the truckers’ convoy. But the sneer hasn’t faded. And the convention featured, as special red-carpet guest deluxe, Hillary Clinton, an infamously divisive foreign politician noted for arrogance and ethical lapses. Especially since the Liberals are always saving us from the Americanization of politics, it was a calculated jab in the eye of anyone who finds their hypocrisy inflammatory (praising strong women then tossing Jody Wilson-Raybould under the bus for insubordination in defence of principle, or private-jetting to a vacation on the first National Day of Reconciliation).
Calculated? Probably not. Mostly they’re just intuitively surfing the wave of their own excellence, right down to Trudeau’s habitual Hollywood-entry smug wave to what one British newspaper called “well-wishers who may quite possibly have been entirely imagined.” But when you’re so satisfied with yourself, who needs crowds?
Well, politicians. At some point real voters need to mark the X and like his father, Trudeau is finding it harder and harder to locate such people. It shouldn’t need pointing out that after a majority in 2015 against tired Tory incumbents, he’s delivered two disappointing minorities only sustained by the hapless Jagmeet Singh. But apparently it does.
Or rather did before the convention, whose private internal theme should have been, “How do we help heal the divisions we have caused, if not for Canada then to help us win the next election?” It’s the question that preoccupied the adults, certainly.
They just weren’t in the room giddily voting for ever-more-left-wing ideas or drawing up a crown that discards the cross for the snowflake who thinks he’s king.
