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Tag: Justin Trudeau
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Whenever I advise a politician, I always make a prediction.
“I predict you will have a long and prosperous political career,” I’d say, “if you don’t make any predictions.”
Other advice I give: don’t ever, ever answer hypothetical questions about the future, because they are (a) hypothetical and (b) about the future, which hasn’t happened yet.
The most famous cautionary tale about political predictions comes from 1948. (I wrote all about it in one of my books, which I predict you will now want to buy.)
1948 was a U.S. presidential election year. That year, Harry S. Truman was the Democratic candidate and the incumbent. Thomas E. Dewey was the Republican standard-bearer, and the Governor of New York.
The Chicago Daily Tribune was pretty pro-Republican, and regarded Truman as “nincompoop,” quote unquote. Their Washington correspondent filed his election night story early – too early – and the resulting Daily Tribune headline forever became the stuff of legend: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN, it hollered.
Except, he didn’t. Truman won a massive electoral college victory. So much for political predictions.
But politicians still make ‘em. During the pandemic era, in Canada, we’ve been on the receiving end of not a few, too. Remember a cowboy-hatted Alberta Premier Jason Kenney boasting at the 2021 Calgary Stampede that the province would experience the “best Summer ever”? His party even sold ball caps bearing that prediction, so confident were they.
Well, no.
Covid 19 went thereafter on a rampage in my home province. So, in September, Kenney apologized: “It is now clear that we were wrong. And for that, I apologize,” he said. But polls suggest Albertans have not yet forgiven him.
And, to be fair, he’s not alone in getting things wrong. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for example, stepped into the minefield that is the soothsaying business in November 2020. The pandemic’s almost over, Trudeau suggested: “We’re going to need to have to do this for another few weeks, for another few months, and we can begin to see the other side of this.”
A “few weeks”? Nope. It’s much more than a year later, and the number of infected Canadians is worse than it’s ever been. With no end in sight.
But Messrs. Kenney and Trudeau aren’t alone. The leading American infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, actually forecast the end of handshakes: “I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you.”
That one didn’t come to pass, either. Many people still do, although perhaps not as much.
Other predictions by politicos and polling expert types: birthday candles would never again be blown out. Office spaces would never be used again, or not like they once were. Samples in cosmetic stores: gone. Business attire: toast. Air travel: buh-bye. Oh yes, and cities: cities, along with all that other stuff, was declared null and virus-voided. By some supposedly-smart political people, too.
A few pandemic prognostications were crazier than an outhouse rodent, and everyone knew at the time. Witness President Donald Trump’s firm prediction that the virus would away by the time the weather got warmer.
The virus didn’t go away, however. But Donald’s presidency sure did.
Political predictions are risky, risky business. We ink-stained wretches make preposterous predictions all the time, and we rarely get called on it. But woe unto the politician – cf. Trump, Kenney et al. – who has a muddied crystal ball. They’ll never hear the end of it, if they get things wrong.
So, no predictions, here, about when the pandemic will end, whether another variant is heading our way, or whether the Maple Leafs will ever actually win something (anything).
Instead, I verily predict that this column will end right about here.
(And the Leafs will never win.)
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
With Angela Merkel’s retirement as German Chancellor, Justin Trudeau has become the dean of G7 leaders, its longest serving leader.
That speaks as much to the latest turnover among G7 leaders as to Mr. Trudeau’s longevity as Prime Minister.
A twitter storm raged following this factual acknowledgement by well-regarded political analyst Chantal Hebert.
The debate reflected all the merits and defects of many Twitter political commentaries.
The Trudeau trolls pounced on the statement to repeat their vitriol against his performance as a political and national leader.
His apologists rose to Mr. Trudeau’s defence, citing his government’s achievements and the unfairness of his critics.
As Ms Hebert wryly noted in response, she was simply citing a fact; in the same factual manner, she noted that veteran Bloc Quebecois MP Louis Plamondon, originally elected in 1984, was the dean of the House of Commons.
Other columnists sought to explain the ‘dean designation’ as an undeserved promotion of Mr. Trudeau by his PMO, questioning whether he had earned this role or was capable of executing it.
Twitter can provide valuable factual insight or opinion commentary, sharing perspectives from different ends of the political spectrum and diverse geographies. Journalists regularly use the app to share their latest insight, hoping to stay ahead of the reporting pack.
There is no doubt that many Canadians follow these interactions in the hope of becoming better informed.
Does this Twitter outpouring about the G7 ‘ Trudeau dean debate’ bear any resemblance to the reality of what politicos themselves consider the appropriate measure of success.
It reminded me of a lesson I learned travelling with then Prime Minister Jean Chretien on a Team Canada trade mission to Spain.
Conversing with different senior Spanish political staff at several events, I had asked about their interest in Mr. Chretien.
I probed about their understanding of Canadian politics. Did they find any of Chretien’s political experiences of interest? Did they want to learn more about his breadth of service in multiple Cabinet Minister roles? Were his lessons learned fighting for Canadian unity and against separatist forces [an ongoing and relevant issue in Spain with its Basque region] ones they wanted to hear more about? Were they more focused on the business at hand, how to translate his trade promotion mission into greater opportunity for themselves?
The answer was simple and quick to come.
Repeatedly, they asked numerous questions about how Mr Chretien won three consecutive majority governments. His electoral success was simply unimaginable in most parliamentary democracies.
For these ‘insider’ political observers, in a democracy, the true test of a politician’s effectiveness and influence was staying power.
In Canada, over the last 40 years, we have witnessed our share of leaders winning only one general election. They include Joe Clark, Kathleen Wynne, Bob Rae, Alison Redford, Ed Stelmach, Darrell Dexter, Rachel Notley, Greg Selinger, Lorne Calvert, Pauline Marois, Jacques Parizeau, Philippe Couillard, Lucien Bouchard, John Savage, Rodney MacDonald, Russell MacLellan, Wade MacLauchlan, Dwight Ball, Kathy Dunderdale.
For the trivia enthusiasts among us, a number of others won party leaderships to become designated sitting Prime Ministers or Premiers but never won a general election. The list includes, among other notable names, Kim Campbell, John Turner, Frank Miller, Ujjal Dosanjh, Ernie Eves, Bernard Landry, Daniel Johnson Jr, Pierre Marc Johnson, Donald William Cameron, Roger Stuart Bacon, Iain Rankin.
Winning a general election the first time to head a government is exceedingly hard, twice is remarkable and three times a truly unique achievement.
After all, the political barnacles that ships of state start to acquire following their first day of election victory usually weigh down and disrupt the best laid political prospects.
Idealists may argue that it is far better to attribute success to a leader doing the right thing, on substantive achievements while in office even if they are subsequently reversed.
By that standard, former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne might still be winning accolades for her daring introduction of an universal basic income program, even though the initiative was quickly laid to rest when Doug Ford got into office.
Successful politicians have often bemoaned that they can only get ahead of public opinion on evolving issues incrementally if they want to be reelected.
Should success be measured by the ability to inspire and lead? Winston Churchill’s remarkable leadership during WW 2 was rejected in 1945 by the British public.
In any democracy, different factors affect a politician’s success at the polls. The quality and appeal of emerging political opposition or new parties siphoning off votes are relevant.
Policy platforms often play second fiddle to other developments weighing the scales of judgement. Does the public conclude that it is time for a change? Or has the inevitable scandal somewhere in government tarnished the prospects of a second victory? Do assessments based on managing unimaginable acts of God from climate to Covid colour re-election possibilities? Can reaction to world affairs influence vote patterns? Ultimately even quirks of personality or appearance can play a role.
In the face of all these factors, no wonder that political insiders believe that the ability to secure the support of the voters over and over again is likely the fairest way to assess true success.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
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The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
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As part of his year-end interview with the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt, prime minister Justin Trudeau reflected on the state of his party, and its ups and downs before he became the leader. When Delacourt asked Trudeau whether his inevitable departure, whenever that happens, will throw the party into a similar existential crisis to where it found itself a decade ago, Trudeau laughed off the suggestion, and insisted that the party was now in a better place because they made a deliberate decision to connect with the grassroots.
“The Liberal party … had become too much of a closed-in club, and wasn’t actually allowing Canadians to engage with it and shape it,” Trudeau told Delacourt. “It is now an open party.”
This is completely specious nonsense. The decision to eliminate memberships in favour of free “supporters” does not actually open up a party, in spite of the PR hype. Rather, it merely focuses the power in the leader—accelerating a process that has been slowly building since 1919—while claiming openness by virtue of the number of supporters who sign up. It’s pouring gasoline on the tire fire of Americanizing our political institutions, in the name of recreating presidential primaries instead of doing genuine grassroots outreach or engagement. It’s also a particularly cynical move that pretends that the size of one’s electoral database is equal to grassroots engagement. Yes, it encourages more knocking on doors, which has been key to the Liberals’ electoral success in 2015 and beyond, but this is not actual grassroots engagement.
There was nothing particularly “closed-in” about the previous system of party memberships. The nominal membership fee encouraged people to have skin in the game, and there was genuine grassroots engagement, whether it was about policy development or open nominations for whose name would appear on the ballots. I had a roommate, many years ago, who told me about how she and her friends got together and proposed a particular policy solution, it got voted by their local riding association to advance to the biennial policy convention, and from there it was adopted, and became party policy, and the party, then in government, implemented it. This is how our system is supposed to operate. The Liberal Party no longer operates like this, where policy development is a bureaucratized process with multiple levels of gatekeeping to keep the number of resolutions that arrive at a convention to a minimum, and where the resolutions amount to mere suggestions, as leaders often dismiss them out of hand. But hey, it’s free, and their database appreciates what you’re generating.
During the Liberals’ “rebuilding years,” when Bob Rae was named interim leader after Michael Ignatieff’s devastating election loss, there was a series of conversations that the party engaged in when it came to how they redefined themselves. On a journalistic assignment, I sat in on an Ottawa Centre riding association meeting one night where the members were engaged in these kinds of discussions, about what they wanted from the party, and whether they needed to “shrink” the party in order to grow it. At the same time, the party leadership was also engaged in a rethink process, which is when they happened upon the idea of open memberships, coming from the Liberal Party of Alberta, who proclaimed that it grew their database by 1000 percent. Of course, within two election cycles, that party lost all of its seats and is on the precipice of political extinction, so I remain unconvinced that this was the genius move they think it was.
There was also an impetus on Rae to try and make the party’s structure less convoluted, with jokes about how byzantine its organizational chart was. While Rae oversaw the process of open memberships, he also did centralize the party’s financial operations in Ottawa, which many saw as a common-sense development that would free those provincial and territorial organizations to focus on their ground game and policy work. In the end, a new party constitution was voted on under Trudeau’s championing in 2017, which wiped out all of the accountability mechanisms that the old federated system, as convoluted as it was, had going for it. A few dissenters pointed this out at the convention where it happened, but they were drowned out by those who were salivating at the notion of a “modern” process, and the promised gains to the party database.
Of course, we are also now seeing Conservatives agitating for the open membership concept, convinced that it will be the way that they can escape their current conundrum of being structurally beholden to their social conservative base. If anything, though, open memberships won’t be able to overcome the problem, even if they attract more “supporters” during a leadership contest, because those same social conservatives are the party’s backbone in terms of fundraising and volunteering. More to the point, it’s an indictment of the fact that the party isn’t able to attract enough mainstream members, which keeps them beholden to the social conservatives—an existential problem that they need to grapple with instead of finding a new way to populate their database.
Open memberships are not actually opening up a party. It’s merely about populating a database, and providing a means of providing more justification to a party leader who is centralizing authority, because it allows them to claim the “democratic legitimacy” of tens of thousands more supporters than the old system of paid memberships. It builds and reinforces cults of personalities instead of stable political parties. None of those are hallmarks of an “open” party, especially when those parties have taken over their own policy development process and turned it into a process of Big Data justification, and turned open nominations into central casting. Cheap memberships, a genuine grassroots system in the riding associations, and accountable leaderships are hallmarks of open parties, not the farce that Trudeau is perpetuating and trying to pass off as a democratic good.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
It feels like déjà vu all over again.
The COVID-19 fifth wave caused by the Omicron variant is spreading like wildfire and our governments were once again asleep at the wheel and slow to react. Across the country, in varying degrees, governments seem ill-prepared. Once again. The Omicron variant took the country by surprise.
Cue the provincial calls for army deployments. Cue the chaotic search for vaccination appointments. Cue the stock ruptures of rapid tests. Cue the Soviet-style line-ups to get tested. Cue the increased sanitary measures. Haven’t they learned anything over the past two years? That’s a question people are entitled to ask.
To be fair, things happened fast. Much faster with Omicron than any of the previous waves. The new variant was first detected on November 22 and reported to the World Health Organization on November 24. Two days later, the WHO designated it as a variant of concern. Travel restrictions were introduced by several countries in an attempt to slow its international spread. Canada reacted the same day, on November 26, by restricting travellers from several African countries from entering Canada.
By then, it was already too late and soon became pointless. The first case of Omicron in Canada was reported on November 28. Yet, despite media reports of the rapidity at which Omicron was spreading in South Africa and elsewhere, our politicians didn’t seem to have much concern.
For instance, despite the rise of cases, which began prior to Omicron’s arrival, reopening was still the operative word. Barely over a week ago, Premier Legault was full steam ahead with bigger Christmas parties while ordinary people, sensing things were turning, were canceling reservations in hotels and restaurants.
On December 14th, Health Minister Christian Dubé, flanked by Quebec Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda, began his news conference by stating it was likely the last one before the Holidays. People were scratching their heads. Haven’t they heard about Omicron? Didn’t they know it was now prevalent in Ontario? They had, they knew, they were prudent, and they were monitoring.
Not a word on schools, which is where the November spike of cases was most prominent, especially amongst the not yet vaccinated younger cohorts. Even when they actually realized that Omicron was now out of control, on November 16, in a dramatic press conference during supper hour newscast, Premier Legault was adamant: schools were going to stay open, despite a flurry of restrictions, including smaller Christmas gatherings and restrictions on restaurant capacity. Parents shook their heads and a lot of them kept their kids home.
Two days later, another dramatic press conference and schools were being closed. Two days later, even more restrictions were brought in by the Premier. Not as dramatic as his spin doctors had floated in the 48 hours leading up to that newser, mind you. The trial balloons of canceling Christmas gatherings and imposing another curfew floated by Legault’s spin doctors did not sit well with the electorate.
Because people are fed up. They were promised, time and time again, that if they did the right things, if they followed the rules, if they got vaccinated, we would go back to normal. It ain’t happening. Our governments are just not able to react promptly and properly. But there are two other main culprits.
First, the unvaccinated, which account for more than 50% of the COVID hospitalizations despite being less than 15% of the population. Calls are growing for politicians to deal with them, perhaps Austria-style. It seems doubtful in Quebec and Ontario, in an election year.
Second, the lack of medical resources. Canada has one of the fewest hospital beds per capita in the OECD. It’s even worse if you look at ICU capacity. Politicians are afraid to overload the system. We’ve heard that over and over: it has been the number one factor in their decisions during the course of the pandemic. The number of hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients in Canada is around 1,100, and 500 more patients are occupying ICU beds. And we’re almost at capacity, for a country of 38 million.
Yet, health care is the biggest line in provincial budgets. The capacity of our health care system has eroded over the years, starting in 1976. Until then, the Federal Government used to cover 50% of our health costs. The Federal share currently sits at 22% under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. You would think this pandemic would make him realize that perhaps it is time to sit down with the Premiers and restore the federal health care transfers. Just so we can perhaps be ready for the next pandemic.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
Saudi Arabia has North America’s political establishment wrapped around its finger.
Along with Israel, it is one of the few states that can commit almost any offence, and still guarantee the complete, unfettered support from almost any administration, liberal or conservative.
In Canada, for instance, Saudi Arabia reached its zenith of influence during the tenure of former Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.
While in office (2006-2015), Harper made the expansion of commercial relations with Saudi Arabia one of his government’s top priorities. That prioritization later bore (poisoned) fruit, when Harper and the Saudis brokered the largest arms deal in Canadian history. It’s a deal Harper still expresses pride in, despite the fact that military arms he sold enabled the Saudis to commit countless atrocities against civilians in neighbouring Yemen.
Nothing can quench Harper’s love affair for the Saudis though. It persists to this day, even in political retirement.
Just this fall, he traveled to Riyadh for a business trip and gushed about the “profound transformation” the Kingdom was experiencing. Most telling, he expressed not one single concern about its mass executions, its crackdown on human rights defenders or its subjugation of women and girls. It was all just fawning praise from the former PM.
Of course, Harper is not the only member of the Conservative Party to cozy up to the Saudis.
Prior to becoming Conservative Party leader, one of Harper’s political lieutenants, Erin O’Toole, pledged in the 2019 election to “win some trust” and increase commercial links with Saudi Arabia. A year before that, another dutiful neophyte, the former Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, appeared on a Saudi-owned television station to chastise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after his then Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, for tweeting out support for the imprisoned Saudi activist and blogger, Raif Badawi.
It was a disgraceful and dishonourable move on Baird’s part; one that only served to humiliate him and severely damage his integrity, all while highlighting the Liberal’s more principled approach to taking on the Saudis. At that point, the Liberals had shown commendable nerve by suspending the arms deal that they had inherited from the Conservatives, after news broke that the Saudi Crown Prince had arranged for the brutal murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Unfortunately, the Liberal’s grit did not last long. In the face of Saudi pushback, the Liberals quickly abandoned their previous principle and became just as complicit as their Conservative predecessors. In no time at all, they reinstated the permits they had previously suspended and continued the exportation of light armored vehicles, along with sniper rifles, explosives, and other military equipment.
The political situation is much the same south of the border.
Soon after taking office in 2017, former Republican President Donald Trump snubbed traditional allies in Canada and Mexico by selecting Saudi Arabia as the destination for his first foreign trip. His government’s subsequent exportation of more than $8 billion worth of arms to the Saudis, with seemingly no regard for the immense misery and suffering experienced by Yemeni civilians – the disproportionate victims of Riyadh’s unlawful and indiscriminate airstrikes – was further proof of he (and his party’s) unbecoming allyship with the Gulf Kingdom.
For a time, the election victory of Joe Biden offered a brief moment of hope (just as it did in Canada with Trudeau’s 2015 electoral triumph) that the U.S. might pursue a more just and even-handed approach when dealing with the Saudis. In his first foreign policy speech as President, Biden declared that that the war in Yemen had to end and that his administration would be eliminating “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales.”
As you might have guessed, the public’s optimism didn’t last long.
Within a matter of months of delivering those lofty remarks, Biden had authorized the sale of $650 million of missiles to the Saudi Kingdom, along with hundreds of millions more in U.S. military maintenance for Saudi aircraft.
It was a move entirely out of the Trudeau Liberals’ playbook: promise a more humanitarian foreign policy when it is easy to do so (i.e., before an election) and then renege on your word once in office. Or in Trudeau’s case, after the first threats of financial retribution are made.
As recent history has shown, neither the centrist Liberals and the Democrats, nor the right-wing Conservatives and the Republicans, are capable of pursuing a foreign policy that is complicit-free from the war crimes and human rights abuses committed by the Saudi regime.
With the political establishment in both Canada and U.S. unwilling to stand up against the Saudi regime, it has once again fallen to the members of the public and their political champions on the social democratic left, to stand up against such immorality and demand real policy change from the status quo.
In the U.S., progressive standard-bearers like Democratic Rep. and Squad member Ilhan Omar and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders deserve credit for their legislative attempts to block Biden’s newest arms deal (together with strange political bedfellows, Republican Senators Rand Paul, and Mike Lee).
In Canada, Jagmeet Singh and his left-leaning team of third-party New Democrats deserve equal praise for their steadfast opposition of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, and for their electoral promise in general to ensure that “Canadian-made weapons are not fueling conflict and human rights abuses abroad.”
Whatever their faults, Omar, Sanders, Singh, and their fellow social democrats are at least showing some bravery and morality by speaking out against both the Saudis and their own respective governments for facilitating violence and bloodshed. That in itself is whole lot more honourable than anything on display from the political establishment these days.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
