Few people know Trudeau or what he can do
Canadian politics was exciting enough this week to attract the attention of HBO’s Last Week Tonight and a hilarious segment from John Oliver.
The segment included a little bit from me talking about Justin Trudeau, which I learned about to my surprise through approximately 150 messages on Monday morning.
I’ll leave you to watch the segment itself or, better yet, the TVO show with Steve Paikin where the clip originated. It got me thinking, though, that this might be a good time to share what I have learned about Canada’s new prime minister over the past few years, mostly through work for this newspaper.
The Star occasionally hosts events at the Toronto Reference Library featuring the paper’s writers in conversation with authors of new books. In the fall of 2010, I was asked to host an event with Margaret Trudeau, who had just published Changing My Mind, the story of her struggles with mental illness. Though I’d met Justin Trudeau a few times before then, mainly at Liberal events, I didn’t really know him that well. When I told him I was doing an event with his mother, he quickly agreed that we needed to have a chat.
We went to the parliamentary restaurant, familiar territory for him since childhood days. He seemed to know all the staff and what was going on in their lives.
For about the first 20 minutes of the lunch, Trudeau gave me tips on how to deal with his mother. He was clearly worried about the potential toll to her mental health of a crosscountry book tour, how all the attention could rattle her hard-won but fragile balance.
I realized, as he spoke, that this was the eldest son, speaking from long experience trying to rescue his mother from repeated bouts of despair. He didn’t talk self-pityingly or emotionally; it was just a fact of his life. (The CBC’s Neil MacDonald wrote eloquently this week about that fact in a must-read online column.)
As the lunch was drawing to a close, I asked Trudeau: what was the big difference in his two lives on the Hill — as the son of a prime minister in the 1970s and 1980s and as a backbench MP years later?
Trudeau said he had two answers to that question: one he was accustomed to answering publicly, one he kept to himself.
First, the oft-repeated answer: he was surprised to realize how much he liked constituency work, helping people in his Montreal riding of Papineau. He had never seen that aspect of MPs’ work through his father, who had staff to handle issues in the riding.
As for the other answer, Trudeau looked around to see who might overhear him. Careful to keep his voice down, he said he was stunned to see how some MPs treated their staff, and the air of entitlement around them. He was truly surprised to learn that many staffers had to endure temper tantrums from their bosses. “Who do they think they are?” he said, glancing in the direction of an MP or two dining nearby.
Trudeau then told me about how when he and his brothers were young, the only times they got in serious trouble with Pierre was when they showed disrespect to their RCMP protection officers.
Overhearing the boys call one of the officers “Baldy,” Trudeau gathered them together and furiously scolded them, telling them that these men had families and lives they were putting on the line to watch over them.
This is not a prime minister who is going to rule with fear, it seems.
When the Star asked me to write an e-book on Trudeau during his leadership bid, I was initially reluc- tant. I had another book coming out and frankly, in Conservative Ottawa, writing about Liberals just bought you scorn and ridicule. I wasn’t afraid of the scorn, just kind of sick of it.
But it turned out to be a valuable experience in seeing Trudeau on the road and realizing why, as former prime minister Brian Mulroney warned as far back as 2012, Trudeau was a politician not to be underestimated. No one, seeing the crowds he attracted, could write off this Liberal leader.
I saw Trudeau in June this year at an event at the Chateau Laurier and asked whether he was worried about the polls. He shook his head: “You’ve been out there with me. More reporters should come out and see what’s happening outside Ottawa.”
As it turns out, we all saw on Monday night what was happening out there. It should have reminded us that few people really know Trudeau or what he can do. As of Nov. 4, when he officially becomes prime minister, many more of us will get that chance to know him better. sdelacourt@bell.net