Perhaps Trudeau magic worked better in a different era.
If this were 1968 all over again, Justin Trudeau would have an excellent chance of carrying off the Liberal leadership, as his father did in '68.
Appearing out of nowhere (relatively speaking), Pierre Trudeau defeated a field loaded with Liberal heavyweights — Robert Winters, Paul Hellyer, Paul Martin (Sr), Joe Greene, Allan MacEachen, Eric Kierans and young John Turner — to seize the leadership and, with it, the keys to 24 Sussex.
That April day in Ottawa in 1968 produced a perfect storm of opportunity, personality and public mood. Change was happening everywhere that year, from the streets of Chicago, to Prague Spring, to student riots in Paris. "Make love, not war," was the mantra of the young.
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Recession-weary Canadians are worried and are not poised to take a flying leap into the political unknown, as they were in 1968. |
There was excitement in the air in Canada, too, as the country emerged from Centennial year and the triumph of Expo '67. There was a sense of optimism, a belief that the present was good and the future would be even better for Canadians. We basked in the knowledge that Canada was valued, even envied, around the world.
At home, government was viewed as a good thing, something to make people proud not ashamed, something to be encouraged not disparaged. After all, the outgoing Pearson Liberal administration had just introduced the most significant social program in the country's history, national medical care insurance — and medicare, as it came to be called, would come into effect on July 1, 1968.
From the rose in his lapel to the sandals on his feet, Pierre Trudeau seemed to embody the spirit of those heady "flower power" days. Canadians felt emboldened to take a chance, to test the tantalizing waters of the political unknown.
Even so, it was not a slam-dunk for Trudeau. It took him four ballots to win the leadership. He barely held off a hard-charging Bob Winters, who trailed by 459 votes on the first ballot but closed to within 249 by the fourth. One more ballot and Pierre Trudeau might be just a what-might-have-been footnote in political history, and Justin might be teaching school somewhere in Quebec.
Could Pierre have captured the hearts of Liberals and other Canadians in any other era, before 1968 or after? I doubt it.
Could he do it today — in an era when politics have become smaller and meaner, when government is preoccupied with doing less not more, when it happily builds prisons and lays off public servants while chipping away at income security for seniors and reducing protection for the environment? Not a chance.
That's Justin's problem, as I see it. He has the Trudeau name. Among Liberals, he evokes some of the enthusiasm that his father did. But the family legacy cuts both ways. The Trudeau name still has resonance in Ontario; if Ontario university students were electing the next leader, Justin would win in a landslide. However, his surname is no longer magic in Quebec (to put it mildly), and it is anathema to much of the West.
We live in the risk-averse Harper era. Recession-weary Canadians worry about jobs, pensions, the health care system and their children's futures. They are not exactly poised to take a flying leap into the political unknown, as they were in 1968. Not even for the leader of what is now a third party, a party with no realistic prospect of returning to power any time soon.
Justin is testing the waters on the BBQ circuit this summer. He sounds ambivalent about contesting the leadership, as he should. He has young children and he knows better than most about the toll that political leadership takes on young families.
The Liberal leadership is not the prize it was in 1968. If he wins, Justin would face the prospect of a minimum of three, and more likely at least seven, years rebuilding a party in which Canadians have largely lost interest.
If he does decide to run, it would be more out of a sense of duty than destiny.
About Geoffrey Stevens
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. He welcomes comments at the address below. This article appeared in the Waterloo Region Record and the Guelph Mercury.
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