Which party leader wasn’t fed off a silver spoon? None
We’re going to have to find some better clichés as we head into the year of the federal election and what will assuredly be non-stop politicking.
The old clichés are not necessarily going to work.
Take the time-worn “born with a silver spoon” or whatever generic accusation that “everyman” — oops, another cliché — federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer uses to relentlessly and, at least on Twitter, scornfully drive home the point that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, born into wealth and extraordinary political lineage — son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, grandson, on his mother’s side, of Vancouver Liberal MP and former cabinet minister James Sinclair — can’t possibly understand and has not related well to the burdens of ordinary people.
Scheer — or as a Canadian Press story has described him, the “dimplecheeked father of five” — was raised by middle-class parents in suburban Ottawa who, he has proudly told interviewers, “didn’t even own a car.” His wife, Jill, has described the Scheers as “very normal, average Canadians.”
Except most “normal, average Canadians,” if there even is such a stereotypical thing anymore, don’t end up running the country. You have to be exceptional in some way to think you can lead a political party and eventually a country. Otherwise, why ask people to vote for you?
In Scheer’s case, there are different kinds of silver-spoon entitlements. An MP from Saskatchewan since he was 25, Scheer has lived, after all, in two taxpayer-funded residences during his time as Speaker of the House of Commons and then leader of the Opposition and draws a salary of more than
$255,000 with benefits. If he becomes prime minister, he will move into a third home, mortgage free as far as he’s concerned, courtesy of our tax dollars. Many people working as cashiers or in construction or even as teachers might not find that as “relatable” as Scheer insists they should.
These past days, we’ve seen Justin Trudeau mark the start of a crucial political year by bounding into sometimes hostile town halls in Regina and Kamloops and taking on unscripted questions about pipelines, open borders and Indigenous rights.
Whether his answers — ranging from forthright to selfrighteous — satisfied or annoyed onlookers, it was a brave and admirable thing to do. Every leader should do it to the point where it isn’t even considered remarkable.
Trudeau’s Regina town hall included an encounter with a man whose question was so critical of Islam that the crowd booed. Trudeau instead encouraged a dialogue with the man.
Combine that with a recent story by the Star’s Susan Delacourt that Trudeau from time to time cold calls citizens who have written him and has spent as much as 20 minutes on the phone having a conversation about their concerns, including with one man about his idea for the future of the GM plant in Oshawa, and you’ve got a leader with well honed political skills who doesn’t seem quite so detached from “very normal average Canadians” after all.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, also born into affluence, also with a politician father, brags that his Conservative administration is the first “government for the people.” (What were the previous Ontario governments for — puppies?) He gives out his cellphone number and asks people to call him.
Yet we don’t see Ford eagerly bounding into hostile territory and taking questions from “the people.”
No, the populist premier has favoured “clappers” in the room when he makes an announcement, like some mad king who constantly needs sycophants trailing him (and not coincidentally drowning out the questions of journalists and critics). Which is just another way of being elitist.
The mild-mannered, affable Andrew Scheer, 39, is a different breed than the often belligerent bombastic Ford, no question. However, Scheer’s official tweets have lately grown so mean and sometimes dishonest when it comes to stoking deep dislike for Trudeau that he seems to be wasting his nice guy capital even as he insists he absolutely will be the next prime minister.
So yes, it’s going to be a relentlessly political year here and elsewhere as the U.S. and the world continue to grapple with the increasingly dangerous, illogical, self-serving and perhaps treasonous presidency of Donald Trump, a possible recession threatens, and a populism tinged political climate, torqued by social media, continues to get uglier by the minute.
Both Trudeau and Scheer have been privileged in different ways. It’s patronizing and a waste of time to think that either of them could not “relate” to people in a different social class or tax bracket. It’s what they do with that privilege that matters.
Trudeau has another ten months or so, starting with his cabinet shuffle this week, to convince Canadians he’s done a lot and can do even more for them, to re-elect the Liberals.
Just as I argued last week that likability is a sexist trap for women leaders, we should move beyond the simplistic and confining notion only people of similar backgrounds can relate to each other’s concerns.
Whether a political leader relates to the middle class or people living in poverty is, of course, another way of talking about privilege. And these days we are all encouraged to examine our privilege. Even the likes of Doug Ford and Andrew Scheer. It’s staring them right in the face.