National Post (National Edition)
Nice-guy-in-chief needs to toughen up
Thomas Mulcair was back to form. In an interview with CBC Radio Monday, the caretaker NDP Leader gamely alleged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent ride in the Aga Khan’s helicopter — possibly a violation, but also possibly not a violation, of the federal Conflict of Interest Act — is a very serious matter of law-breaking by a sitting prime minister. (In such cases the PM is always sitting, never standing or reclining.)
Unprecedented, was the word Mulcair used. He went on and on, steamrollering through his interviewer’s slightly flummoxed-sounding questions, she apparently puzzled by the fuss, since the rules do allow for such jaunts in “exceptional circumstances,” and exclusive access to a private island via chopper does seem exceptional. It’s almost James Bond-ish. One imagines the Trudeaus in a luxuriously appointed cavern, with 1960s furniture and gigantic tropical fish swimming past the windows.
But try though Mulcair might, and try though we in the Parliamentary Press Gallery will, it will be difficult to make Agagate, or heligate, stick for long, outside the Ottawa bubble. It’s of a piece with Stephen Harper’s zooming down a deserted runway in the Northwest Territories on an ATV in 2010, in apparent contravention of Transport Canada rules. Harper’s critics brayed. No one else cared.
No doubt through gritted teeth, Trudeau has wanly repeated he’ll answer federal ethics commissioner Mary Dawson’s questions. He takes this matter very seriously — and so forth. The PM will likely, before long, express remorse for not having been more careful about filling out the requisite paperwork before accepting his old friend’s offer of a vacation (though the Conflict of Interest Act does provide some leeway for MPs to accept gifts from friends.) And that will be that.
Even if there were more to this than meets the eye, however, it would likely drop off front pages within a week, at the outside. The reason is that Trudeau has a bigger problem, in the form of the soon-to-be presidency of Donald Trump, barrelling towards him like the locomotive in Alex Colville’s famous painting, Horse and Train. Specifically, the PM’s problem is one of language, and tone.
Before Christmas, you will recall, Trudeau was coming under withering fire for cash-to-access fundraising events offered to Liberal supporters at $1,500 a head. That was cutting into Liberal support, albeit not too deeply, yet. The apparent first response has been the townhall tour, which hit Fredericton, N.B., Tuesday morning. Billed as an opportunity for ordinary Canadians to ask questions of their prime minister, it has been that.
At event after event, Trudeau has been peppered with unfiltered questions, quite a few from people unhappy with the level of government service they’re receiving. Trudeau has taken his lumps, along with the odd accolade. In that sense it’s been a genuine exercise in populist democracy and will likely win him some favour, even from those who lined up to criticize.
Something else has become apparent, however, amid the daily chats: Trudeau remains firmly embedded as Canada’s nice-guyin-chief. He will occasionally rebuke an interlocutor who’s been rude. But given his druthers, this PM always opts for expressing empathy — even when, as has occurred repeatedly this past week, he has no specific remedy to offer his questioner. The result can be a word salad that makes him sound glib.
Trudeau can never become emblematically a black-hat politician, as Trump is, as Conservative aspirant Kevin O’Leary seeks to be, and as Harper was to a much milder degree. The black-hat politician is branded in cold, negative hues and relies on a reputation for strength and selfinterested guile. The white hat — typically modelled on the original, King Arthur — is branded as an idealist and warrior for justice. If a politician can pull it off, the white hat has big advantages over a black-hat incumbent in a pivot point for change. But once fixed, the persona is set. Nobody would buy a harsh, trash-talking or cold Trudeau.
What he must soon find a way to do, though, is convey strength, resolve and guile, in the face of the pervasive unease created by Trump, the Brexit, and the global resurgence of nationalism. In practical terms this means leavening long-winded, empathetic speech with pragmatic, blunt and brief speech; and placing more emphasis on jobs and security, less on the social agenda (though the policy mix need not be affected). In essence, Trudeau needs to channel darker, harder memes, without himself becoming dark.
Why? The prospect of trade wars and collapsing global alliances, not to say a shooting war in the Pacific, primes the brain for reassurance about the most basic provenances of society; safety of the person and livelihood. John F. Kennedy, a white hat, was able to strike this balance with a persona forged in the Cuban missile crisis. Trudeau, if signals from down south can be believed, will soon face his own tests — against which a helicopter ride, even against the rules, won’t rate much mention.