Trudeau’s hubris serves nobody

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gives a thumbs up as he arrives to deliver his victory speech. Picture: AFP

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is deluding no one but himself if he really believes he won a clear mandate in Tuesday’s election. Motivated by hubris and the dubious claim his minority government faced an obstructive parliament, he called the election two years ahead of time to leverage his successful handling of the pandemic to win enough seats to secure a majority. Just as they did in 2019, however, voters declined to give him what he wanted. His so-called vanity election – which polling showed was unwanted by most voters and cost taxpayers $C600m ($647m) – has ended up with a parliament almost unchanged from what it was. Once more, Mr Trudeau will be in a minority.

Despite Mr Trudeau’s confidence, his Liberals will end up with only about 32 per cent of the popular vote, the lowest poll for a winning party in Canadian history. The main opposition Conservative Party came out on top – just as it has in five of the past six elections – with 34 per cent.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau. Picture: AFP

With voter turnout around the low 60s, that means, according to published estimates, that only one in five eligible voters cast their ballots for Mr Trudeau. He will end up with 158 seats, only one seat better than when he called the poll and well short of the 170 needed for a majority. Whatever spin Mr Trudeau may want to put on it, that is no clear mandate.

Rather, it reflects the political misjudgment and hypocrisy that has been the hallmark of his administration since he first won office in 2015. Since then it has been downhill for Mr Trudeau, whose popularity on the left for leading Canada’s most progressive government has been overshadowed by ethics scandals and unkept promises that have tarnished his image and exposed him to charges of double standards and gimmickry that would have doomed the political prospects of more conservative political leaders.

Perceptions of him as the most woke of Western leaders were tarnished in 2019 when it emerged that while never missing an opportunity to pose as an avatar of equality and identity politics, he had, as a younger man, worn blackface as a schoolteacher. That almost cost him the 2019 election.

A year earlier, he caused national embarrassment when, on a clumsy official trip to India, he donned traditional Indian dress and pressed his hands in prayer, attracting mockery from political opponents and nonplussed Indian leaders.

Mr Trudeau was twice found by Canada’s ethics commissioner to have broken conflict-of-interest rules, first for holidaying on the enormously wealthy Aga Khan’s private island, and second for pressing his attorney-general to drop a corruption case against an influential engineering company.

There was another scandal last year when the Trudeau government handed a billion-dollar contract to a charity with close links to his family. He has been derided for using silly woke phrases such as “she-economy” and “peoplekind”.

Ahead of Monday’s election it seemed Mr Trudeau might not even win enough seats for even a minority government. His six-year spending binge and yawning budget deficits should have made him an easy target. But it says much about the incompetence of the Conservatives led by Erin O’Toole that they were unable to win. Mr O’Toole ran for party leader as a “true-blue conservative”. But he soon moved to the left, breaking with the party’s traditional policies on social issues such as guns and abortion and framing himself as “Trudeau lite”. Even so, there is little in the election from which Mr Trudeau can take much satisfaction.

Mr Trudeau may be back as Prime Minister, but the election’s failure to produce the majority government he craved is likely to make his next term more difficult. Wokeness does not make for the strong leadership Canada needs. It is a key member of the Group of Seven, NATO and the Five Eyes alliance. Like Australia, it faces major challenges, especially over China. Two of its citizens are imprisoned in Beijing as retaliation for the detention in Canada of the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.