Can PM learn lessons from 1972?
It had been an ecstatic election. Canadians made a decisive change, rejecting a shaky Conservative government, choosing an untested political star. He offered a bold vision on Indigenous Canadians, new social policy and a Canada open to more immigrants and refugees. The Conservatives had fielded a leader who seemed out of sync with the “new age” zeitgeist. It was 1968. Barely four years on, there was great disappointment: a failed Indigenous policy, rising regional tensions, a tough new premier in Alberta and a new nationalist party in Quebec. The country had endured a serious terrorist challenge. The government faced criticism for its massive military response. The Conservative leader was seen as an aging, traditional leader, but he had acquired respect for his seriousness. The country was heading into a fall election, always riskier than a sunnier summer campaign. The NDP leader was dismissed as “yesterday’s man.” There were caucus rumblings following a bitter ideological battle. Pundits expected little from him. It was 1972. After a bitter campaign, Pierre Trudeau survived by only a few thousand votes, now leading a humbled minority government. His fate was in the hands of the NDP. David Lewis had a very good campaign attacking Liberals’ questionable corporate favours. A popular new NDP government had been elected in B.C. Within a few months the government was wrestling with a serious pipeline controversy, the first oil shock and rising nationalist and separatist pressure from both Quebec and Western Canada.
The humiliation of the prime minister, who had been set to transform Canada only four years earlier, was blamed variously on his centralized prime minister’s office, one that had exploded in power; on overly insular PMO staff, insensitive to political realities beyond Ottawa and Ontario; and on his limited interest in the economy, focused as he was on federal/provincial battles and international events. The parallels are eerie. But nearly half a century later, Canadian politics has been transformed, with many new variables and old verities retired. Maxime Bernier has little of the panache of René Lévesque. Andrew Scheer is still trying to find his political legs, but an aging warhorse like Bob Stanfield he is not. Jagmeet Singh has the potential to significantly grow the party’s base, even if he lacks Lewis’s training in decades of political battles.
How different are today’s Liberals or their leader?
Critics then, would nod at the knocks against them today: arrogance, insensitivity, poor crisis management, and weak understanding of business realities. Then there was resistance to the legalization of divorce and the abolition of sexual orientation discrimination. Today, many Canadians worry about pot legalization and illegal asylum seekers.
His press conference this week may have stopped the bleeding, but it would have had more effect three weeks ago. Trudeau tried to demonstrate the differences between his father and his own approach to leadership. He emphasized their shared values and that he continues to champion Indigenous issues. He presented a message of some contrition and learning from the controversies. He declared his willingness to take some responsibility for his failure to spot the looming collision over SNC-Lavalin.
And he acknowledged he should have been more aware, and his need to “take many lessons” from the painful loss of two senior ministers. But he continued to straddle two defences: jobs and misunderstanding. He could not bring himself to apologize for the mess his inattention caused. A simpler message of contrition would have been much more powerful.
The Trudeau campaign will have achievements to brag about, but it is also weighed down by decisions ducked or bungled. His government’s fate probably hangs on a Trudeau demonstrating a greater willingness to genuinely listen, one consistently displaying a believably more engaged and respectful leadership style.
He should start by telling the rest of the story about the SNC-Lavalin mess, so it does not shadow him through the election campaign.
October 2019 need not be a repeat of October 1972, but …