Trump Gives Trudeau His First Good Week In Years

Jeff Green | Dec 11, 2024

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been fighting the clock ever since his COVID election call in 2021. His government had already been reduced to a minority less than 20 months earlier, and he tried to parlay a bump in the polls in a COVID lull, to return to majority rule.

The population saw through his weak explanation for calling an election, and although they were returned to government, the Liberals did not get the majority they were seeking. Luckily for them, they were close enough to it that they require the support of only one of three opposition parties on any confidence motion, even though they lost the popular vote in the election to the Conservative Party for the second straight election.

Since that election, the poll numbers have continually declined for the Liberal Party. They are now sitting at 22%, and the Conservative Party are sitting at 43%, twice as many people say they will vote for the Conservative Party under Pierre Pollievre than the number who support the Trudeau Liberals.

In 2021, Justin Trudeau said that because the Conservative Party had a very different plan for Canada than the Liberal Party did, only an election could clear the air.

Flash forward to the present day, when he apparently does not feel the same need for the clarity that an election would bring. He has continually worked to block the constant attempts by the Conservative Party, supported now by the Bloc Quebecois, to force an election.

Given current polling numbers, the Conservatives would win over 200 seats in the 338 member Parliament if an election were held today, and the Bloc would sweep much of Quebec, leaving the Liberals and the NDP to divvy up 75 seats or so seats in Montreal, Toronto and some other pockets around the country.

Nothing Justin Trudeau has said or done in the past two years has reversed the trends. In fact, it seems like every time he speaks to the public he loses a vote or three.

The GST holiday that is coming up for two months, as well as the $250 rebate checks that the Liberals intend to send out in a month or so, may be welcome to the population, but they have and will not sway anyone to vote for the Liberals any time soon.

The Liberals will lose power in the next election, the only question is whether they will remain with a few dozen seats, or less, in the next parliament.

Nothing has happened to change any of that, but last week, for the first time in years, Justin Trudeau looked composed, strong and definitive in the face of an unprecedented external challenge.

In a now infamous social media post, Donald Trump said he would be imposing a 25% tariff on all Canadian and Mexican goods on the day he becomes president, unless the two countries address border issues.

The announcement left Pierre Pollievre, the Conservative Prime Minister in waiting, with nothing to say for a few days. Meanwhile, Trudeau called the premiers together for a meeting, made an unscheduled dinner date with Trump at his resort in Florida, and put together a strategy that appeases Trump on the one hand, and contemplates retaliation on the other. 

He let the US politicians whose constituents will be harmed by a tariff on Canadian goods have their say, and distinguished Canada from Mexico while trying to avoid calling for Mexico to be cut out of the three way trade agreement.

He sounded strong, prime ministerial, for a change.

It took  Pierre Pollievre a few days to appear before the cameras, on a podium behind a sign that said “fix the broken border”, which basically handed the issue to Donald Trump by resorting to his basic political strategy, blame everything that is wrong or unpleasant in the world on Justin Trudeau

And this week, when Donald Trump has decided to demean our entire country by calling us a mere “State” in his own fundamentally broken country, thus insulting all of us, Pollievre  again said this had happened because Justin Trudeau is weak, and he will be strong when he takes power. Instead of standing up for Canadians, he defaulted to blaming Trudeau.

Whether there is a tariff on January 20th or not, and no Canadian politician can control that outcome, Justin Trudeau has quickly laid out a Canadian strategy to try and dissuade the Trump government from imposing one, and set out a strategy to deal with one, if it does come to pass. There is not much more than he could have done, under the circumstances.

This does not make it any more likely that Trudeau will escape defeat whenever an election is called. 

But in my view, it has been an impressive, measured response, and has served our collective interest as Canadians.