Mulroney gives Trudeau a leadership lesson
Brian Mulroney offers Justin Trudeau a lesson in what leadership means
“Prime ministers are not chosen to seek popularity. They are chosen to provide leadership. There are times when voters must be told not what they want to hear but what they have to know . ... This is precisely such a time.”
How refreshing: a political leader who actually believes in standing up for Canada’s most important export industry, even if it means taking a few knocks for it.
Too bad these words weren’t uttered by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but rather, former Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, who stepped down as Tory leader in 1993.
Judging from his comments Tuesday to a private Business Council of Canada audience — as subsequently reported in the National Post — Mulroney seems to have modified his once-glowing views of Trudeau’s leadership acumen.
In a 2013 interview on CTV’s Power Play program, Mulroney waxed poetic about Canada’s future prime minister: “I’ve known Justin since he was a child. He is young, articulate, attractive — a flawlessly bilingual young man,” he said. “What’s not to like with this picture?”
Well, despite the Selfie King’s widely acclaimed hotness and winning personality, it seems Mulroney has since discovered a wee flaw in the “Prime Minister of Suave” — as GQ magazine dubs him — and it’s not inconsequential.
Trudeau seems to run his government as if he’s still on the campaign trail, posing for selfies and photo ops with his core supporters — notably left-leaning techies, celebs, green activists, millennials and aboriginal groups — while avoiding non-fans.
More specifically, Trudeau seems unwilling to take on the green lobby and stand up for Canada’s oil industry, a key generator of national wealth that is in danger of faltering without new export pipelines to transport Western Canada’s oil to global markets.
So while oilsands critics like Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson continue to blast away, and while the Liberal government does backflips to justify arms exports to Saudi Arabia or another cash infusion for Quebec’s Bombardier, Trudeau plays coy on pipelines, casting himself as a neutral referee.
Or, put differently, a helpless bystander.
This, from someone whose idea of neutrality included rolling out an oil tanker ban on British Columbia’s north coast, and a “climate test” for new pipelines. That’s not leadership, says Mulroney, and he’s right. Indeed, the Trudeau government’s approach to pipelines verges on obstructionism, he charges.
“The government is actually injecting more uncertainty into the process and undermining the credibility of the regulatory institutions charged with that responsibility,” he reportedly told the Business Council crowd.
“There is a growing risk that, due to protracted delays, mounting opposition, escalating costs and the lack of distinct political support, essential pipeline projects may die stillborn — just like the ill-fated Mackenzie Valley pipelines — with severe damage to a vital sector of the economy that is already reeling from depressed prices,” the former PM says.
Since projects like Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain pipeline expansion and the proposed Energy East pipeline to New Brunswick are clearly “in the national interest,” Mulroney says Trudeau must work with provincial and First Nations leaders to move these “vital” projects ahead.
“In this area, there are no substitutes for him,” says Mulroney. “He strikes me as having the style, the interest and the instinct necessary to bring the premiers and the aboriginal leaders and environmentalists together, and emerge with a common position that speaks to Canada’s future with optimism and hope.”
Got that? A leader is supposed to lead. That’s Trudeau’s job. He can pretend he’s a mere referee, but no one else can bridge the disparate interests of Canada’s regions and resolve a pipeline logjam that threatens to blow a lasting hole in the national economy.
A veteran economist I know once put it a bit more directly: “What Trudeau needs to do is to get all these guys in the same room and knock a few heads,” he said.
Exactly. That’s what a leader does. It’s no more complicated than that.
Quebec wants support for its aerospace sector, and a continued flow of funds from Albertans under the federal equalization program? Sure. But stop sitting on the fence, and get behind Energy East.
It’s all about horse trading. British Columbia wants more federal infrastructure money? Fine. Then it’s time for B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Robertson to cut the public posturing, and get behind pipelines.
That’s the message Trudeau has to send. Absent that, the endless gamesmanship will only continue. Indeed, Robertson was at it again this week, insisting that any assessment of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion must include the “downstream climate impacts” of the project.
But Robertson seems rather indifferent about the “downstream climate impacts” of all the coal that B.C. ships to Asia each year, or the fact that Vancouver’s soaring real estate wealth is largely due to an influx of wealthy industrialists from China, the world’s largest carbon emitter.
Sadly, some dots just don’t get connected when there is a leadership vacuum at the top, as Canada has right now.
(Justin Trudeau) can pretend he’s a mere referee, but no one else can bridge the disparate interests of Canada’s regions and resolve a pipeline logjam that threatens to blow a lasting hole in the national economy. Gary Lamphier