Longing for a spine

Is it wrong to want Jean Chretien to come back and lead Canada in 2025? The way Churchill did when his nation was in crisis? Canada’s 20th prime minister turned 91 on the weekend. To celebrate the occasion, he penned an essay for the Globe and Mail. I encourage readers to look it up. It is inspiring. Optimistic. Clearheaded and direct.

He is the first Canadian leader since the American election to say what needs to be said to Donald Trump. He asserts that Canadians will never give up the best country in the world to join the United States. Further, he insists it is long past time our current crop of leaders started showing spine and toughness toward the incoming president.

I was sorely dismayed to see our current and outgoing PM humiliate himself—and, by extension, all Canadians—by schlepping down to Mar-A-Lago to kneel at the feet of the orange gasbag at the end of November. My sense of betrayal mounted when I read pundit after pundit described the dinner as a ‘coup,’ a ‘brilliant move.’

It wasn’t. It soon proved to be an arrogance- induced blunder that makes everything worse.

Soon after the event, Trump began musing about Canada as the 51st state, describing Trudeau as governor.

Let’s be clear: The next American president is a child. He finds joy in chasing pigeons in the square. Reaction is how he knows he’s alive. It isn’t strategy. It isn’t brilliant negotiating. He isn’t a master tactician; he’s a child chasing pigeons. Watching wings flap in response.

Smarter political watchers suggest it was Chrystia Freeland’s resignation letter that finally persuaded Justin Trudeau that he had to leave before the next election. I submit that his emasculation by Trump was also a factor.)

The point of this column isn’t to second guess the PM’s tactics or decisions, but rather to highlight the difference between Mr. Trudeau’s and Mr. Chretien’s leadership. One believes he is clever and charming. The other knows that none of those attributes mean anything in opposing the feral beast Donald Trump.

Other leaders have fared little better. Doug Ford thought he could carve out a special arrangement for Ontario by putting a shiv into Mexico. Ford’s spine stiffened a bit last week. But first instincts betray character.

We need allies in 2025—more than ever before. Our interests are more aligned with Mexico in the face of a belligerent American government with a hankering for expansion. Same with Denmark. We have a common problem.

Alberta’s Danielle Smith thinks her province’s energy resources will save Alberta from the fate of the rest of the country. She trundled down to Trump’s garish abode in Florida on the weekend—with Kevin O’Leary and Jordan Peterson in tow: all clowns, no circus.

Pierre Poilievre seems to have missed the plot twist entirely. He still thinks the next election will be about the carbon tax. He looks surprisingly ill-prepared and tonguetied in advance of an election campaign that will surely turn on the existential challenge of Donald Trump. Of tariffs. Of a resulting recession. Of job losses.

Come the likely May federal election, ‘Axe the Tax’ will seem a rhyming artifact of a bygone era. For someone touted as quick on his feet as Poilievre has been, he has come off as wooden and stuck in time since November 5. There is no new message. No pivot. No awareness that circumstances have changed.

Back to Jean Chretien. Some readers may recall when a protester, Bill Clennett, got too close to the prime minister in 1996. Weeks earlier, an intruder had broken into the prime minister’s residence with a hunting knife. The prowler was arrested before he could hurt anyone. But on this February day in 1996, Chretien was in Hull, making his way through the crowd to his car. Clennett broke through the security detail to confront the PM. Face-to-face. Chretien grabbed the assailant by the scruff of the neck with his right hand and throat with his left and then threw Clennett to the ground, breaking one of his teeth.

Chretien’s staff and advisors braced for the public relations storm that was sure to follow. Instead, Chretien’s poll numbers grew.

This is not to support violence or to suggest our leaders ought to be walking around looking for people to choke. However, it is important to observe that communicating with simple people requires simple methods—direct and clear signals. There are scarce few means to get through to the supremely dim-witted.

The attributes that make politicians successful in the circles in which most of them travel are useless against Donald Trump. He understands strength. He feels only pushback. The more pointed, the better. He feeds on weakness. He humiliates everyone who seeks to gain his good graces. (Psychologists will say this betrays his own fragile and damaged character— but such observations are all irrelevant now. In a matter of days, this broken psyche will be sitting in the Oval Office in the White House.)

Canadians need our leaders to forge a backbone, build stronger alliances and fight back in the coming trade war with America. All options must be on the table.

In his opinion piece on the weekend, Chretien urges Trump to ‘give his head a shake.’ Should we re-enlist Chretien to assist in the headshaking?

rick@wellingtontimes.ca