One big winner of the U.S. election: Justin Trudeau

Trump’s political rebirth presents our Prime Minister with a career-saving opportunity

It’s been clear for weeks that the Republicans might regain the White House, and you can now appreciate why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spent months rebuffing calls for his resignation from within his Liberal caucus. Trudeau knew there was a scenario where he might get one last opportunity to change the narrative around his tenure as PM — and last night’s vote has opened the door to this new world.

As this Star column is off-cycle, I’m posting the entire piece. I recommend playing Bizet’s Carmen in the background — you’ll quickly picture our PM in his new Toreador costume. (If you want to see the balance of my prior columns, you can subscribe to the Star online via my special discount code: www.thestar.com/informed.)

As Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump piled-up the votes last night, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must have been pinching himself in anticipation. For months, Trudeau and his PMO palace guard will have followed the U.S. presidential race polls more closely than most. Despite the whispers to the Star’s Ottawa Bureau, I’m dubious that the Liberals actually preferred a Kamala Harris victory.

How so? Trump’s political rebirth presents our Prime Minister with a career-saving opportunity: Trudeau gets to spend the next eleven months playing the delicious role of Escamillo, the brave bullfighting Toreador from Bizet’s timeless opera Carmen.

Trump is his bull, and we’ll soon be bombarded with stories about how Trudeau is preparing to defend Canada’s interests from a snarling, vicious, horned bovine. The President-elect didn’t intend to play the role, but by broaching the prospect of diverting water from Canada, and with the scheduled review of USMCA in 2026, Trudeau’s woeful polling results call for different tactics than in 2016.

Back then, our rookie PM went to great lengths to build bridges with the newly-elected President and his key family members. Trudeau even flew down to New York to take First Daughter Ivanka Trump to a Broadway showing of the Canadian musical Come From Away.

Those chummy days are over. Trump won’t be on the ballot in our upcoming federal election, but Trudeau will try and run against him just the same.

We got a taste of this brewing strategy a few days ago when the Liberal government introduced legislation “to crack down” on the charitable status of community groups offering pregnancy counselling services that “push women away from accessing abortion services.” I’m not sure how Pope Francis and his Canadian flock might be impacted, but the true target was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre – with Liberal Cabinet Minister Ya’ara Saks claiming Poilievre “will use the Notwithstanding Clause to take away women’s reproductive rights.”

That’s all hogwash, but with the impending U.S. vote, the Liberals were trying – once again – to leverage the never-ending American struggle over abortion for their own political ends.

Poilievre has long made clear that Conservatives will not restrict abortion access in the event he wins the next election, leaving Liberals no choice but look to Trump’s MAGA-land for evidence of a hidden global right-wing agenda.

If they’d stick closer to home, Team Trudeau could take inspiration from former Liberal Leader Jean Chretien, who proved that being critical of both the U.S. government, and even the sitting President, can prop up your support at home.

As Prime Minister, Chretien famously “attacked” George W. Bush’s administration for its large budget deficit, and he was openly critical of America’s decision to go after Saddam Hussein in 2003. The cross-border animosity peaked when Chretien’s spokesman called then-President Bush a “moron” in the presence of journalists. Not to be outdone, Bush’s White House featured a hallway of photos of what he called “great North American leaders” – featuring only pictures of himself and Mexico President Vicente Fox.

Canada/US relations survived such slights.   

With Trump’s election, Toreador Trudeau now gets to protect Canadian water, fight for dairy farmers in the coming USMCA renegotiation, and shield Canadian women from the overarching influence of U.S. Republican legislators.  

It’s hard to believe it was only a few days ago that a cabal of grumpy Liberal caucus members were calling for Trudeau’s resignation, for fear that he had no viable path to political salvation. I guess they were wrong.

In 2012, Trudeau sought out a boxing ring to “restore his own identity.” Almost a decade later, the PM leveraged a shouting match outside of a hospital with anti-vaccine mandate protestors to help turn around his flailing 2021 re-election campaign. Now comes a battle with Trump.

The Grits have done a terrible job with our economy, but interest rates are dropping, the TSX Index is at an all-time high, and pollster Nik Nanos reports that consumer confidence in vote-rich Ontario just hit “a new 30-month high.”

Trudeau’s remaining opportunity for electoral deliverance may just come from throwing some well-aimed banderillas in Trump’s general direction.

What’s he got to lose?

MRM

(note: this post is an Opinion Piece)