Trudeau losing the talisman of Trumpism

Donald Trump's pending loss of the Oval Office is, if polls are to be believed, a popular outcome in Canada. One place his loss won't be welcomed, however, is in the Prime Minister's Office, where Justin Trudeau is mourning the loss of an ally.

Of course, Trump wasn't an ally in the conventional sense; the two men could hardly have more different world views or objectives on global issues. There were also moments of personal hostility, notably Trump's nuclear departure from the G7 Summit in La Malbaie, in which he insulted Trudeau over Twitter from the comfort of Air Force One while en route to meet his chum Kim Jong-un. And on the bilateral front, no one who slaps tariffs on Canadian goods on trumped-up “security” grounds can be considered a friend.

But make no mistake: no one benefited more politically from Trump than Trudeau. Trump heading for the exits robs Trudeau of his favourite bogeyman, one he's deployed successfully against domestic political rivals such as Doug Ford and Andrew Scheer. The spectre of Trumpism has now been robbed of its talisman and Trudeau is the poorer for it.

Looking back, so much of the Trudeau magic was derived from the awfulness of his next-door neighbour. Sure, Trudeau's initial aura of cool sparked off his emulation of Barack Obama but his global fame came only when the devil was elected next door. Suddenly, Trudeau and Canada were everything the United States no longer was. Robbed of his favourite comparator, Trudeau now has to stand squarely on his record in the next federal election, whenever it should come. With Joe Biden in the White House, it won't be enough to simply point across the 49th parallel and say “You wouldn't want that over here, would you?”

And if you think that approach isn't part of the Liberal playbook, look no further than the country's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Without Donald Trump's COVID-19 debacle, we would probably be asking a lot more pointed questions about Canada's response, including why our public health officials have yo-yoed on so many of their recommendations, the latest being face masks. We'd also be asking why Health Minister Patty Hajdu still has her job after breaking coronavirus guidelines not once, but twice.

With Trump gone, the urgent Liberal task of framing Conservative leader Erin O'Toole as some kind of dangerous social conservative or populist maniac also becomes harder. Which isn't to say the Liberals won't still try, as evidenced by the recent vote in the House of Commons banning conversion therapy. Instead of falling into the Liberal trap, O'Toole deftly allowed a free vote and the bill gladly passed, and comfortably, with only a handful of Conservative MPs voting against.

The Trump defeat is beneficial for Canadian conservatism in another way: It highlights the potential electoral benefit of O'Toole's new approach to targeting the working class in some of Canada's hardest hit regions. Although Trump lost, early analysis suggests his boosted turnout included significant sections of the Black and Latino working class. The more Trudeau (and Jagmeet Singh, for that matter) speaks to the urban professional during the coronavirus recovery, the bigger the opportunity becomes for O'Toole elsewhere on the socio-economic ladder.

And with the long-denied Netflix tax now on its way to becoming reality thanks to Liberal legislation, the Conservative leader will have a toxic pocketbook issue to discuss beyond the economic basics of employment and deficits. Workers already squeezed by the virus and facing the prospect of staying at home during the long winter months will now be taxed on their entertainment. Just why Trudeau has decided that now, of all times, is the best time to proceed is mystifying, if not suicidal.

Then again, one supposes anything is better than discussing the WE Charity scandal, an issue that still hasn't disappeared, despite the Liberals' multiple flushes of the parliamentary toilet. The committee filibusters roll on, albeit now largely away from public view.

On WE, it appears Trudeau is applying his ally's lessons: brazen it out by crying “fake news” while using every trick in the book to shut down legitimate avenues of inquiry.