DEN TANDT: NOW PM’S REAL TEST BEGINS
Successful prime ministers are willing to change course when it’s called for
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yet to be tested? Piffle, his partisans will say. No Canadian politician has ever been subjected to the scrutiny beamed at this one in high wattage, beginning the day he was born. What about his first nomination fight in the Montreal riding of Papineau? What about two subsequent elections to Parliament, not including last fall’s? What about the resurrection of the Liberal party? What about, to state the obvious, his stunning victory Oct. 19, after a tortuous 78-day campaign?
And yet it’s true. Trudeau has not been tested, not in a way that counts for a sitting national leader. This is about to change.
To begin, let’s examine the early histories of recent prime ministers who left a lasting mark on this country. The exercise yields a stark pattern. Without exception, successful leaders — defining this simply as longevity in power — faced some form of meaningful inflection point or crisis early in their tenure. In each case, those who later won again showed remarkable spine in this crisis. And in each case, they did so in counterpoint to their prior public positions or personas.
The great idealist and civil libertarian Pierre Trudeau, in October of 1970, sends tanks rolling through the streets of Quebec, invoking the War Measures Act in response to the murder of Pierre Laporte by members of the Front de libération du Québec. In retrospectives, Trudeau the Elder’s draconian move is often portrayed as deeply controversial, which it was. It also made his reputation as a decisive leader who would ensure public safety, no matter the cost. Many Canadians complained bitterly. The rest kept P.E.T. in power for another 13 years, give or take.
Brian Mulroney got himself elected in 1984 offering, more than anything else, change, after the long years of Liberal hegemony under Trudeau. Mulroney is a classical liberal and thus was ideologically in tune with thenU.S. president Ronald Reagan and then-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, both strong ideological conservatives, in geopolitics as well as economics. Upon taking power, Mulroney bucked both his friends in taking up the cause of defeating South African apartheid. He was derided at the time by some who said this was a cynical ploy to curry favour with the Canadian Left. Mulroney, free trader but also human rights champion, governed for another eight years.
Jean Chrétien swept to power in 1993 as the anti-Mulroney, and also the standard-bearer of the left wing of the Liberal party, on a program of expansive spending and interventionism not dissimilar to the Trudeau platform of 2015. Chrétien had spent years railing against Mulroney’s free trade deals with the U.S. and his goods and services tax. In the famous Red Book, the Liberal leader promised to renegotiate one and replace the other. Neither happened. By 1994-95, cuddly interventionism had been jettisoned in favour of harsh austerity. Chrétien held power for another eight years.
Even Stephen Harper, noted incrementalist, managed to surprise, in counterpoint to his previous persona and positions, very early in his time as PM. It was a decision in November of 2006, stunning at the time, to formally recognize the Québécois as a nation within Canada. It was a straight-up theft of Michael Ignatieff’s idea, advanced in the latter’s first campaign for Liberal leadership, and appeared highly calculated.
Nevertheless it was a surprise — a nod to Quebecers’ sentiments and aspirations that pre-power Harper would have strongly opposed. It was a signal he could be ideologically nimble — which he was, until he won his third term, on May 2, 2011.
The point being, campaigners campaign, but prime ministers govern. Those who do so for any length of time and have lasting impact, this little tour of history suggests, are able to vault beyond their base to serve a broader constituency. This is what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has yet to do.
His party won 39 per cent of the popular vote Oct. 19. Since then he has engaged with Canadians primarily as an enthusiast — for helping refugees, for renewed humanitarianism, for gender equality in cabinet, for a cleaner environment, a friendlier face in the House of Commons and so forth. He has shown an ability to be cuddly and trot out Liberal motherhood and apple pie — but no propensity to wield a stick. Yet the stick is needed.
The global economy is misfiring, led by China, and the price of oil with it.
Should the price of a barrel of crude drop below $20 US per barrel, as some analysts now expect, the follow-on for Canada’s economic and fiscal prospects will be major and painful. Not end-of-the world cataclysmic; not cause to stock up on bottled water and tinned meat; but cause to reassess a raft of very pricey Liberal promises, led by $60 billion in additional infrastructure spending over 10 years, fuelled by debt.
Onward to the budget.