Six months in, Trudeau focused on the ‘three I’s’

While everyone else was issuing six-month report cards for Justin Trudeau and his cabinet this week, his government came up with its own.

That’s not unusual — politicians love to get out ahead of the critics. But sometimes these self-administered report cards tell us as much about where a government is headed as where it’s been.

On the main web page of the government of Canada this week, visitors were offered a pictorial “retrospective” of Trudeau’s first six months in office — an online Storify photo album. It’s all good news, naturally, given who compiled the photo essay, but it’s illuminating to see what Trudeau and his team chose to display as the high points of governing.

I did a rough tally of the nearly 100 photos posted and here are some of the findings:

Almost two-thirds of the photos revolve around international themes or settings: for instance, the trips to Manila, Davos, Paris and, of course, to Washington for the big official visit with President Barack Obama. Obama appears in onetenth of the photos in the album.

Just about half of the photos include indigenous Canadians or their issues.

Women are also featured in about half of the photos, though mostly in supporting or background shots.

Trudeau is in all but a few photos, leaving no doubt (if there was any) that he is the face of the new government. Very few pictures focus on cabinet members, unless they are standing with the prime minister, and backbencher sightings are almost non-existent.

Not a lot of the photos revolve around Ottawa or Parliament, either, unless it’s the backdrop for a special ceremony or pageant.

In terms of priorities, then, as judged by what this six-month-old government is putting in the shop window, the big items can be summed up as the three I’s: international affairs, indigenous is- sues, and the first-person “I,” for Trudeau himself. Or that third “I” might also stand for imagery — as we can amply see for ourselves, this Liberal government is as mindful about images as the former Conservative government was.

Several weeks ago, when I was writing an article about how policymaking has changed with the new Trudeau government, insiders repeatedly told me that this prime minister does not have his hands on every file, as his predecessor did. Instead, a special cabinet committee, called Agenda, Results and Communication, is in the midst of figuring out a list of a few focused issues that will receive the prime minister’s special attention in the next few years.

Apparently the government will be saying more about these priorities in the weeks and months ahead, so for now, we can only guess at what they might be. The photo album, though, may contain clues to where this committee is heading in its deliberations.

Indigenous issues are probably guaranteed a spot on the list. As the prime minister said quite specifically in his mandate letters to every one of his cabinet ministers six months ago: “No relationship is more important to me and to Canada than the one with indigenous peoples.”

We can probably also conclude that Trudeau will want to continue his efforts to be a big player abroad. He said as much in his news conference this week, in what many commentators correctly observed was an unapologetic defence of all the time he’s spending outside the country.

“One of the things some of you may have picked up on is I’ve been fairly engaged internationally over the past six months to try and ensure that Canada is seen as a strong and active and valuable trading partner on the world stage,” Trudeau told reporters.

What else might be on the list? I like to occasionally check the “favourite word” part of the website openparliament.ca, for often revealing looks at what words are most uttered by our MPs. (Stephen Harper’s favourite word, for years, was “Liberal.”) Back before he became prime minister, Trudeau’s favourite word was “program.” Now, though, it is “growth.”

At his news conference this week, which was also intended to serve as a self-administered report card of sorts, Trudeau said that his government was working on ways to realistically measure things such as economic growth and diversity. That, too, could be a clue about what’s ahead on the list of priorities.

Six months from now, this new government may issue a very different photo album to mark its first year in power. But if it follows the same path it’s charted so far, expect this government to keep its lens focused on indigenous Canadians, international issues and Trudeau himself as the brand manager — the three I’s.

Just don’t expect the prime minister to be spending a whole lot of time around Ottawa or with his backbenchers. sdelacourt@bell.net

International affairs, indigenous issues and the first-person “I” loom large for prime minister