Trudeau knows how to keep people interested

Talk of puffing marijuana helps Liberal leader stay in the news

Justin Trudeau Smoked Marijuana After Becoming MP. Click. “We had a few good friends over for a dinner party, our kids were at their grandmother’s for the night, and one of our friends lit a joint and passed it around,” Trudeau told the Huffington Post this week. “I had a puff.”

HuffPo’s Althia Raj had asked all three federal party leaders when was the last time they had a toke. Harper’s office pointed out that he suffers from asthma, “precluding him from smoking anything.”

Mulcair, the big grump, “sent strongly worded emails” in which he declined to say when he last smoked weed.

Trudeau, in contrast, offered Raj a 20-minute exclusive interview about his backyard toke, in the interests of “full transparency,” telling her that he doesn’t often smoke weed, that he doesn’t drink coffee or smoke cigarettes, but that he believes that marijuana should be legalized.

It is interesting that Trudeau opened up in this way, and it shows that he is a different kind of politician — more like Paulina Gretzky than Mackenzie King — a product of the social media age.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg described the culture shift this way: “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”

Something is happening, driven by networked young people and self-promoting celebrities. Privacy walls are falling. Mulcair and Harper are on one side of the generational divide. Trudeau is on the other.

Justin isn’t tweeting risque selfies like Rihanna or Gretzky, but he is capitalizing on his celebrity to stay in the public eye, sharing information about himself, opening up in a way that Harper and Mulcair do not.

For an opposition politician in the summer, it is difficult to stay in the news. Trudeau’s marijuana revelation was good click-bait. Conservatives and New Democrats had no choice but to play their roles and express horror.

Harper told reporters travelling with him in Rankin Inlet: “For Mr. Trudeau, I think those actions speak for themselves, and I don’t have anything to add.”

NDP justice critic Francoise Boivin worried about the children: “I’m sure there will be kids saying, ‘Hey if he does it, we can do it.’ ”

Justice Minister Peter MacKay was appalled: “By flouting the laws of Canada while holding elected office, he shows he is a poor example for all Canadians, particularly young ones. Justin Trudeau is simply not the kind of leader our country needs.” Soon after MacKay said that, Rick Mercer tweeted a dorky picture of the justice minister from the 1989 Dalhousie law school yearbook, drinking from a beer bong.

Trudeau cracked wise on Twitter: “Realizing I may have made a major mistake in my openness and transparency: vicious attacks coming because I don’t drink coffee. #oops”

To me, it looks like Trudeau won the day. Reaction to his revelation will break down based on how you feel about having a toke at a backyard dinner party. If you think that’s normal, Trudeau looks cool. If you think it’s terrible, you’re likely not in his pool of potential voters anyway.

The NDP, under Mulcair, has allowed itself to be flanked by Trudeau on marijuana, which likely wouldn’t have happened under Jack Layton. If you think it’s stupid to lock people up for growing or smoking weed — as most Canadians do — Trudeau has made a pretty good

Something is happening, driven by networked young people and selfpromoting celebrities.

pitch for your vote.

And it looks like he’s on the right side of history. Two U.S. states have legalized the drug. Uruguay is about to become the first country to do so.

The Liberals have often been at the vanguard of social change in Canada, benefiting politically when they have pushed for greater individual rights. Justin’s father, Pierre Trudeau, came to national prominence when as justice minister, in 1967, he tabled an omnibus bill that decriminalized homosexuality. He memorably made his case by stating: “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”

The party also benefited from the same-sex marriage debate, in that as the debate went on, opinion shifted to them.

Marijuana legalization is likely like that, and Trudeau’s backyard puff probably looks good to NDP-Liberal switchers, the vote block that holds the key to a Liberal comeback in the next election.

In the next campaign, you can bet that Mulcair and Harper will maul Trudeau on policy. He doesn’t have their depth of knowledge, or their cunning, and in a long campaign, they will make him suffer for that.

But he is open in a way the other two men are not — and he is going to keep giving Canadians reasons to click.

Only someone high on B.C. bud would tell you they know how it’s going to turn out.