Since Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau's election in 2015, the Globe editorial board ponders his current legacy after six years in office.NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP
Six years ago today – Oct. 19, 2015 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government was elected to office. With the Liberals settling in for a third mandate, what’s the government’s legacy so far? What’s Mr. Trudeau’s?
Start with the present crisis. When the pandemic hit, the Liberals hesitated on closing the borders, and for months they bumbled the screening of travellers. Later, they stumbled when it came to acquiring vaccines. In the first quarter of 2021, the number of vaccinated Canadians lagged far behind most of our peers, this country having received just a dribble of doses.
That changed abruptly in the late spring, when Canada’s vaccine supply jumped ahead of most of our peers. Team Trudeau deserved criticism for the early dearth of shots; it deserves credit for turning the situation around.
The Liberals also did a decent job of managing the pandemic recession. A lot of credit for the economic rebound of recent months goes to Ontario and Quebec, for their success in tamping down the fourth wave. But Ottawa’s support programs prevented a deeper recession in 2020, and set the stage for Canadian employment to return to its prepandemic level, as it did last month. That’s a much better picture than the one in the United States.
When things go wrong, governments get punished, but they often aren’t rewarded for what didn’t go wrong. Take marijuana legalization: The event ended up being so happily humdrum that it’s hard to remember that pot sales were once illegal.
Or consider U.S. trade. The election of president Donald Trump forced the government to spend the better part of two years fighting the attempted dismemberment of NAFTA; the result was its replacement by a reasonable facsimile, the USMCA. The status quo was largely preserved.
The Liberals have been more right than wrong on climate policy and deserve credit for first bringing in a national carbon tax, and then planning to raise it to $170 a tonne by 2030. On the other hand, they came into office looking at China through rose-coloured glasses, and it’s still not clear that they’ve thrown those spectacles away. They’ve also promised pharmacare, but never delivered. Though after two decades of talking about a child care plan, they finally got one passed, and negotiated its implementation with most provinces. And the Canada Child Benefit, a 2016 policy that puts thousands of dollars a year into the pockets of low- and middle-income parents, has significantly reduced child poverty. It may be their most invisible policy success.
But another Trudeau government is an unappetizing prospect for many Canadians. It may have won three elections, but it’s gone from majority to minority, and its share of the popular vote has fallen each election. In the last campaign, the pitch to voters was light on new initiatives, and heavy on fear of the Conservatives. It wasn’t exactly Sunny Ways.
This is a government that also keeps coming up with new takes on showing contempt for Parliament, the latest being calling an election because the opposition was allegedly preventing Parliament from working. Having won the election, it’s waiting two months to recall Parliament, which won’t sit until late November – in time to adjourn for the holidays.
All of which raises questions about Mr. Trudeau’s future. The improbable victory of 2015 would not have happened with anyone else at the helm, and in any event, after the Liberal debacle of 2011, almost no one wanted to lead. And Mr. Trudeau, who launched his career in politics not in a safe seat, but by running and winning in a Bloc Québécois riding, is still capable of being a formidable campaigner, as he – sometimes – demonstrated this year. It’s also hard to imagine another Liberal leader, an anglophone, winning 35 seats in Quebec.
But every politician has an Achilles heel. For some it’s money. For others, sex or drugs or drink. Mr. Trudeau’s problem is vacations. He has a vacation problem. It’s become representative of his sense of self. It has gotten him in trouble before, and did again a few weeks ago, when instead of attending a ceremony – any ceremony – for the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, he went to the beach.
The political cost to his government will be high, and the debt incurred will likely be paid by others. It’s an inauspicious way for a PM to start a third mandate: pondering self-inflicted wounds, and wondering what drove one to self-harm.
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