Full Comment - Regular-people rules don’t apply to ‘Prince’ Trudeau

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00:00:51.060 Canadians have known Justin Trudeau in one way, shape, or form since he was born on December 25th, 1971.

00:00:57.820 His father was prime minister at the time.

00:01:00.000 Had been for a little over three years, but Trudeau really introduced himself to the country politically in October 2000,

00:01:07.400 when he delivered a eulogy at his father's funeral.

00:01:10.680 The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

00:01:14.740 He has kept his promises and earned his sleep to them above.

00:01:27.200 From that speech, from that moment onwards, people began whispering about a potential political career for Justin Trudeau.

00:01:39.260 And in 2008, he was elected as the MP for the Montreal riding of Papineau.

00:01:43.300 He didn't exactly set the world on fire as a backbench MP, but in March 2012, something else happened.

00:01:50.540 He won a boxing match against conservative Senator Patrick Brasso that helped launch his leadership bid,

00:01:55.900 which led to him becoming prime minister in 2015.

00:01:58.620 Gentlemen, together, please.

00:02:02.900 In the second round of this three-round two-minute battle,

00:02:08.020 the referee stopped the fight in favor of, in the red corner,

00:02:13.680 Justin Papineau, peatilist Trudeau.

00:02:17.080 Now, strangely and bizarrely, considering how big of a critic I am of Justin Trudeau,

00:02:24.160 I was there for both events.

00:02:25.900 Hello, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:02:27.260 Welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:02:28.880 Today, we're speaking with Stephen Amar, a long-time journalist and author about his new book on Justin Trudeau,

00:02:34.000 titled The Prince, The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau.

00:02:37.560 Stephen joins me now from Ottawa.

00:02:39.700 Normally rests his perch in Nova Scotia, but he's in Ottawa.

00:02:44.020 Thanks for the time, Stephen.

00:02:45.420 I'm so happy to be with you, Brian.

00:02:47.660 Tell me about the name The Prince.

00:02:50.840 Are you making a Machiavellian reference there,

00:02:53.680 or is it a reference to the fact that, you know, he's the son of a former prime minister?

00:02:58.600 It's not Machiavellian, although I've maybe clouded things by quoting Machiavellian in the book.

00:03:04.460 So it comes from, I first started thinking of him that way,

00:03:08.920 before he was a member of parliament.

00:03:10.720 The first time I met him was in a bar called Darcy McGee's in Ottawa,

00:03:14.400 which I believe you may have polished with your elbows.

00:03:17.080 Was it that one time or another?

00:03:18.200 Once or twice, yes.

00:03:19.400 Yeah.

00:03:20.340 And it was a hangout at the time for political people.

00:03:22.640 He popped in there.

00:03:23.320 I think he may have been in Ottawa for a Katimovic board meeting.

00:03:26.620 And he was with his friend, Gerald Butts, who was a Cape Breton-er.

00:03:30.920 And I said, oh, geez, that's Justin Trudeau.

00:03:34.900 I'm a reporter.

00:03:35.520 I should go talk to him.

00:03:37.280 And I had a pleasant chat with him.

00:03:39.260 He was impressed by how friendly and open he was.

00:03:41.220 And we had a pleasant beer together.

00:03:42.600 And at one point, we were talking politics, and I started to talk about prime ministers.

00:03:48.220 And I mentioned his father in passing, you know, and of course, Trudeau did this.

00:03:53.000 And I stopped myself and said, oh, geez, I just realized I'm talking about your father, right?

00:03:56.660 It's a bit odd.

00:03:57.420 And he squared his shoulders and looked at me and said, I never forget I'm a Trudeau.

00:04:04.200 And he struck me at that moment as a sort of regal sort of character.

00:04:07.900 And I thought, this person is different from most of the people that I meet.

00:04:14.000 And so over the years, I kind of thought of him as a prince.

00:04:17.440 I used it as a sort of frame to analyze his subsequent behavior.

00:04:21.000 And when I started working on the book, I had that idea in mind that he was a prince

00:04:27.880 with princely characteristics, princely confidence and courage, but princely capriciousness and vanity.

00:04:36.280 And then when I was doing the research, reading through old quotes and so on,

00:04:40.360 I found examples of his brother, his mother, and his wife all calling him a prince.

00:04:45.760 So I became sure as I went along that it was a useful frame of reference for thinking about him.

00:04:54.420 Well, most of us don't get the chance to launch our political career because our father dies

00:05:00.300 and it's televised across the country.

00:05:03.820 We're not giving a eulogy for our parents on national TV.

00:05:08.140 So, you know, in many ways you are right.

00:05:10.820 He was born when his father occupied 24 Sussex Drive, a place he hasn't lived, by the way,

00:05:18.580 since he became prime minister.

00:05:20.140 That's another story that maybe we'll get into.

00:05:22.280 But how far back did you go in terms of talking to people that knew him?

00:05:28.980 I mean, would you go back to grade school pals of his?

00:05:31.680 No, no, I'm interested in him.

00:05:37.280 It's not a story of his life.

00:05:39.580 It's a story of his government.

00:05:43.080 And I'm interested in him as a politician because he's a public official.

00:05:50.540 And it's sort of, you know, in the public interest to examine him as a way of understanding our democracy.

00:05:57.740 So I look at his childhood and so on as it kind of impacts his character because he's a public official.

00:06:09.200 So I'm not trying to do the kind of deep dive that you would do if you were really trying to capture.

00:06:17.880 Yeah, I don't consider it a biography.

00:06:19.880 People are calling it that.

00:06:21.440 But I think it's fair to call it a political biography.

00:06:24.200 It's I'm trying to tell the story of Justin Trudeau, the politician.

00:06:29.540 So you spent a lot of time talking to him.

00:06:32.240 I believe the number that I've seen quoted is more than 200 friends, associates and others that you spoke to in the book.

00:06:41.040 Am I wrong in saying that prior to his being elected, that speech, that eulogy for his father and that boxing match were two of the catalysts that put him in there?

00:06:52.680 Because you do talk about the boxing match quite a bit and describe how right after that they went into, OK, let's plan for this.

00:07:03.440 So are those two key moments in his political career?

00:07:06.320 Oh, I think so very much.

00:07:10.480 And the boxing match was very important.

00:07:12.960 I have a quote in the book from a Toronto, University of Toronto sociologist who said that the boxing match helped him go from being precariously masculine to sufficiently masculine.

00:07:24.920 I did read that.

00:07:28.300 Yes.

00:07:30.200 And I think she's on to something there, because until then, there was a sort of idea that he was lightweight and kind of feminine sort of character, you know, with long hair and a bit of a showboat.

00:07:40.960 Some people even called him shiny pony.

00:07:42.820 I don't know if you remember that.

00:07:44.200 I may have sat next to the guy.

00:07:45.780 As you recall, I was doing the play by play and the guy sitting next to me doing the color commentary, kept calling him shiny pony.

00:07:55.720 I mean, it really did seal the deal for a lot of liberals that, oh, we can get behind this guy now.

00:08:04.180 Like, there were some that were behind him just for the name, and especially people of that generation that really loved and admired his father because they lived through his time in ways that you and I are a bit younger and did not to the same degree.

00:08:21.560 So we don't have the same nostalgia.

00:08:24.120 But for others, I think, you know, that boxing match made people say, hmm.

00:08:28.540 Yeah, I remember Andrew Potter writing something about it, about, you know, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but we're basically a nation of lumberjacks, and so the guy who wins the fist fight, you know, there's a sort of primitive part of Canadians who would say, oh, well, that was a good scrap.

00:08:49.040 He did a good job there.

00:08:51.400 But I think it actually showed some personal qualities, showed his courage, right?

00:08:56.640 That's a brave thing to do.

00:08:58.540 And also his self-knowledge.

00:09:01.160 He told me when I interviewed him for the book that he knew all along he was going to win.

00:09:07.160 He was well-trained.

00:09:08.560 Likely his trainers would have indicated that he would have a good chance against this guy.

00:09:14.440 Brazzo might have been a good karate fighter, but they weren't having a karate fight.

00:09:18.360 They were having a boxing match.

00:09:20.100 And Brazzo was also smoking a pack too a day back then.

00:09:24.140 Yeah, yeah, which I think is, he must be disappointed in that.

00:09:31.460 But although, I've spoken to Brazzo a number of times about the fight, and he thinks it was a positive thing for him.

00:09:37.280 Although he had troubles in his personal life later, he doesn't think that really had anything to do with it.

00:09:42.900 And he was pleased that they raised money for a charity due to his heart, cancer, which...

00:09:48.660 It's a weird thing.

00:09:50.340 And I'm going to tell a story that I haven't told people.

00:09:54.220 I don't think I've told this in a public forum before.

00:09:56.580 But, you know, if Justin Trudeau's boxing match is responsible in part for him being prime minister, then I'm responsible in part for Justin Trudeau being prime minister.

00:10:07.220 Because this was a sleepy charity event that had been going on in Ottawa for years.

00:10:12.400 And back when the Sun News Network was still going, and I was a host, I'm sitting in the makeup chair one day, and Stefania Capavia, who cut Trudeau's hair, cut my hair, did the makeup, did Patrick Brazzo's hair.

00:10:26.200 And he had told her he's doing this boxing match, and he's having trouble finding someone to fight.

00:10:32.040 But he wanted to raise money for cancer.

00:10:34.160 And she said, oh, I know a guy, and introduced him to Trudeau.

00:10:37.800 So she tells me that she set this up.

00:10:39.700 And I hear about it.

00:10:41.540 I walk into Corey Tonight's office, who was the VP at Quebecor in charge of Sun News, and I said, Justin Trudeau's going to box Patrick Brazzo.

00:10:50.220 And he jumped up and he said, we'll broadcast it like it's the moon landing.

00:10:54.940 And we put it on national TV.

00:10:58.620 It was our highest rated event ever.

00:11:00.760 But, you know, it was weeks and weeks leading up to it of people in print, on radio and TV talking about it.

00:11:12.340 It was a real turning point for Trudeau.

00:11:14.160 It was.

00:11:15.700 It was hugely important.

00:11:17.440 And it shows something about the guy, I think, that, you know, he believes in himself.

00:11:22.780 And in the book, I have a quote from a former cabinet minister who will remain nameless who said, if we all had his self-confidence, it's like a superpower.

00:11:31.980 Goodness knows what we could accomplish.

00:11:33.860 And I believe that that self-confidence that he has comes from his very unusual childhood and his experience of life.

00:11:43.720 So he is a separate sort of person, a different person than most of the people we've met in our lives.

00:11:51.080 So I've heard various descriptions.

00:11:55.680 You know, the polls are not good for him right now.

00:11:58.660 I think that's an understatement.

00:12:00.540 They're horrible for him.

00:12:01.460 And I'm sure you've heard the same stories that I have, that people close to him, either politically or family or friends, have said, you know, I think maybe you should think about leaving.

00:12:13.200 And he hasn't.

00:12:15.480 And one of the stories that I've heard back is that he sees it like the boxing match or like 2015 when everyone underestimated him.

00:12:24.700 And he thinks that he thinks that he can just, you know, power through, that he's being underestimated now and that he can win the next election campaign.

00:12:35.980 Given your overarching view of him, would you put any stock in that?

00:12:41.240 Do you think that is part of his psyche at the moment?

00:12:44.280 I don't presume to know what's going on in his mind.

00:12:49.320 What I do know, though, is that he is trapped in a message box.

00:12:55.660 Until the moment that he decides to take a walk in the snow to announce that he's moving on, he cannot afford to show weakness.

00:13:06.920 He cannot afford to let on that he's thinking about it, even to the people who are quite close to him.

00:13:14.240 Because the minute that people sense that he may leave, his life gets more difficult.

00:13:19.000 You know the old saying, in politics, your opponents are across from you and your enemies sit behind you, right?

00:13:25.620 So he can't afford to let on his plans.

00:13:31.520 And I think we'll, you know, given the circumstances, I think he's got to be looking hard at leaving.

00:13:41.820 But until he does, I don't think we'll know it.

00:13:43.860 And one of the things about him is that he's been subject to unusual scrutiny since childhood, almost like Shirley Temple or Danny Bonaduce.

00:13:53.360 You know, he's a, he was like a child star in a sense.

00:13:56.860 And so he has developed the ability to be guarded and to project, you know, a mask.

00:14:07.720 Much more so, I think, than most politicians.

00:14:11.080 So I don't think we'll, we'll see it coming until he decides.

00:14:16.160 Well, I mean, that's, you say that we won't see it coming until he decides politically.

00:14:21.700 We had heard for years about troubles in his marriage.

00:14:25.580 And I, I'd heard them so often, just like I'd heard them about Stephen Harper and his wife before that, that I discounted them.

00:14:34.680 And I, I just said, like, look, marriage is tough.

00:14:38.480 Anybody that's been in one knows that, you know, we'll find out when we find out.

00:14:43.020 And then last August, he announced that it was over.

00:14:48.720 You write a bit about that and the fact that, you know, if he had decided to leave, he could have saved his marriage.

00:14:54.700 Why did he stick around?

00:14:57.760 Well, I, I don't know that he could have saved his marriage.

00:15:00.740 I know that, to what I write, is the people who know him think that.

00:15:08.060 People who know and admire him.

00:15:09.880 So it's a kind of a nice thing to say about him while we put the country over his marriage.

00:15:13.920 Uh, so why did he stick around is, uh, is a good question.

00:15:20.540 Um, when I started writing the book, I started writing it in, uh, October, 2022.

00:15:25.960 And just about every conversation I had with liberals while I was writing this book, the subject of Justin's future would come up.

00:15:32.400 And I noticed that from then until now, there has been a shift in that at that time, there were still a lot of people saying,

00:15:41.500 well, he, we don't know whether he can win or not, but he's probably our best horse, right?

00:15:46.080 The guy is a heck of a campaigner.

00:15:48.620 Uh, he's, uh, got great name recognition and, uh, he knows how to do it and we should stick with him.

00:15:58.940 I am hearing less of that now, right?

00:16:01.180 There's something about that steady month after month, um, drag of being behind Polyev in the polls

00:16:10.060 that I think has, has been chipping away at that, at that idea.

00:16:15.300 So it may have looked to him at that time, like he was the best hope for the party.

00:16:21.720 Um, and, uh, you know, he had not at that point, it had not been that long since, since he just won a fresh election.

00:16:30.980 Right.

00:16:32.020 To me, a moment where, quote, what happened actually after the manuscript was finished, the, this budget that looked to me like a fairly effective budget, effectively sold, and it doesn't move the polls.

00:16:48.700 You mean effective politically?

00:16:49.920 Yes, I, I don't mean, uh, although I would say that, that the housing stuff, uh, I've talked to housing developers about this.

00:16:58.080 He is going to cause the construction of a lot of rental units in this country and we need them, right?

00:17:04.340 So that part, I think just on a policy basis for generational fairness and that kind of thing, we need that.

00:17:10.860 Uh, there's other things that are, you know, partisans can argue one way or another.

00:17:14.320 Uh, but politically, policy, and it was, well, uh, you know, they leaked it very professionally beforehand or not leaked it, but did a bunch of announcements and they tried to milk it for all it was worth.

00:17:26.520 And you look at the polls and they get nothing out of it, right?

00:17:29.740 So you got, if you're them, you have to start thinking, well, this is starting to look pretty tough, right?

00:17:36.080 We have a message.

00:17:37.460 Maybe it's the messenger.

00:17:38.460 I mean, the latest, uh, poll from Leger, um, who, it was a Leger poll for Post Media.

00:17:45.760 We partner with them once a month, just like Canadian press does.

00:17:50.880 Not only is it a 19 point lead for the conservatives nationally, but the conservatives are tied with the Bloc Québécois in Quebec.

00:18:02.080 Uh, 29, 29 and Trudeau and his liberals are in third at 26.

00:18:08.460 Taberwet.

00:18:09.440 That is not good news for the Liberal Party of Canada right there.

00:18:13.700 I don't expect a huge breakthrough.

00:18:16.880 I know some people always get in their ears around election time and tell the conservatives, oh, you're going to win 20 seats.

00:18:22.040 You're going to win 25 seats.

00:18:23.940 If they get 15, I think they'll be doing well.

00:18:27.280 But that, you know, Trudeau says, you know, look, Quebec is my home province.

00:18:32.380 I'm a Quebecer.

00:18:33.380 This is, you know, I know this place.

00:18:34.880 And it's done very well for him.

00:18:36.360 He's got 35 seats there right now, I believe.

00:18:39.640 Um, at all three elections, when, even when other parts of the country said no to him, Quebec said yes.

00:18:46.460 That's got to hurt.

00:18:47.340 Oh, it's, it's very bad.

00:18:49.860 Uh, I was curious.

00:18:51.120 I saw that poll today and it made my eyebrows pop up.

00:18:53.820 Uh, I'd like to look at the gender breakdown. 1.00

00:18:55.860 I've long thought that the last, uh, constituency the liberals should ever lose would be, uh, francophone women in Quebec.

00:19:03.580 The very important, you know, they saved Canada in the referendum and they saved the liberal party, you know, over and over again.

00:19:09.580 So I'd like to see the gender breakdown, but that's, you know, he's, he's widely thought to be the best pollster in Canada. 0.93

00:19:15.060 And I thought that poll today is another significant bit of bad news for the Trudeau operation.

00:19:20.780 Um, one thing I would say, and it's a tiny little asterisk, is I have found over time that Quebecers, um, tend to be more volatile during election periods because they don't follow federal politics as closely as people in Ontario do.

00:19:41.040 If you read La Presse or, uh, the Journal de Montréal every day, they tend to be dominated by provincial and city news.

00:19:48.860 I used to work for Quebecor.

00:19:50.880 Yeah, I don't have to tell you.

00:19:52.800 So yeah, for people that aren't in Quebec and, and I also worked in Montreal, um, you in Ontario and in certain other parts of the country, federal politics dominates.

00:20:04.660 In Quebec and, and in other parts of the country, it's, it's, you're right, it's provincial.

00:20:09.220 And, uh, I remember sharing an office with, uh, Ray Fillion, the longtime reporter on Parliament Hill for, uh, great, great guy.

00:20:19.300 He had trouble getting on TV some days, right?

00:20:22.400 There'd be big stories in Ottawa and they're like, yeah, but the junior minister of whatever in Quebec city said this.

00:20:29.160 Okay.

00:20:30.400 Uh, so, so they don't follow it.

00:20:32.480 You're right.

00:20:32.880 Uh, and so that means that between election polls in Quebec are a little less, I'm not saying it's not significant, but I, I, I, that really came into focus for me during the orange wave, uh, in 2011 when suddenly Quebecers said, wait, who's this Jack Layton guy?

00:20:51.120 And all decided on mass?

00:20:52.860 Oh, let's go with him.

00:20:54.220 These kinds of swings can happen in Quebec because they're not paying attention the rest of the time.

00:20:58.120 That's my theory.

00:20:59.080 Anyway.

00:21:00.340 If you had to guess right now, if an election were held now, what would you say?

00:21:05.300 Oh, uh, right now, what the polls say, a poly of majority, but, um, I think he is as yet untested, right?

00:21:14.660 Until you see someone in a, um, uh, federal race, uh, there, uh, you look at, I don't know if you saw the nanos poll a while ago that found that people have sort of mixed feelings about him.

00:21:29.340 Uh, and we're going to have to see, I mean, you and I both know that personally he could not be any nicer, uh, but he has a reputation.

00:21:40.500 He's kind of a ferocious character and we'll have to see if, if Canadians, uh, like that when they see it in an election campaign, when they're paying attention.

00:21:49.940 So I've got three rules about Canadian politics.

00:21:53.260 Uh, voters are fickle. 0.99

00:21:54.980 Polls can change.

00:21:55.940 Campaigns matter.

00:21:57.720 Justin Trudeau won government last time, just like he did in 2019 with, by not winning the popular vote, but he won in the right places.

00:22:07.580 So he got more seats than the conservatives with just 32.6% of the vote.

00:22:14.160 Um, do you see a way?

00:22:17.020 And I never count out the liberals.

00:22:19.320 And I agree with you that Trudeau was a strong campaigner.

00:22:22.100 Uh, he won last time by scaring suburban mothers in the greater Toronto area suburbs and in, uh, the greater Vancouver area suburbs.

00:22:32.720 He scared suburban mothers that if you vote, uh, conservative, look at what's happening in Alberta, your kid's going to get COVID and die.

00:22:41.080 That was a big part of it.

00:22:42.540 So do you see a way that he could scrounge back to 32 over the next year and a bit?

00:22:51.220 Uh, I find it hard to imagine that.

00:22:53.520 And I would say that that election, I agree with you that that was the sort of winning message, but I would say that divisions on the conservative side, uh, made it difficult for O'Toole to take the kind of position on COVID.

00:23:09.260 That he wanted to take, and those, uh, those, uh, divisions will not be present, I don't believe, in the next election.

00:23:18.520 I think Polyev has the caucus behind him in a way that, uh, uh, O'Toole did not.

00:23:24.240 Yeah, I think you're right on that.

00:23:26.900 Um, and so I think that they will be stronger and more formidable.

00:23:33.580 Uh, it's hard to imagine an issue that, that would cleave the country in the same way that the liberals were able to cleave it in 2021 with mandates.

00:23:46.240 I remember, uh, Nick Cuvales saying to me, well, 40% of people in Ontario are in favor of mandates.

00:23:53.840 So there's your election right there.

00:23:56.080 That's what the liberals were looking at the same polls, right?

00:23:59.280 Yep.

00:23:59.640 Um, the, uh,

00:24:01.960 So, uh, but the one thing I'll say is we don't know if Trudeau is going to be the candidate.

00:24:12.340 If, if Trudeau is not the candidate, if he decides to make way for someone else or if his inner circle, uh, puts the muscle on him and gives him the message that he's got to go, uh, things could change.

00:24:26.440 Uh, because right now I think the next election would be a referendum on Justin Trudeau.

00:24:32.140 And if he's no longer there, the conservatives would need to find a new ballot question and, uh, the liberals might be able to put more scrutiny on Polyev, right?

00:24:43.100 So it's, it's, it's, I'm not saying that, that, uh, it would, uh, that would allow the liberals to save their bacon.

00:24:50.640 Uh, but it, it just becomes less predictable.

00:24:53.480 I think the current conservatives now have an excellent plan for how to defeat Justin Trudeau and he's got so much baggage that, that, uh, he personifies, uh, that, uh, another candidate might not carry all that baggage.

00:25:12.240 All right. We've got to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to ask you about, um, where Trudeau fits in, in the liberal sphere of things, but also, um, you've got some interesting insights on a few incidents that happened, including blackface and how that went down.

00:25:28.980 We ran an excerpt of that in national post. We'll talk about that when we come back.

00:25:33.120 When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from winners, I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from winners? Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. Are those from winners? Ooh, are those beautiful gold earrings. Did she pay full price? Or that leather tote? Or that cashmere sweater? Or those knee-high boots? That dress? That jacket? Those shoes? Is anyone paying full price for anything?

00:25:58.700 Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners. Find fabulous for less.

00:26:03.640 Steven, one of the things that I want to ask you about is Justin Trudeau. He's had this alliance. I call it a coalition because, yeah, there's no NDP ministers, but you've got a working agreement. It's a coalition of sorts with the NDP.

00:26:19.040 But that came about, I felt, after a couple of elections where Justin Trudeau tried to outflank the NDP, much like Kathleen Wynne tried to do in Ontario.

00:26:26.640 And I've long thought that Justin's political center doesn't lie at Canada's political center. It probably lies closer to the NDP.

00:26:39.040 And it reminds me of a famous quote. Judy Lamar, she'd been a minister in the Pearson government, was caught on a hot mic during the 1968 Liberal Leadership Convention,

00:26:49.120 trying to convince other candidates to stay in the race against Pierre Trudeau, saying, 0.98

00:26:54.080 he's not a liberal, he's a damn socialist. You've got to stay in the race. 0.99

00:26:58.520 Is Justin Trudeau a classic liberal, or is he a damn socialist? 0.97

00:27:02.380 Well, I think that there's, if you take a step back from just Justin Trudeau and look at the way politics has been trending in Canada and around the world, 0.98

00:27:20.860 the Liberals, when, in 1968, when Pierre took over that party, were a brokerage party.

00:27:32.760 Very similar to the Progressive Conservative Party, but they were just a more successful brokerage party,

00:27:38.560 in that they generally sort of tried to make deals and keep ethnic and religious peace in the country.

00:27:48.060 And a lot of people had connections to politics through patronage networks in one way or another.

00:27:56.240 And Canadian politics was remarkable for being not very ideological.

00:28:00.940 You had this big sort of centrist liberal party that kind of shuffled along, normally running the country,

00:28:07.380 and every now and then the Tories would get in for a little while.

00:28:10.280 But the big issues tended not to be along ideological lines.

00:28:15.100 And gradually, we've seen the centre has fallen away, and our politics, partly, I think, as a result of fragmentation of the media,

00:28:26.840 has become more ideological and more confrontational.

00:28:29.400 So, I'm kind of giving you a mealy-mouthed answer.

00:28:32.360 I mean, yes, it's a more left-wing government than previous liberal governments,

00:28:36.700 but I think that the reason for that may have to do with historical trends.

00:28:41.400 And the thing that I'll point to as evidence of that is the decline of the provincial liberal parties.

00:28:48.800 When I started covering politics in Canada,

00:28:51.820 there were liberal parties either in government or opposition in a lot of the provinces.

00:28:57.940 And now, that is much less the case.

00:29:03.660 They're not in opposition in either Ontario or Quebec.

00:29:08.340 They're finished and gone in BC.

00:29:11.600 They're hanging on in the Maritimes.

00:29:13.840 They don't really exist west of the Ontario-Manitoba border.

00:29:17.680 No, and the way things are going, both Ontario and Quebec,

00:29:21.920 the next government in both those provinces may not be a liberal government, right?

00:29:28.620 Like, they're no longer, I would kind of think Bonnie Cromey might be premier one day,

00:29:36.160 but, you know, they're trailing in Quebec.

00:29:40.720 So, you think out of necessity they've moved to the left, as opposed to...

00:29:48.360 Because when Khrushchev was so successful, he'd sit there and basically say,

00:29:52.800 well, I'm being attacked from the right and I'm being attacked from the left,

00:29:55.700 so I must be doing the right thing.

00:29:59.360 Justin Trudeau can hardly say he's being attacked from the left these days.

00:30:03.040 Jagmeet Zaino will stand up and give a good speech and then vote for him, or vote with him.

00:30:06.780 Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's right.

00:30:10.080 And Khrushchev, I mean, you look at the way he responded to the rise of reform,

00:30:17.200 it was very clever in that he took basically their best arguments,

00:30:22.360 which were fiscal attacks, and took them to heart

00:30:28.960 and dramatically weakened their electoral prospects by doing what they wanted him to do, in a way.

00:30:36.780 So, but things have changed and I could kind of see how electorally it made sense

00:30:47.500 for the Liberals to, you know, they outflanked Tom Mulcair in 2015,

00:30:53.660 promising deficit spending, which was what Canadians wanted, the polls were saying.

00:30:58.420 Nobody cared about deficits at that time.

00:31:03.660 And since then, they've been kind of edging that way and it has mostly worked for them.

00:31:11.440 I mean, they're not having a good day at the moment, but the Liberal, the Trudeau government,

00:31:16.100 it's been quite successful.

00:31:17.800 Yeah, they won three elections.

00:31:19.260 Yeah.

00:31:20.380 So, I, you know, I will regularly have conservative supporters more than conservative elective officials. 0.99

00:31:29.080 They'll just say, oh, well, Trudeau's dumb. 0.89

00:31:30.680 And I say, well, he's won three elections against the guys that you support. 0.99

00:31:34.740 So, you've got to have a better argument than that.

00:31:38.180 So, you mentioned Tom Mulcair and you've got an interesting little detail in the book about the 2015 campaign.

00:31:48.740 And I've long thought that the kneecap decision in September 2015 was a TSN turning point, as they might say.

00:31:57.620 This was a major shift.

00:32:00.060 And, like, to me, it wasn't just the deficit spending.

00:32:03.240 A court ruling came out that said you could swear your oath of citizenship while having your face covered by a kneecap.

00:32:12.700 Stephen Harper came out and said, we form government.

00:32:16.020 We're going to appeal this.

00:32:17.600 Tom Mulcair came out and said, this is wrong.

00:32:20.620 The court took the right decision.

00:32:22.780 The Harper government's wrong.

00:32:24.280 Justin Trudeau had the same exact position as Tom Mulcair.

00:32:27.800 And yet, Quebecers, who had given the NDP, what, 57 seats in the previous election, turned on Mulcair and switched to Trudeau over the kneecap issue.

00:32:39.040 Not solely, but that was a big part of it, wasn't it?

00:32:42.480 Yeah.

00:32:42.960 Yeah, I know.

00:32:43.420 It was crucial.

00:32:44.200 And I've got an interesting anecdote in the book from Carl Belanger, who had an unnamed conservator who he was talking to regularly.

00:32:52.900 Stop it.

00:32:53.480 And Carl Belanger, for people who don't know, was a longtime NDP staffer, operative, very well-known on the Hill, very respected, worked for Jack Layton, worked for Tom Mulcair.

00:33:07.220 So I'll let you go on from there.

00:33:08.500 And he had a Tory who he would talk to from time to time, a senior guy on the Harper campaign, who had said, we want to win, but if we have to lose, we'd rather lose to you than to the liberals, right?

00:33:26.140 And Carl eventually ends up saying to him, well, you're killing us on this kneecap thing, right?

00:33:31.900 Stop it.

00:33:32.920 You're going to elect the liberals.

00:33:35.280 And he said, no, we're not killing you.

00:33:36.820 Your numbers are holding up.

00:33:37.920 And he said, no, they're not.

00:33:39.220 And they weren't.

00:33:42.280 So I think, I thought at the time that Harper was trapped playing whack-a-mole, that he was going to lose to either Tom Mulcair or Justin Trudeau in that election.

00:33:50.580 Because you could see the, what Frank Graves calls the promiscuous progressives, who wanted to replace Harper and didn't particularly care who was going to do it.

00:33:59.660 And in the course of that campaign, Trudeau emerged as the, you know, the champion for that part of the country.

00:34:07.780 And basically, once Quebec moved to Trudeau, the rest of the country, on the progressive side, moved to Trudeau.

00:34:13.900 I would want to look at the polling, because I was talking to someone not long ago who said that the last piece to fall in place was Quebec.

00:34:23.500 Quebec is what gives them the majority.

00:34:28.840 But, I mean, it was volatile there for a while.

00:34:33.980 Yeah, so I think the Tories made a mistake in hitting it so hard, the kneecap thing.

00:34:39.260 And they also had the, what was the other thing?

00:34:48.240 Oh, yeah, the...

00:34:49.540 The snitch line.

00:34:51.380 Yeah, the snitch line, which, you take those two things together, and the kind of rhetoric that the Prime Minister was using about national security at the time,

00:35:00.100 the tentacles of the Islamist threat, 0.99

00:35:02.040 it had, it was a little bit different from the kind of campaigns we normally have.

00:35:12.600 And I thought it was a sign that they were in trouble and having to try to rattle people with national security and identity kind of stuff.

00:35:24.540 I think the Niqab issue could have been of benefit to them.

00:35:28.200 It was adding everything else on.

00:35:30.880 If I remember the polling at the time, polling was on side with where the Conservatives were.

00:35:37.900 But you start adding on everything else, you get a lot of noise, you get people with a general sense of unease,

00:35:44.180 and suddenly they're turning your back.

00:35:47.740 It was a strange election.

00:35:48.860 I talked to people who campaigned, and at the beginning of the campaign, they'd show up in suburban Toronto riding, let's say.

00:35:58.780 And they'd be like, oh, I'm voting Conservative.

00:36:00.820 Yeah, give me a lawn sign.

00:36:02.340 And then by the end of the campaign, because it went, what, from August to October.

00:36:06.580 And by the end of the campaign, they show up, and there's a Liberal lawn sign.

00:36:13.340 And they're like, oh, no, no, I'm not voting for those guys anymore.

00:36:15.720 I'm voting Liberal.

00:36:16.360 It was a bizarre campaign.

00:36:20.240 It was.

00:36:21.880 And I agree with you that if you looked at the polling on anyone on the snitch line, on the kneecap issue,

00:36:28.920 I would be shocked if the Tories didn't have public support on their side.

00:36:33.100 But you start to put it all together, and eventually people go like, yeah, no, I kind of agree with you.

00:36:38.200 But it's kind of weird that you keep talking about all this stuff.

00:36:41.260 Do you know what I mean?

00:36:41.900 It was more a question of tone, I think, than I think you're right.

00:36:48.740 So, you've got some interesting bits in the book that I hadn't heard before.

00:36:59.540 In fact, I want to play a quick clip here.

00:37:02.360 This is Justin Trudeau doing a scrum with reporters.

00:37:08.040 He had made comments to the effect that he, you know, if Stephen Harper wins again, he might become a separatist.

00:37:16.620 And he had to go out against the advice of Liberal communication staffers.

00:37:24.140 He went out and started sounding like George Costanza talking about himself in the third person.

00:37:31.500 Here he is.

00:37:32.020 I love this.

00:37:32.820 Canadians should be outraged.

00:37:34.820 Canadians shouldn't be asking, who does Justin Trudeau actually want to separate?

00:37:38.460 Of course not.

00:37:39.380 But will Justin Trudeau fight with his very last breath to make sure that this Canada stays the Canada that we collectively know it can be?

00:37:48.180 Absolutely.

00:37:48.740 The way you tell the story in the book is that Kevin Bosch and Daniel Lauzon, two long-time experienced Liberals staffers, people who knew how the business of politics worked, had told him, don't go out there.

00:38:07.340 No, no.

00:38:07.720 Do not go and talk to the reporters.

00:38:10.120 Just let it. 1.00

00:38:10.640 We think it's better if you just let it die.

00:38:12.280 And then he goes out, and if you see the video, there's my former colleague, Jessica Murphy, just off to the side.

00:38:20.160 And I think you know Jessica.

00:38:21.980 And she's trying not to laugh the whole time.

00:38:28.260 So what happened when Trudeau went back into the foyer where Kevin and Daniel are waiting for him?

00:38:34.180 Yeah, so he goes back in, and he looks at them, and he says, well, I guess that didn't go very well, did it?

00:38:41.300 And Bosch says, yeah, didn't you used to be a drama teacher?

00:38:47.640 And Trudeau said, yes, not a very good one.

00:38:53.100 So, and this is actually something that I learned as I was researching the book.

00:38:58.380 But early on, he was accident prone. 0.97

00:39:01.800 He would make dumb quips from time to time. 1.00

00:39:05.160 He'd call Peter Kent a piece of shit in the House of Commons, for instance. 1.00

00:39:08.080 Although I actually think I worked for him and was smart, in a way. 0.99

00:39:12.960 As unpleasant as it was for Mr. Kent, who I, I don't know about you, but I had a lot of respect for the way he conducted himself, usually.

00:39:20.400 But he'd taken a cheap shot at Megan Leslie, at my Halifax MT. 0.99

00:39:25.100 Oh, you East Coasters, you stick together.

00:39:26.840 Well, she's a very nice person.

00:39:31.500 He shouldn't have said something mean about her.

00:39:36.080 Anyway, so, but when he messed up, when he would say something, a lot of times, he would go to his team.

00:39:46.740 The interview would finish, and he'd say, I shouldn't have said that, should I?

00:39:49.820 And they'd say, no, no, no, here's what you should have said. 0.98

00:39:52.180 Say, oh, shit, do I, well, we'll work it out. 0.98

00:39:56.100 So he kept making mistakes, but when he did, he would apologize. 0.99

00:40:00.980 And he kept, this is one of the things that I found impressive, is that he kept working on himself, improving his message discipline,

00:40:10.820 and did that kind of painful work of watching tapes of himself and being critiqued.

00:40:21.220 When I first met him, he was just a backbencher who wanted to talk to me because I was with CJD in Montreal, and you talked 1010 in Toronto.

00:40:33.620 So he saw me, and he's like, oh, local reporter.

00:40:36.740 Much like you did to him, I'm a journalist.

00:40:38.620 I should go talk to him.

00:40:40.060 He came to me because he's like, oh, that guy works for the local radio station.

00:40:44.000 I should talk to him.

00:40:45.740 He wasn't really the guy that we see now.

00:40:48.920 So you say he put a lot of work into it.

00:40:52.420 Yeah.

00:40:52.680 Well, his natural speaking style is very different from the style that he has now.

00:40:59.960 It's much breathier, much faster, sort of more emotional.

00:41:05.280 What you see now, and I'm not sure that the result is entirely successful because he often sounds,

00:41:12.060 sometimes it sounds like he's sort of imitating a Mulroney baritone,

00:41:15.860 which people were sick of when Mulroney was doing it by the end.

00:41:19.780 You know what I mean?

00:41:20.400 It can sound kind of phony.

00:41:21.700 But it's very different from the sort of excited, emotional, old Justin.

00:41:31.580 So I give him credit, I mean, just as a person who did all this work to get better at something.

00:41:43.960 Strangely enough, considering how he used to make his living, he was not that good at.

00:41:47.400 I always thought he was a good motivational speaker, a good public speaker.

00:41:54.880 I'll be honest, I wished he'd stayed doing that job because I'm not fond of many of his policies.

00:42:01.380 But I will give him credit for, as you say, putting in the work and changing.

00:42:07.520 One thing he's taken a lot of flack for over the years are expensive vacations.

00:42:12.400 The prospect estate in Jamaica, you write about.

00:42:20.000 The Corinthia Hotel in London, which, you know, it was $7,000 a night that that cost.

00:42:28.740 I should have put that in the book.

00:42:30.160 I think I missed that one.

00:42:31.540 You know, he's had a lot of these.

00:42:33.220 But you've got a part in the book that it's kind of weird.

00:42:41.400 How does Justin Trudeau going to prospect estate, which is, I think, $9,000 a night?

00:42:46.780 I might be wrong.

00:42:49.440 But it's thousands and thousands of dollars a night to stay there.

00:42:53.060 What does it have to do with diapers?

00:42:54.780 Right, so he first went there when he was in diapers.

00:43:02.500 While he was small, his mother was desperate for a vacation.

00:43:08.440 And Pierre, being a workaholic, didn't like to take vacations.

00:43:12.880 And she had convinced him that they would have a getaway at Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios.

00:43:20.460 It's kind of weird that he didn't like vacations.

00:43:22.420 He met her on vacation.

00:43:24.780 Well, or that was what I heard.

00:43:29.440 The story I heard is he saw her on a beach while, you know, his dad, who was in government with Pierre,

00:43:36.140 they were all vacationing at the same spot.

00:43:38.220 And he's like, oh, who's that young woman in a bikini? 0.97

00:43:42.200 Yeah.

00:43:43.500 Not to sound creepy, but that's literally what happened.

00:43:46.800 Yes.

00:43:47.720 And Diefenbaker said the prime minister had a choice.

00:43:50.420 He could have married her or adopted her, referring to the age difference.

00:43:54.780 All right, so she's desperate for a vacation, wants to go to this place in Ocho Rios in Jamaica.

00:44:03.120 And what happened?

00:44:03.860 And she calls down and says, well, I just want to make sure that you have a diaper service because I'm going to be coming with my little newborn or my child. 1.00

00:44:14.140 And they said, oh, goodness, ma'am, we don't have diapers here because we don't allow babies at this resort. 1.00

00:44:21.040 And she was crushed and afraid that if she told Pierre, he would just say, well, I guess we'll stay in Ottawa then.

00:44:27.220 And so she had the high commission in Kingston nose around.

00:44:33.180 And they said, well, there's this other place, Prospect Estate.

00:44:35.240 And so she called there and, without telling Pierre, moved their reservation.

00:44:40.400 And it was owned by a fellow named Sir Harold Mitchell, who was a very impressive and interesting man, who had been an official in Winston Churchill's Conservative Party and an industrialist and built, I didn't put this in the book, but he built a boys' school in Jamaica where a lot of, might be the best boys' school in Jamaica.

00:45:06.420 So a sort of charitably minded person.

00:45:08.900 Anyway, and they went and stayed there and became friends with him and friends with his daughter, who later married a man named Peter Green, who had a couple sons who became close to the Trudeau boys.

00:45:25.020 And so they would go there quite often, and there would be five of them, you know, a little tribe of boys running around.

00:45:33.040 You probably know what that's like from your own family.

00:45:36.420 And so it's a place with really special and happy memories.

00:45:42.040 Trudeau planted a royal palm there.

00:45:45.660 I put a picture in the book that I got from the National Archives in Jamaica of Pierre holding him on a coconut tree.

00:45:54.100 So, you know, as I sort of contemplated this, I thought, well, no wonder he wants to go there and share that experience with his kids.

00:46:01.040 Right?

00:46:01.220 It's marvelous.

00:46:02.220 It looks like a beautiful place.

00:46:05.960 But the public doesn't know that.

00:46:08.760 And much like his trip to the Aga Khan Island that you write about, the public doesn't know things and then they get annoyed.

00:46:15.900 You know, his staff told him, don't take this trip to the Aga Khan's Island, or at least those close to him, like Katie Telford and Jerry Butts.

00:46:22.840 He ends up coming across, instead of coming across as someone that wants to go back to somewhere he's been going his whole life, he comes across as entitled.

00:46:35.620 He comes across as out of touch. 0.58

00:46:38.560 And who the hell is this guy? 0.66

00:46:40.780 So, I mean, does he get that he comes across as an entitled, out of touch, aloof elite?

00:46:49.340 What he said to me, it's, so when I interviewed him for the book, and I only had one interview, I went into it not planning on grilling him or, you know, getting into arguments with him about S&C Lavalin or, you know, I didn't think that would be productive because I wanted to get his thoughts on a number of different things.

00:47:07.320 You don't get a good interview like that, despite what people think.

00:47:10.780 Yeah, during an election campaign on TV, it might be good, but that's not the way to, I wanted to get some, fill in some gaps for the book.

00:47:19.340 Tell me about this, tell me about that.

00:47:21.340 And I was impressed, Brian, I'll tell you, you and I have both done a lot of interviews.

00:47:26.020 He understood why I was there, and I think he did his best to make a productive meeting for both of us, if you know what I mean.

00:47:32.280 Like, it was a thing where you go, yeah, the guy knows what he's doing.

00:47:36.200 You know what I mean?

00:47:36.820 He's trying to help me here, trying to, he's taking an hour of his time, and he's trying to give me some quotes for my book.

00:47:41.940 So, but the one thing that I said to him is, I talked to him, I asked him about that story, and then I said, okay, well, I should tell you, I'm not trying to argue with you,

00:47:53.620 but I thought that that was a mistake, and I'm likely going to write that, and he said, yeah, okay, fair enough.

00:47:59.120 He thought about it for a minute, and he said, you know, he talked about his kids, how hard it is for him to have time with his kids in his job,

00:48:06.460 and said it's an impossible thing to, it's an impossible balance, you know?

00:48:13.960 So he feels torn, I think, between his responsibilities to his family and his responsibilities to the country.

00:48:20.260 I still think it's a mistake, but I, I...

00:48:24.580 Look, if you're going to do it, at least try and explain the context to people.

00:48:28.880 Yeah, yeah, well, and they told him, before the Aga Khan thing, like, okay, if you're really going to do this,

00:48:35.440 then we better have a plan for explaining it.

00:48:38.220 Now, thank goodness for our friends Chris Selle and David Akin that they didn't,

00:48:43.040 because the boys got a pretty good scoop out of it, didn't they?

00:48:45.760 Yeah.

00:48:47.440 Tell me about the, the blackface story.

00:48:51.980 That, that's the excerpt that we ran in National Post.

00:48:55.440 Walk us through how that happened.

00:48:58.580 And I, I, I remember hearing during the day before the story broke, I, I don't know about you,

00:49:03.740 but, you know, the way the media business works, you start hearing chatter.

00:49:07.800 Oh, somebody's got something, something big's coming.

00:49:11.500 Then you hear about the blackface story.

00:49:13.600 Oh, there's more pictures.

00:49:15.380 And, and he still hasn't spoken.

00:49:18.180 Um, so I, I guess it was Time Magazine broke it, and then there was claims that there were going to be more.

00:49:23.520 So they released a different picture.

00:49:26.060 And then Global comes out with a third photo that wasn't the one that they released.

00:49:31.460 I think they released the second one thinking that's the one Global must have.

00:49:36.020 Um, that had to be incredibly difficult.

00:49:40.120 So how did he and his team deal with that?

00:49:44.180 It was an incredibly, uh, stressful thing for Trudeau and his people.

00:49:49.860 Um, the, the, it broke while he was campaigning in my hometown of Truro, Nova Scotia, where, uh, uh, what should be in normal circumstances, uh, a Tory seat.

00:50:03.000 Uh, but they had a good candidate there, a former provincial, uh, MLA, uh, Lenore Zahn, and Trudeau had gone in to try to get her over the finish line. 0.99

00:50:11.880 And she told me, and several other people who were at the rally told me that he seemed a little bit extra frenetic, extra energetic, uh, and a bit weird, almost like really hyper.

00:50:22.820 And that appears to be because before the rally, as best as I can figure out the timeline, Ottawa had had the call from time magazine and they knew that a bucket of effluent was going to fall on their heads that day.

00:50:40.200 And, um, you know, I, I often thought if, if I was in his shoes and they said, well, the blackface pictures are coming out.

00:50:47.200 I'd say, well, let's cancel the rally and let's get some rum.

00:50:50.460 And I'm going to my room, right?

00:50:52.160 Like, you know, good idea why you don't want to be in politics.

00:50:57.940 Um, so he went, uh, in there and he did it.

00:51:01.740 And then the story breaks, he did the rally story breaks and they're all on the bus.

00:51:06.280 They take the bus from Truro to Halifax airport and, and the reporters are all freaking out and they're all in trouble with their desks because time magazine broke it.

00:51:16.000 And, you know, they all they're, so it's a frantic and unpleasant kind of moment.

00:51:22.740 And then there's a scrum and he's apologizing and give him credit.

00:51:27.200 He, he, not once in that whole thing, did he try to say, well, come on, I was dressed up.

00:51:31.920 It was a caution party, right?

00:51:33.200 Like that he wouldn't have got through it if he'd tried some kind of half-assed apology.

00:51:38.860 I don't think so.

00:51:40.500 He was abject and the reporters were all yelling at them.

00:51:43.660 And then the people at home are going like, see pictures of the reporters and the reporters are all white.

00:51:49.440 Right.

00:51:49.880 The whole thing was kind of ugly and unpleasant.

00:51:56.540 And there followed about 24 hours, maybe less than 24 hours, where liberals, a bunch of liberals, including a bunch of black liberals, did a gut check. 0.81

00:52:06.300 Right.

00:52:06.640 How do we feel about this?

00:52:07.740 Are we going to support them or not? 1.00

00:52:08.960 And, uh, there was a generational divide in some cases that older black liberals were kind of found it easier to say, well, he was a foolish young fella. 0.99

00:52:21.540 And I know racism and that isn't what it looks like. 1.00

00:52:25.980 That's foolishness. 0.82

00:52:27.560 You know, um, we know him, we know he's not like that.

00:52:31.460 Uh, whereas younger people, it was harder.

00:52:34.640 Younger black people would be saying, well, who does that kind of thing?

00:52:37.280 That's, that seems just crazy. 0.94

00:52:39.400 Right.

00:52:39.800 We know that's, you know, the, anyway, uh, but the gut checks ended and they decided they had his back.

00:52:47.380 Uh, and, um, he went, uh, out and scrummed in, in Winnipeg until there were no more questions.

00:52:55.840 And that was a long one.

00:52:57.860 Yeah.

00:52:58.500 Uh, I didn't put it in the book.

00:53:00.220 I thought about writing.

00:53:00.960 It reminded me of the Jack Layton's massage parlor scrum, uh, where you just think,

00:53:06.860 I'm glad I'm not that guy having to do that scrum.

00:53:10.720 And that's where you, in a sense, that's the, uh, you know, a very difficult thing about

00:53:18.200 political leadership is how, how are you going to manage when you're staring down, uh, basically

00:53:24.360 a sewer pipe and having to stand there in front of the, um, cameras and, uh, uh, eat your 0.52

00:53:32.380 shame.

00:53:33.440 So that would have ended a lot of people.

00:53:38.200 Why do you think it didn't end Trudeau?

00:53:41.760 That didn't end Trudeau.

00:53:43.260 The kokanee grope didn't end Trudeau. 0.96

00:53:46.060 So many things that would have taken out other politicians.

00:53:50.180 People have been willing to give him a pass.

00:53:52.260 Is it people?

00:53:52.920 Is it the media?

00:53:53.680 Is it a combination?

00:53:54.580 I, well, look, I, I mean, there, it's a specific incident on its, on its individual case. 0.97

00:54:02.060 And I think that, um, black liberals decided that Justin Trudeau had been foolish, but not 0.98

00:54:18.760 a racist. 0.98

00:54:19.300 So I sometimes find, and you, you get this on social media from people who hate Trudeau

00:54:25.400 for lots of other reasons and they're seizing on the, on blackface.

00:54:30.680 Um, so, you know, I'm not going to say how the black community should feel about it, right?

00:54:37.480 That's for the black community to, to decide.

00:54:40.900 Um, but the black community is not large enough in Canada to decide elections.

00:54:45.980 Um, and, and, and even in the United States where this has ended political careers, it's

00:54:53.320 ended the political careers of people where just black voters voting against that person

00:54:57.400 would not end their career, but their careers have still ended.

00:55:00.800 Yeah.

00:55:01.580 So why, why the difference with Trudeau?

00:55:04.140 Well, for one thing, it's not the United States.

00:55:06.020 And although we do have the minstrel tradition and we, there did used to be minstrel shows

00:55:10.100 in Canada, uh, which is what makes it so, so, uh, horribly painful, right?

00:55:17.500 Is the, is the, the, you know, the, the tradition of blackface as, as part of a really hateful 0.94

00:55:24.060 racist thing.

00:55:25.020 Uh, but I don't know anybody who thinks that Trudeau was, uh, uh, particularly trying

00:55:32.480 to, uh, denigrate the black community by doing what he did.

00:55:37.820 He was an, uh, uh, he really likes dressing up, right?

00:55:42.420 And as a young man, he was constantly wearing costumes of one sort or another.

00:55:47.960 So I think that part of the young man, he wore a lot of costumes, ask him about India

00:55:54.520 2018.

00:55:55.420 I know.

00:55:55.980 I think they still have to stop him likely.

00:55:57.840 Well, prime minister, you know, maybe not this time.

00:56:01.980 Um, so, you know, that's, he's a, he's an attention seeker.

00:56:06.640 Um, and so I think that seen in context and Canadians knew him very well, but there is

00:56:11.380 something unfair about it.

00:56:12.740 If one of his candidates had a black face and I write this in the book, if one of his 0.62

00:56:17.000 candidates, prospective candidates had a black face thing in their, uh, uh, university

00:56:21.980 yearbook, they would not get a nomination, right?

00:56:25.580 There's the, I write in the book, there's, he's a prince and the rules don't apply to

00:56:29.800 princes.

00:56:30.080 Like there is something, uh, that's unfair about it.

00:56:35.260 Um, uh, the book is by Stephen Maher.

00:56:39.480 It's called the Prince, the turbulent reign of Justin Trudeau.

00:56:43.260 Uh, Stephen, thanks so much for the time today.

00:56:45.080 You've been very generous and I I'll say this as someone who has covered Justin Trudeau

00:56:51.900 since 2008, uh, I learned things, uh, from, from reading your book.

00:56:56.580 So I'd encourage others that want to learn more to do the same.

00:56:59.640 Thanks so much.

00:57:00.880 Brian, thank you for having me on.

00:57:03.060 All right.

00:57:03.460 Full comment is a post media podcast.

00:57:06.060 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:57:07.300 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:57:11.380 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:57:13.180 You can subscribe to full comment on Apple podcasts, Google, Spotify, Amazon music, wherever

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00:57:23.580 Thanks for listening until next time.

00:57:25.400 I'm Brian Lilly.

00:57:26.240 Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - June 03, 2024

Regular-people rules don’t apply to ‘Prince’ Trudeau

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