2023-09-15 19:30:00
There was a time when all of Canada would have been very excited to see Justin Trudeau take part in a major summit of progressive leaders, in Montreal no less.
And yet, we wonder who had the brilliant idea of sending him, this Saturday, to make big speeches on the rise of the right and the threats to democracy.
It’s very 2015, let’s say.
It is above all the antithesis of the signal he wanted to send during his caucus meeting in London this week.
In 2023, it’s the return of steak, corn and potatoes. No choice. His political survival depends on it.
Populism
The contrast is stark.
In 2017, the government had waived a GST holiday on construction materials and labor for residential buildings. Five years later, the measure is becoming the lifeline the industry needs.
Conditions have changed, explains Justin Trudeau. Indeed, he is 15% behind his conservative opponent in the polls. A splash of brilliance was needed.
This is how a policy rejected because it was too expensive at a time when the government still had a little room for maneuver is suddenly brandished as a miracle solution when the state coffers are empty.
Then, take the big operation to tighten the screws on the food giants.
Last December, Justin Trudeau said it was ill-advised.
Indeed, the big brands do not deliberately inflate food prices to line their pockets. The Bank of Canada has studied it, the Competition Bureau has studied it, independent researchers have explained it.
Why would forcing the hand of grocers in September be a good idea when it was simplistic and populist last March?
Same reason as for GST. Plummeting in the polls, the Liberals must give voters the impression that the government is taking matters into its own hands.
Turn
It was easy to sell “the sunny ways” of inclusion and reconciliation in 2015. It was sunny.
But when you have difficulty making ends meet, when you rely on your pride to go to the food bank, when you cut back on the children’s breakfasts to pay the rent, the great progressive principles and visions of a more inclusive world, you don’t really care.
What voters want is a government that takes care of real business.
Strongly for the liberals that they have finally understood this.
Except that Justin Trudeau can’t help but go shoveling clouds with left-wing politicians whose star has faded.
Perhaps Sana Marin and Magdalena Anderssen, the former prime ministers of Finland and Sweden, bitterly defeated in the recent elections, will explain to him that in politics, to counter the right, you have to know how to return to a basic game of good time.
As Bill Clinton’s advisor said in 1992, ” it’s the economy stupid ».
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