How Justin Trudeau lost Canada

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Justin Trudeau has laid down more than his share of blacktop during his nine-plus years in office. After almost a decade of Stephen Harper’s miserly approach to governing, his open-hearted approach to politics was a refreshing and welcome change. He won a majority government on a promise to make government more open, more accountable and more democratic. He would deliver reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, grow the middle class, address climate change and light the way for Canada with his self-declared “sunny ways.” 

In the end, almost none of that actually came to pass. Instead, after four years of Donald Trump and a global pandemic, he’s become a lightning rod for political polarization and personal animus. The middle class is buckling under the pressure of a deepening affordability crisis, while the electoral system remains just as dysfunctional as it was when he promised to change it. His government has fundamentally undermined its own signature climate policies through deliberate political concessions like the heating oil carveout and self-inflicted errors like the failure to properly communicate with Canadians. And now, the road — for his party, at least — is running perilously short.

It’s too early, I think, for a completely clear-eyed analysis of what his legacy will be. Brian Mulroney left office as a pariah, sunk even further in the public’s estimation after the details of the Airbus affair came to light, and ended up dying two decades later as one of our most revered statesmen. History takes a long time to render its full verdict, far longer than our social media-atrophied attention spans can probably imagine right now. 

Even so, there are some clear lessons that Trudeau’s potential successors can and should learn. First and foremost, they have to break with his habit of promising the moon and delivering the clouds. As I’ve written before, Liberalism tends to be most successful when its practitioners under-promise and over-deliver, as Jean Chretien did for a decade. Justin Trudeau had a very obvious inclination towards the inverse of that, forever failing to live up to his government’s lofty (and laudable) promises. At a time of elevated and weaponized cynicism towards public service and government, progressives need to be especially careful not to write cheques they can’t cash. 

They also must better articulate a more cohesive and inclusive vision of what it means to be a Liberal — and a Canadian. Trudeau’s divisive impact on our politics has little to do with the pandemic or the things he said about the most virulent anti-vaxxers, ones his most merchandise-heavy critics never tire of talking about. If anything, he should have said those things even more forcefully at the time, given that the vast majority of the country agreed with him.

Instead, the divisiveness we now see is a direct result of the way he governed after he lost his majority in 2019. Most of the policies rolled out after that election seemed designed to satisfy or speak to a specific subset of the voting public, whether it was childcare, the increase to Old Age Security, or the means-tested dental program. Even the carbon tax rebates and the way they were communicated — incompetently, as I’ve written repeatedly — segmented the public into winners and losers. Because Trudeau’s team was so good at micro-targeting voters, and therefore only needed approximately one-third of the national vote to retain power, they were naturally inclined towards this constant atomization of the public. 

That talent helped his party win elections in 2019 and 2021. But it may have also allowed it to lose touch with the country as a whole in the process. Indeed, if there’s an overarching criticism of Justin Trudeau as prime minister that will outlast the short-term griping about his style or specific policy failures, it will be his failure to stand up more fully for Canada. On any number of fronts, from his government’s numerous concessions to the jurisdictional encroachment coming from Quebec to its inability to forcefully denounce creeping Alberta separatism, Trudeau has routinely declined to defend the national interest. When he has spoken up for national objectives and interests, as with his government’s climate policies, he more often than not exacerbated existing regional tensions and fractures.

I'm not asking for the promotion of some singular national identity, a Harper-era project to which a future Poilievre government will surely return. Trudeau’s father, after all, was the first to point out the folly in that — and the advantages of embracing diversity. But when it was time to fight for Canada, Pierre Trudeau fought good and hard. He beat back Quebec separatism. He stood firm against America’s cultural imperialism. And he gave Canadians a set of institutions and ideals, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that now form the backbone of our shared sense of self. 

Now, that backbone is breaking — and it's happened under Justin Trudeau's watch. Quebec separatism is rising again and another referendum may not be far away. Political alienation and outright paranoia continue to roil the Prairie provinces. Young Canadians are particularly (and, it should be said, understandably) disconnected from any sense of national pride or loyalty. Donald Trump’s repeated musing about turning Canada into the 51st state has revealed just how tenuous our national project really is — and how little some of us seem to want to fight for it.

If Liberalism is going to remain politically relevant, it will have to reorient itself around its traditional north star of national unity. The next leader, whoever that is, has to put an end to the boutique policies and relentless political microtargeting that have come to define the Trudeau era. Instead, they have to articulate a more unifying vision for this country, one in which we’re made stronger by working together than we are as individuals. They have to make the case for Canada itself, one where its federal government is actively and visibly making people’s lives better. And they have to explain why that case feels more tenuous right now after nine years of Liberal government than it has in a very long time.

It won’t be easy. It will almost certainly take more than one election cycle. But after almost a decade of “hope and hard work,” maybe it’s time for a little honesty as well.