PM stunningly just doesn’t get voters

Trudeau’s actions accentuate a lack of resonance with ordinary Canadians

Long before modern culture created branding and values alignment, 1960s politicians rankled at Madison Avenue advertising gurus who spoke of “selling politicians like soap.”

While branding is more subtle, complex and intricate, many time-honoured principles still apply, particularly when voters ask: Is a certain politician likable? Trustworthy? Do they understand my life? Are they on my side?

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already hit his “best before date” with many Western Canadians, next October’s election will be settled in vote-rich Central Canada. And it will feature some important perceptions that will determine the Liberal PM’S fate.

His supporters will cite Trudeau’s continuing “sunny ways” approach, anti-stephen Harper themes (still) and the international fawning and selfies that still accompany his frequent overseas trips.

His critics will key in on Trudeau’s congenital need to grandstand, virtue signal and pander to the latest trendy cause or flavour of the week celebrity.

This behaviour, by itself, doesn’t sink political ships. But the boat starts to take on water when a politician’s actions accentuate a lack of resonance with voters.

Support begins to slide every time a voter asks, “Does this guy have any idea what my work and life are like and how we make the rent?”

Ditto for “are his interests and priorities the same as mine?”

The “tweeting bro” exchange with entertainer Trevor Noah, in which Trudeau offers up $50 million Canadian tax dollars like it was his personal Telemiracle pledge doesn’t require a detailed explanation. Yes, the money was part of a disproportionately large half-billion dollars earlier committed by Trudeau to gender-focused education in developing nations.

And, sure, his casual “hey, Trevor” tweet had apparently been written and tested by his staff three weeks earlier. We get this. But just tell a ravaged oil or pipeline employee, abandoned veteran or soon to be unemployed autoworker that Trudeau’s tweet wasn’t flip, frivolous and star tripping.

Then Canadians watched the PM, on a G20 panel discussion in Argentina, effusively explaining how Canada uses “the gender lens in GBA-PLUS budgeting.” Whether on highway or new pipeline construction, says Trudeau, “there are gender impacts when you bring construction workers into a rural area. There are social impacts because they’re mostly male construction workers.”

For the obtuse among us, Trudeau’s office later “clarified” that he did not say that rural communities were suffering and, instead, was really saying that he believes more women should share in lucrative construction jobs.

I don’t know what’s weirder: listening to how working people try not to be offended by Trudeau’s bizarre ramblings of talking points and stream of consciousness or trying to figure out how the nation we’ve lived in all our lives now seems to apply certain analytics to public policy that most of us have never heard of.

Government policy has always been committed to equality and diversity, at least since the enactment of the Charter of Rights and Canadian Human Rights Act. But “GBA-PLUS budgeting,” for those who never majored in gender studies, is a “gender-based analysis” framework adopted by the federal government in 1995 and apparently enthusiastically revived by Trudeau.

Like some of the prime minister’s major gaffes to date — the India trip debacle, breaking the law on a billionaire’s private island getaway or writing a $10.5 million cheque to an admitted terrorist — the latest incidents show a stunningly tone-deaf understanding of voters’ lives.

This guy doesn’t get us. Gormley is a broadcaster, lawyer, author and former Progressive Conservative MP whose radio talk show is heard weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on 980 CJME Regina and 650 CKOM Saskatoon.