Will the world’s wokest leader be reelected? When Justin Trudeau called the election to Canada’s 44th Parliament at the end of August, he was comfortably ahead in the polls. Crises bolster all but the most obviously useless incumbents, and Canada has had, as measured by deaths, vaccine rollout, and economic impact, a better pandemic than many comparable countries.
The pleasant, handsome, vapid prime minister, who has been leading a minority government since the 2019 election, understandably saw an opportunity to give himself an absolute majority.
Yet the moment he called the election, the polls began to narrow. As I write, the ruling Liberals and the opposition Conservatives are neck and neck — indeed, if anything, the Tories have a slight edge. True, the Tories had a slight edge two years ago, winning a plurality of the vote but coming out way behind in terms of seats.
Still, it is astonishing to see a popular leader with an almost slavishly supportive set of broadcasters struggling to hang on when the pandemic is not yet over. What went wrong for him?
Part of the answer is that Canadians, reliably fair-minded people, resented the calling of a needless election. Trudeau’s stated reason for going to the country was that he wanted a mandate to require air travelers to be vaccinated. But, as even the most partisan Liberals admit, there was nothing to stop him from making that change anyway.
Something else is going on, though. Somehow, Trudeau looks like a leftover from a more lightweight age. He inherited one of the strongest economies in the world, with a budget surplus, falling taxes, steady growth, and full employment. Many Canadians assumed that this was the natural order of things and were prepared to indulge their social liberalism. They rather liked the way in which Trudeau wore T-shirts proclaiming him a feminist. They smiled fondly when he ticked someone off for saying “mankind” instead of “peoplekind.” They didn’t much mind that he dressed like a Bollywood extra on a visit to India. It all served to show what a civilized, progressive, touchy-feely people they were — not like “r neeburs doune sowthe.”
But the pandemic has brought the good times to an end. Canada, as with other countries, faces the twin problems of rising debt and rising prices. All of a sudden, having a well-meaning former supply teacher running the show looks to be a costly indulgence.
Asked about rising prices at the start of the campaign, Trudeau responded, “You’ll forgive me if I don’t think about monetary policy.” It was the kind of asinine remark that, two years ago, the broadcasters would have loyally kept off the airwaves. Not any more. Even the most politically correct editors are starting to wonder whether economic policy can safely be left to a man who babbled recently about “turning the she-cession into a she-covery.”
It’s not that they object to his language — Trudeau has always had a she-pulsive way with words. Rather, it’s that they fret about whether he can be trusted as she-sponsible in a crisis.
Enter the Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole, a former helicopter navigator with an Everyman quality to which trust fund Trudeau can never aspire. O’Toole can see that, as in Britain and America, Canada’s politics are realigning, with working people increasingly voting for right-wing parties on cultural issues. He appeals, albeit in a suitably moderate, Canadian way, to blue-collar workers who are both patriotic and fretful about the rising cost of living. He is pro-American and pro-Anglosphere. Indeed, he is the originator of the policy known as CANZUK — the idea of free trade, free movement, and enhanced cooperation among Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Canada’s public discourse is the wokest in the world. (Well, English-speaking Canada, at any rate. French Canadians have less of a problem with blood-and-soil nationalism.) Yet even in that vast, sparse, gorgeous land, there are limits. It was Trudeau’s father, Pierre, who, as prime minister between 1968 and 1984 (with a short intermission) created a United Nations-compliant, social-democratic, pantywaist Canada that defined itself in opposition to the United States. It was he who stepped back from the alliance of English-speaking democracies and opened relations with Red China and Fidel Castro’s Cuba. It was he who unleashed the doctrine of “multiculturalism” on the world.
Before Trudeau père, there was another Canada — a huge and empty land that attracted only the most self-reliant settlers, a country whose immigration policy depended on keeping the tax rate below America’s so as to compensate for the rougher climate, a country that was the bravest of allies and the deadliest of foes. Has that older Canada, the Canada of Juno Beach, been forgotten? We’ll find out on Monday.
