COVER

POLITICS Risk-loving Justin Trudeau puts career on the line

by Charlie Smith

Back in 2015, video-game producer Sean Smillie shared a story with CBC News about his longtime friend, Justin Trudeau. According to Smillie, Trudeau was “one of the most dangerous people in the world to snowboard behind” when he visited Whistler in the 1990s. That was because of Trudeau’s love of speed and sharp corners. He was a daredevil.

Trudeau’s propensity for risk-taking has been on display on many other occasions since entering federal politics in 2008. Rather than choosing a safe seat, he ran and narrowly won in the largely French-speaking Montreal-area riding of Papineau, which had been held by the Bloc Québécois since 2006.

In 2011, Trudeau burst into the national political spotlight by doing something quite reckless. He accused a Conservative cabinet minister of being a “piece of shit” during a debate over a climate agreement in the House of Commons. Trudeau quickly apologized for his unparliamentary language. The next year, Trudeau took another risk by deciding to participate in a charity boxing match with a Conservative senator, Patrick Brazeau. Trudeau clobbered the Conservative, generating international media attention and plenty of praise from national political commentators.

This summer, Trudeau may have taken his greatest political risk: calling an unnecessary election as COVID-19 case counts are rising and B.C. wildfires are burning

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Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau loves taking chances, which has been demonstrated in a charity boxing match, his snowboarding history, and his August election call. Photo by Adam Scotti/PMO. out of control. In his first news conference of the 2021 election campaign, Trudeau was repeatedly asked if he would resign if the Liberals didn’t win a majority. Although he easily sidestepped the reporters’ questions, he must realize that if there’s another Liberal minority government, his political career could be in jeopardy.

That’s because there are Liberals who might be very appealing alternatives to centre-left voters fed up with Trudeau. Deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney, and former industry minister Navdeep Bains could all mount very credible challenges if they chose to do so.

While it may appear that Trudeau already has the election in the bag, things can go awry during campaigns. An international crisis, unforeseen scandal, or political misstep have derailed incumbent prime ministers in the past. Just ask Stephen Harper about the impact of a photo of a three-yearold Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, face-down and dead on a Mediterranean beach in 2015. Or talk to Paul Martin about the effect of the RCMP disclosing a criminal investigation into a finance-department leak in the midst of the 2006 campaign. In 1993, Kim Campbell told Canadians that election campaigns are not a time to discuss serious issues, which was a devastating blunder.

The biggest threat to Trudeau might be if his traditional supporters conclude that if he is held to a minority, they’ll get a better Liberal leader in the future. And to achieve this, they may decide in this election to vote for the NDP, Green, or even Conservative candidate in their riding.

Amir Attaran, a University of Ottawa professor of law and medicine, has noted on Twitter that there are “real superstars” within the Liberal caucus. “I know many of them,” he stated. “But until they cast off their insubstantial, narcissistic, unctuous husk of a leader, it is with apology to those men and women that I urge voting for anyone but Liberal.” To rub it in, Attaran also tweeted: “It is necessary to dethrone Trudeau, and it is also easy, because he cannot survive a second minority government. Accordingly my desire is this: no Liberal majority. Also this: a more progressive Parliament, for science, fighting poverty, and climate change.” In the meantime, Trudeau already has a problem with his personal-approval rating. According to the Angus Reid Institute, it dropped below 40 percent this month. Although that may not be enough to defeat him, it’s not going to engender complacency within Liberal ranks.

MOST CANADIANS don’t think of Trudeau as a gambler. But he demonstrated this side of his personality in 2012 when he refused to tell his interim leader, Bob Rae, if he would be seeking the federal Liberal leadership. Rae, a widely admired elder statesman in the party, had to decide if he would seek the permanent job—knowing that he might face a challenge from Trudeau—or if should he step down. Rae chose the latter, clearing the way for Trudeau to become federal leader in 2013 at the age of 42. Trudeau’s risk paid off.

Trudeau took another political gamble by anointing rookies to run in the 2015 federal election rather than holding competitive nominations in many winnable ridings, including North Vancouver, Vancouver Granville, and Vancouver South. That paid off handsomely when future see next page

POLITICS Vancouver Granville voters will choose a new MP

by Charlie Smith

In most federal elections, the vast majority of incumbents are reelected.

For evidence of that, look no further than what happened in Vancouver in 2019. All six MPs cruised to victory, including Jody Wilson-Raybould, who had bailed on her party to run as an independent.

Unless there’s a political earthquake on the horizon, it’s pretty safe to bet on all five incumbents seeking reelection this time in Vancouver.

It’s conceivable that any of them could be defeated, of course. But given the demographics and income levels in their ridings, the federal polling numbers, and their relatively high public profiles, it’s not looking likely right now.

In the looming federal election, the only riding in the city without an incumbent is Vancouver Granville, where Liberal Taleeb Noormohamed has a decent chance to make it to Parliament in his third attempt.

Noormohamed is a West Vancouver–raised tech entrepreneur with degrees from Princeton and Harvard and an admirable record of community service. He was defeated in 2019 in Vancouver Granville and came second as the Liberal candidate in North Vancouver in 2011.

As the Straight went to the printer on August 17, Noormohamed was about to find out who his NDP opponent will be. Antiracismeducation activist Markiel Simpson was competing for the NDP nomination with climate-justice campaigner Anjali Appadurai.

The Conservative candidate is corporate lawyer Kailin Che. She attended schools in the riding and worked for Conservative cabinet ministers when Stephen Harper was prime minister.

Imtiaz Popat, a cofounder of the Coalition

Kailin Che, the third Conservative to run in three elections in Vancouver Granville, hopes to woo enough of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s former voters to deny a victory to Liberal Taleeb Noormohamed.

It’s been a year of wicked forest fires and an even more deadly heat dome.

– Charlie Smith

Against Bigotry–Pacific, has announced that he will be seeking the Green nomination this year. The People’s Party of Canada candidate is self-described Canadian patriot Damian Jewett.

This time around, don’t expect the NDP to allocate huge amounts of money to this relatively wealthy riding. That’s because the party needs all the cash it can generate to protect incumbents across B.C. and compete in more winnable parts of the region.

The Conservatives used to win seats in Vancouver, but since 1993 only one has been elected. Wai Young captured Vancouver South in 2011 when the Conservatives obtained their only majority under Stephen Harper. One obstacle facing federal Conservative candidates in Vancouver is their lack of name recognition. Even though Che may appear to have solid credentials on paper, very few voters know her name.

But if the NDP can siphon off enough Liberal votes and if Che can rally lots of former Wilson-Raybould voters to her camp, she will have a chance. She’ll also need the national Conservative campaign to catch fire with the electorate.

On July 25, 2020, Che appeared on a radio program calling for mandatory maskwearing in B.C. She did this in her capacity as a lawyer, representing a doctor seeking an injunction to force the B.C. government to mandate masks in indoor spaces.

The fact that Che was publicly calling for mandatory masks, even if it was simply reflecting the views of her client, will serve her well on the doorsteps of the riding when she meets voters who are freaked out about COVID-19. She can immediately dispel notions that she’s a right-wing, kooky COVID denier.

But if this summer’s climate reckoning turns voters away from both the Conservatives and the Liberals, then the NDP might have an outside chance. Keep in mind that the national vote is likely to occur around the time that hurricanes traditionally wallop the U.S. If Florida or Texas or Louisiana are being battered in the same week as the election, this will drive home the need for stronger action.

It’s been a year of wicked forest fires and an even more deadly heat dome. That cost the lives of hundreds of British Columbians. While Noormohamed and Che may be able debaters, they’re going to have a tough time defending their parties’ records on emissions, which are among the worst in the industrialized world.

Climate feedback loops should be the election issue in 2021. They pose a greater threat to humanity over the long term than COVID-19. But that’s not likely to happen when we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic. And it’s far from certain that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh will focus a great deal of attention on the climate, given the B.C. NDP’s support for liquefiednatural-gas plants.

Because of that, Noormohamed remains the odds-on favourite. And if he wins, he’ll become the first Ismaili Muslim ever elected to Parliament in B.C., which would be no small accomplishment, given the magnitude of Islamophobia that still exists in Canada. g

cabinet ministers Jonathan Wilkinson, Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Harjit Sajjan were all easily elected.

Trudeau took another chance by mostly filling his first cabinet with rookies, leaving some caucus veterans on the backbenches. In 2019, Trudeau took yet another political risk by demoting Wilson-Raybould from justice minister to minister of veterans’ affairs. This came after she refused to go along with yet another Trudeau gamble: trying to engineer a deal to sideline the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on corruption charges, even though this was adamantly opposed by the independent Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

Trudeau hasn’t been immune to taking financial risks with the public treasury, either. In 2018, his government paid US$4.5 billion to Kinder Morgan to buy its Trans Mountain pipeline system, despite his oft-stated concerns about the climate crisis. Then he proceeded with a costly pipeline-expansion plan that has soared to $12.6 billion.

But that was chump change in comparison to what Trudeau was prepared to spend in response to the pandemic. By 2024, the federal debt is expected to reach $1.4 trillion, thanks in part to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, a federal wage subsidy, and other economic-stimulus programs. Trudeau risked his career by participating in a cabinet decision to award a $900-million student-grant program to WE Charity, which has close ties to Trudeau’s wife, mother, and brother.

Trudeau has lived most of his life in the spotlight—and both his mother and father each took their own risks in life. Margaret Trudeau partied with the Rolling Stones when her husband was prime minister. Pierre Trudeau went on long canoe treks in the wilderness. And just try to imagine what it must have been like growing up as the son of the former Canadian prime minister.

He would have heard scores of people telling him how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms changed their lives. He would have met Ismaili Muslims, Chilean Canadians, and people of many other cultural and religious backgrounds telling him how grateful they were that his father enabled them to come to Canada to build a new life. Scholars would have told him that his dad was brilliant. Gays and lesbians would have praised his father for saying that the state had no place in the bedrooms of the nation. And on his father’s death, he would have witnessed 60,000 people visiting Parliament Hill to view his casket.

That’s a lot to take in for a young man trying to carve out his own identity in the world. Even in ordinary families, the shadow of the father can be overwhelming.

Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung described the process of “individuation” as integrating the conscious and unconscious parts of ourselves to become self-actualized. According to Jung, the first stage is known as “differentiation”, which involves developing an individual personality. But how could Trudeau become his own man when his dad has had such a strong influence on the nation?

For Trudeau, he had to break free, in a psychological sense. He became a snowboard instructor living on the West Coast. He decided that his marriage, unlike his father’s, was going to last for a very long time. And he would demonstrate his manliness in a boxing match.

In a Jungian sense, Justin Trudeau’s process of individuation has unfolded quite well. He has his own fully formed personality, even after having grown up with such a famous and revered father. But it involved taking risks, embracing his impulsive side, and giving himself space to make errors, whether it was on the snowboard trails or in politics.

On September 20, Canadians will find out if one of those mistakes was calling an election just when the world seemed like it was going to hell. g