Standing up to Putin a campaign necessity
Trudeau assures Canadians he’ll handle the ‘bully’
It is the Putin Test: Western countries measure potential leaders’ mettle by considering how they might deal with Vladimir Putin, the judo-master strongman of Russia.
On Tuesday, that question was put to Justin Trudeau, who accused Putin of “being dangerous” in eastern Europe, “irresponsible and harmful” in the Middle East, and “unduly provocative” in the Arctic.
He called Putin a “bully,” and said: “If I have the opportunity in the coming months to meet with Vladimir Putin, I will tell him all this directly to his face because we need to ensure that Canada continues to stand strongly for peace and justice in the world.”
It’s no accident Trudeau is trying to assure Canadians he’d stare down the autocrat. When he was asked about how he’d deal with Putin at last month’s Munk Debate, the audience laughed.
The stakes are high. In an interview a month before the May U.K. elections, then-Labour leader Ed Miliband was confronted with the prospect of a closed-door Putin meeting.
“Ed Miliband goes into a room with Vladimir Putin, the door is closed, two minutes later the door is opened and … Ed Miliband is all over the floor in pieces,” said interviewer Jeremy Paxman.
In an unconvincing and soon-to-be-ridiculed reply, Miliband replied: “Am I tough enough? Hell yes, I’m tough enough.”
Miliband lost the election, to the Conservatives.
In the United States, contenders for the Republican presidential nomination contenders have similarly been slamming each other’s foreign policy credibility by citing the Russian president.
At a September debate, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul used a Putin meeting to slam front-runner Donald Trump.
“Do we want someone with that kind of character, that kind of careless language to be negotiating with Putin?” he said.
Trump, in turn, has maintained that he would get along so well with Putin that Russia would hand over Edward Snowden.
“I’ve dealt with Russia,” Trump later told CNN.
The Russian leader is indeed notorious for dispensing with the usual niceties of diplomacy.
In 2006, after hearing that Angela Merkel is afraid of dogs, Putin made sure to have his Labrador retriever roving around the room during a meeting with the German Chancellor.
Last year, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott publicly threatened to “shirtfront” the Russian leader, employing an Australian rules football term referring to an aggressive tackle delivered to the up- per body of an opponent.
Whereas most world leaders might have called such a comment “immature” or demanded an apology, Russian officials speaking for Putin simply told Abbott to watch out.
“The Russian president, he’s a professional judo wrestler,” a representative with the Russian embassy told Australian media.
Unfortunately, Putin has already proved resistant to stern lectures from Canadian prime ministers.
“I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I only have one thing to say to you, you need to get out of Ukraine,” Stephen Harper told Putin at the 2014 G20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia.
The statement made headlines across Australia, Europe and the United States, but left the Russian leader nonplussed.
“Indeed Harper told Putin that Russia should leave Ukraine,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg News at the time. “Putin told him that this is impossible because they are not there.”
NDP leader Tom Mulcair, meanwhile, is no fan of Putin — but he’s stopped short of promising to personally reprimand the 63-year-old Russian leader.
“There are things that Canada can and should be doing,” said Mulcair at the Maclean’s leader’s debate in August. He suggested two new names that could be added to Canada’s list of Russians facing economic sanctions.
I GUESS I’LL SHAKE YOUR HAND, BUT I ONLY HAVE ONE THING TO SAY TO YOU, YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF UKRAINE.