Whatever Ken McDonald, the Liberal MP for Avalon, said or meant to say about Justin Trudeau’s leadership, the most cutting assessment of the prime minister published this week might have come from Jeanette Dyke, a patron of Tiny’s Bar and Grill in Paradise, N.L.
“I just cannot take Justin Trudeau anymore,” she told Radio-Canada. “He has charisma … but to me he’s annoying.”
Those comments speak to the most basic challenge of political leadership. The TV cameras that watch politicians daily magnify every facet and quirk of their personalities. And like a houseguest — one who can be blamed for every grievance about the economy, or the real estate market, or the price of gas — a political leader’s odds of overstaying their welcome grow with each passing day.
“I think the relationship between a political leader and the people is a bit like a marriage,” Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski told reporters this week, venturing a different analogy. “After quite a few years of a marriage, sometimes things don’t quite look as rosy as they were at the beginning of a relationship. And if you ask people why, they can’t point to one particular thing, but it’s a whole bunch of things.”
Sometimes it’s small things.
“They loved him for his hair to begin with. Now they hate him for his hair,” Powlowski continued. “But is that really reason to vote the other way and vote against him?”
To hold on to power through another federal election — his fourth as leader of the Liberal Party — Trudeau probably doesn’t need to be widely beloved. He probably can’t hope to be.
But he still might need some of the people who are feeling just a bit tired of him right now to give him a second (or third or fourth) look.
The ups and downs of Trudeau’s public image
It would not be the first time Canadians have reconsidered Justin Trudeau. Measured over time, public sentiment toward him has run through peaks and valleys.
In the fall of 2014, a little more than a year after he became Liberal leader, Abacus Data found that 39 per cent of survey respondents held a positive view of Trudeau, compared to 29 per cent who felt negatively toward him. By the summer of 2015, with his own missteps and Conservative attack ads eating away at his reputation, his personal numbers were underwater — 30 per cent positive against 33 per cent negative.
Shortly thereafter came the surge that brought Trudeau to office. In November 2015, Abacus found Trudeau had a net score of plus-37 (56 per cent positive, 19 per cent negative).
Those numbers eroded over the two years that followed, as one would expect for any prime minister. But then they plunged with the SNC-Lavallin affair in 2019. A year later, the numbers flipped back in the other direction when Canadians rallied around the federal government’s response to the pandemic.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a news conference at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Trudeau’s numbers didn’t move decidedly back into the negative until the 2021 election. But that turn against the prime minister has only continued since, to the point where a line graph of positive and negative sentiment now shows a yawning gap. Earlier this month, Abacus found that Trudeau’s net score was minus-34 (25 per cent positive, 59 per cent negative), nearly the inverse of his highest point in 2015.
What’s dragging him down now?
Unlike the drop in 2019, it’s hard to point to any single precipitating event to explain the turn in public attitudes on Trudeau. It’s probably some combination of things, big and small.
There are a several factors that would be dragging down any prime minister right now. At least some of the drop in Liberal fortunes seemed to coincide with interest rate hikes by the Bank of Canada. Inflation has fallen markedly from its recent highs, but the impact of higher prices is still being felt. And the current government has been in office now for eight years. (Trudeau is also far from the only G7 leader struggling with public opinion these days.)
And while voters can tire of any political leader eventually, Trudeau hasn’t always conducted himself like a politician worried about exhausting the public’s patience. He has been a very public prime minister and he does few things quietly, up to and including his Christmas vacations.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau greets supporters during a campaign rally in Surrey, B.C., on Oct. 18, 2015. (Reuters)
The decline in his public standing might call for grand moves — something like the Liberal campaign ads in 2015 that directly took on Conservative claims that Trudeau wasn’t “ready.” But Trudeau is also contending now with a media narrative that will tend to interpret any big move as evidence of desperation or flailing.
What the Liberals can do — and perhaps must do, if they want to win the next election — is ask Canadians to look closer at the other guy.
Will the next election be a choice or a referendum?
“The big thing is, compare him to the alternatives,” Powlowski said this week. “And I think if you look at the alternatives, and I think as Canadians get to know Pierre Poilievre better, a lot of people will realize, ‘Okay, Trudeau’s not so bad.'”
The Liberals intensified their focus on the Conservative leader last fall and Trudeau used significant portions of his televised speech to caucus this week to highlight his differences with Poilievre.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre shakes hands with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after Poilievre’s remarks at a rally in support of Israel at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre in Ottawa on Oct. 9, 2023. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
In the lead-up to the 2019 election, Trudeau’s team internalized the idea that the vote needed to be “a choice, not a referendum.” That framing is likely twice as important for the Liberals now. The Liberals won that election while Trudeau’s personal numbers were in the red — he began that campaign at 35 per cent positive, 46 per cent negative.
At 25 per cent, Trudeau obviously is in worse shape now. But his personal approval is also not too far below the 33 per cent of the popular vote the Liberals won in 2021 — enough to win 160 seats and retain government.
If (or when) inflation falls enough for voters to notice, and if interest rates decline in tandem, some of the dark clouds surrounding Trudeau and his government might part. That might allow Canadians to see him in a different light.
That might be the best scenario Trudeau can hope for. On the other hand, he might reach a point (if he hasn’t already) where too many voters are simply unwilling to give him a hearing — where no matter what Trudeau’s government has to say for itself, a critical mass of voters simply can’t take him and his hair anymore.
And if the Conservatives can successfully turn the next election into a referendum on Trudeau, the Canadian voter could end up deciding to marry someone very different.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
