Trudeau set high expectations

NAFTA, Trans Mountain court ruling, the PM set the bar, and he’s missing it

Justin Trudeau has long said he wanted his prime ministership to be judged by how he handles two big relationships — with the United States and with Indigenous Canadians.

The prime minister may well remember this week as the one when those words truly came back to bite him.

A high-risk purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline is now in a dangerous limbo and it’s been a week of high-stakes drama over the future of Canada-U.S. trade.

Trudeau’s critics, from all over the political spectrum, are keen to cast these developments as major relationship fails for the PM.

Indigenous activists celebrated a Federal Court ruling on Transmountain on Thursday as a sharp rebuke to the Trudeau government’s sincerity about citizen engagement. In fact, it was; in the court’s words, this federal government had failed to conduct a “meaningful, two-way dialogue” with people affected by the pipeline’s proposed expansion in B.C.

Instead, the ruling said, the government simply took note of people’s concerns, which, as tprhe court pointed out, isn’t the same as taking complaints seriously. The legal reprimand would be stinging to any government that promised to do a lot of listening, as this one did, but it’s especially searing in this context because of the constituency being ignored: Indigenous people.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer is casting the downto-the-wire negotiations in Washington this week as a sign that the Trudeau government hasn’t stayed in the loop on trade talks with the United States and Mexico. Scheer said Canada’s scramble to catch up after the U.S. and Mexico reached a deal on Monday was a “not optimal” way to handle Canada-U. S. trade.

If people did have high expectations of how Trudeau would deal with these two relationships — with Indigenous people and Americans — that is entirely his own doing.

The primacy of Indigenous relationships is explicitly laid down in the mandate letters Trudeau gives to all his ministers, including the most recent flurry of letters that went to cabinet members involved in the latest shuffle this summer.

“No relationship is more important to me and to Canada than the one with Indigenous Peoples,” the letter states.

Only one relationship might come close — again, according to Trudeau’s own words.

Months before he became prime minister in 2015, Trudeau delivered a keynote speech at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, in which he went on at some length about how a prime minister’s main duty is to keep an eye on the historic ties with our American neighbour.

“Management of Canada-U.S. relations is among the largest markers by which history remembers our leaders,” Trudeau said.

To be fair, Trudeau made that speech long before anyone thought Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States — and “anyone” includes Trump, himself.

Relationships with Trump are not easy, to say the least, and no one would accuse Trudeau and team of not trying to make the best of a difficult situation since the 2016 presidential election. Conservatives like to say that Trudeau brought on all this

“Management of Canada-U.S. relations is among the largest markers by which history remembers our leaders.” Justin Trudeau

latest difficulty by provoking Trump’s wrath back at the G7 in June. But we also know that keeping the peace with Trump seems to involve some level of capitulation, and would Canadians want Trudeau simply giving the president everything he wants? Obviously not.

It’s interesting to go back and read that 2015 speech, though, in light of the 2018 realities. Take this part:

“Canada’s special relationship with the United States is not automatic. Like any strong relationship, you have to put a lot of work into it, and earn it. There is nothing preordained about our influence or value in Washington’s eyes. Policy that fails to acknowledge this basic fact will fail,” Trudeau said.

“Threats and a combative approach aren’t going to give us any real influence in Washington. We have to look at the whole picture, to make sure we really understand the true nature of U.S. interests.”

Would Trudeau rewrite that speech today?

No doubt. This has been an eventful week in rewriting and revising — from trade deals to citizen-engagement exercises. All governments have hard weeks, but this one was a reminder to the prime minister to be careful about what you say is most important to you.

Susan Delacourt is a former Star reporter and freelance columnist based in Ottawa. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@bell.net