Windsor Star

Trudeau wouldn’t be able to survive British politics

- Andrew MacDougall is a Londonbase­d communicat­ions consultant and ex-director of communicat­ions to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Cross border political comparison­s rarely hold, but here’s one that does: if Justin Trudeau was Theresa May he’d be finished as prime minister.

By that I don’t mean that if Trudeau were to saddle himself with Brexit or suddenly change gender and ideology, only country; if Justin Trudeau was prime minister of Britain he’d be out on his ear.

A government as short on accomplish­ment as Trudeau’s would have draw the ire of two groups vital to governing Britain: the backbench and the press.

Begin at the back. A platform in tatters is no foundation for re-election. A whopping majority government and no electoral reform? Deficits that are neither “modest” nor “short-term”? A smoking crater where an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women should be? Backing a one per center finance minister who is happily taxing others while ducking taxes himself? Each on its own might be justifiabl­e under the terms of political necessity, but to string them together, as Trudeau is doing, is to build the case of your own incompeten­ce.

The Liberal backbench’s tolerance for the government’s stumbles is mystifying when set against British habits. Hardly a day goes by in Britain without a backbench rebellion being launched over some government file or other. The Conservati­ve Party was tearing itself apart just last week because May bungled the optics of her cabinet shuffle, a story no voter cares about.

And then there’s the prime ministeria­l law-breaking.

If Theresa May had taken the monumental­ly stupid decision to holiday on the Aga Khan’s private island whilst the government simultaneo­usly did business with the Aga Khan Foundation, members of her government and party would have agitated for her ouster, arguing that a prime minister’s breaking of the law is incompatib­le with said prime minister’s government’s pledge to enforce it.

If not bucked over the substance of this stupidity, the collegial knives would have been drawn for the prime minister’s cack-handed response to it, including stumbling over the rather obvious questions from the press, and the reliance upon a lie that an Officer of Parliament has comprehens­ively rubbished (“family friend”) to defend said stupidity.

And yet, the backbench remains unmoved. What gives?

Not much, and that’s the point. In Canada, the prime minister’s hammerlock on his or her party remains absolute. That goes double for Justin Trudeau, who is unassailab­le after rescuing the Liberal party from the abyss. Trudeau could drop 10 points in the polls and his inexperien­ced backbench pips still wouldn’t squeak. Nor would the party, especially Anna Gainey, its president, who joined Trudeau on his Aga Khan island adventure. Which brings us to the press. Backbench and party servility deprives the media of a key source of oxygen to spark dissent within government. Not that the Canadian news corps necessaril­y has the fire in its bellies of their British counterpar­ts.

Journalism is cutthroat in Britain, and much less deferentia­l to power. The U.K. pack snaps, snarls and buries bodies (and then gleefully digs them up to bury them again). The bubble is still real in Blighty, but popping it for great copy happens more often than closing ranks. To wit, the British minister of defence recently resigned for placing his hand on a columnist’s knee years ago and couldn’t assure his political betters that other knees wouldn’t emerge after the rabid press descended on his affairs. This is the same press, by the way, that implored the prime minister to “crush the saboteurs” in her caucus who are standing in the way of Brexit.

There are difference­s between the press in our two countries, but it’s hard not to apply an ideologica­l lens when questionin­g appetites in Trudeau’s Canada. Had another prime minister broken the law and then used his government majority on committee to block further study of his law-breaking, as Trudeau did last week, the press’s shouts of “abuse of Parliament” would have been sustained and deafening.

Is there nothing left to know about the Aga Khan coming back into Trudeau’s life the second he became Liberal leader? Are we not concerned our prime minister appears to be a rube for not seeing the conflict? Who else, for that matter, has Sophie Trudeau been soliciting for flashy vacation getaways? If you don’t think that last bit is fair game, ask Cherie Blair what having the British press up your nose feels like.

One suspects we’re just happy for the world to like us, judging our Trudeaupea­n moment in the sun as being too precious to ruin.

But there’s a good case to make about the sunlight being a flash in the pan and Trudeau an unserious leader caught in very serious times.

Holding him to proper account is the only way to figure out whether he intends to be a man of accomplish­ment, or just the global celebrity he clearly enjoys being.

 ?? ANDREW MACDOUGALL ??
ANDREW MACDOUGALL

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