Trudeau tosses hat in the ring
Bid to become Liberal leader ‘about the future, not the past’
‘I do not present myself as a man with all the answers. In fact, I think we’ve had quite enough of that kind of politics.’
MONTREAL— Justin Trudeau has officially launched his bid to lead the Liberal party with a promise to make it once again the home for the hopes of Canada’s middle class.
“The time has come to write a new chapter in the history of the Liberal party,” said Trudeau, 40 — son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau — who says his campaign will be “about the future, not the past.”
With more than 500 people packed into a community centre in his Papineau riding in Montreal, and overflow crowds outside the hall, Trudeau said he was prompted to run because of love of his country.
He tried to play down his image as the “star” candidate in the Liberal contest.
“My candidacy may shine a few extra lights upon us. It may put some people in the bleachers to watch. But what we do with that opportunity is up to us. All of us,” he said.
“I do not present myself as a man with all the answers. In fact, I think we’ve had quite enough of that kind of politics.”
It’s rarely a smart move to fling yourself in front of a parade. You could get crushed by a float. But as the Justin Trudeau bandwagon pulls out of the station, those straining to jump on board should at least look at the recent history of political coronations, both here and south of the border.
This is not to compare Trudeau to either a footnote (Audrey McLaughlin) or a world leader seeking a second term (Barack Obama), but there are obvious lessons sprinkled along the landscape over the years.
We can start in 1989 when Trudeau was but a 17-year-old and New Democrats needed to replace a longtime leader, Ed Broadbent.
Out of nowhere, a consensus sprang up that a northern woman, the heretofore unknown rookie MP McLaughlin, fit the demographics the party needed to grow.
She fended off a charge from the unilingual West Coast challenger Dave Barrett, but the best Barrett could do was expose McLaughlin’s many flaws.
The same show played out four years later when a perceived laying on of hands by Brian Mulroney all but handed the keys to 24 Sussex to Kim Campbell, scaring off all pretenders except for a young cabinet colleague, Jean Charest.
Like Barrett’s, Charest’s candidacy exposed the winner’s warts and Campbell quite quickly led the once-proud Progressive Conservatives to the sidelines with McLaughlin’s NDP in 1993. Had McLaughlin and Campbell not been given such putative early pushes to leadership, history may have unfolded quite differently.
Paul Martin, the Liberal leader in exile, was similarly unstoppable and largely unchallenged a decade later when his time to lead the party finally arrived.
After the Liberal majority was reduced to a minority, the party’s slide accelerated under Martin when he was defeated by Stephen Harper in 2006.
When Michael Ignatieff was deemed The Next One after the 2008 election, he did not even have to face another leadership campaign after his failed 2006 bid.
He led the Liberals to their worst showing in history, consigning them to third place and losing his own seat.
More recently, Obama created the greatest political buzz of a generation or more when he signalled his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
However, would he have emerged as the tough, polished campaigner he became had he not been so severely tested by Hillary Clinton in a gruelling series of debates, primaries and caucuses?
At home, Tom Mulcair had to endure a series of debates and a six-month race to win the NDP crown.
Stephen Harper had to win two leadership races to get to where he is today.
It is not Trudeau’s fault that no one looms to force him to forge his leadership bona fides under fire.
But the Liberal party could be the loser if there is not someone in the race to push Trudeau — not a confederate to make him a better debater or challenge him to flesh out policy, but someone who could beat him.
That candidate, of course, is Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, a man who could bring unparalleled economic gravitas to a party in need of some policy heft, but a man whose leadership ambitions are thus far defined by anonymous Liberal whispers and aspirational Facebook campaigns.
Carney has given no indication he would leave his perch with two years left for the leadership of Canada’s third party. He is in the upper echelons of the global economic stratosphere, and a Liberal leadership bid would be a painful, earthbound re-entry.
But there are senior Liberals who have not yet taken no for an answer — because they haven’t been given no for an answer.
When he was asked directly about his political plans by Global TV’s
West Block host Tom Clark last spring, Carney gave a political answer, parrying the host’s contention that he hadn’t closed down a political future with the cryptic “I haven’t opened it up.’’
Trudeau may prove to be the real deal and none of this will matter.
But if Trudeau stumbles while leading his parade, some Liberals will keep dreaming of Carney until the Bank of Canada governor delivers that definitive “no.”