The Trudeau connection

From Pierre's swinging Sixties to Justin's risk-adverse teens.

by Geoffrey Stevens

What a difference a generation makes!

A generation ago, Pierre Trudeau, father of today’s dauphin, burst on the political scene, “like a stone through a stained glass window” (in the memorable simile of the late journalist Gordon Donaldson).

He won the Liberal leadership in April 1968 and, because the Grits were the government party, he was able to step directly from his Mercedes convertible into 24 Sussex Drive. He won the general election in June that year and went on to become one of Canada’s longest-serving prime ministers. Now that he is gone, Canadians tell pollsters he was the most wonderful PM the country ever had.

Nostalgia is nice, but it wasn’t as easy back then as it may appear in the rear-view mirror today. Trudeau had to fight — hard — to win the leadership. He was up against seven heavyweight contenders, including six ministers from Lester Pearson’s cabinet. It took him four tough ballots to capture the prize.

Many convention delegates flatly refused to support him, regarding him as being too inexperienced, too French, too sexy and too (ugh!) socialist to be worthy of the leadership of, to their minds, the greatest political party in the western world. Several of the senior figures in Pearson administration left politics rather than serve under him.

But that was the Swinging Sixties, a decade when anything seemed possible, even an unconventional leader who looked more like a hippie than a prime minister.

His eldest son, Justin, faces a very different set of challenges as he prepares to enter the Liberal leadership race this week, here in the Risk-Adverse Teens.

He won’t have to worry about knocking off seven heavyweights. The party will be hard pressed to find even one serious challenger to give him a bit of a tussle. Justin couldn’t lose if he tried.

His challenges will begin when the last balloon has floated to the convention floor. This is not his father’s Liberal party. Twenty-four Sussex does not await.

Mired in third place and unable to count on the support of more than 20 percent of the electorate (if that), the Liberals have an identity crisis. Who are they? What do they stand for? What distinguishes them from the Harper Conservatives on their right and the Mulcair New Democrats on their left? Why would anyone want, or need, to vote for them?

In Stephen Harper, the younger Trudeau will face a prime minister whose principles are anchored in quicksand. Power is his game. He will move his Conservatives to the right to satisfy his core supporters or to the left to pre-empt the NDP or head off the Liberals.

In Thomas Mulcair, Justin Trudeau will face an opposition leader with wind in his sails, a pragmatist who will do what it takes to make his New Democrats the majority party in Ottawa. If that means moving to the right and straddling the centre, so be it.

Short of merging the Liberals with the NDP — which seems like a better idea with each passing month — Justin’s dilemma will be to find or carve out a niche between the Tories and the New Democrats. It won’t be easy. It may not be possible.

And that’s only one of Justin’s challenges. He will have to rebuild the party’s electoral base. His father’s legacy may help him in suburban Ontario and in ethnic ridings, once faithfully Liberal, that are coveted by Harper’s Conservatives. It will not help him between Ontario and the Rockies. Nor, it seems, will it help in Quebec where voters have forgotten the euphoria of 1968 and remember only the “betrayal” of 1981 when Pierre Trudeau proceeded with the patriation of the Constitution without the signature of the separatist premier of the day, René Lévesque.

Justin knows faces he a long haul — at least two elections (seven years) and maybe longer. Would his dad have tackled such a steep slope a generation ago? I don’t think so.

© Copyright 2012 Geoffrey Stevens, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca