Trudeau Man, I, Ahh… I Don’t Know

Posted on by John Klein

Canadians were so eager to get rid of Stephen Harper, they forgot they weren’t served very well by a mainstream party holding a majority on power the last 4 years.

*uncharacteristically crumples plan paper up into a ball and throws it in the garbage*
Me yesterday:

October 19, 2015 at 1:35 PM:

The alternate universe of sensible adults and fair outcomes would include a minority Parliament with Trudeau, Mulcair, and May all sharing the role of PM at different times over the next 4 years. But, we won’t get such an outcome, and are more likely to get [a Liberal minority without Harper in opposition].
If a Liberal majority, then status quo in a lot of ways for the next 4-5 years.

There’s too much change across the country to digest in one blog post about it all. I’m more optimistic about the future than in 2006 when Harper won, but I also have 9 years of experience, and the world has another decade lacking significant action to turn away from civilization destroying air pollution, and deforestation.

What is Trudeau going to do to inspire real changes? His advisers I don’t have much confidence in, sorry, I don’t. I hope he breaks party lines and appoints a few NDP MPs, and Elizabeth May to his cabinet, but that’s too much to hope for.

4 responses to “Trudeau Man, I, Ahh… I Don’t Know”

  2. I’ve maintained for a long time now that it was important that whomever defeated Harper be it Lib or NDP had to do so with a majority, because I did not trust Harper to not risk a Constitutional Crisis to hold onto power any way he could, and I don’t trust his GG not to have aided him. Otherwise I would normally have agreed with the minority preferred sentiment I’ve seen from many people, both Lib and NDP. So I am very happy with the result I got Monday, because it ensured Harper had no way out other than a coup by force, and that simply would not have succeeded. In a minority, all bets would be off, especially given how desperate Harper’s campaign proved he was to hold onto power given how blatantly the threw very bloody red meat in terms of the pandering to xenophobia we saw.

    As to his appointing any NDers or May to his Cabinet, that would be potentially very destabilizing for Trudeau given how large and clearly loaded with highly capable people Trudeau has for a caucus. I understand how it would look on the moving away from hyperpartisanship front, but it would I suggest undercut Trudeau’s moral authority within his new caucus at the outset, which isn’t a good thing to be doing. Also, keep in mind any such NDP MP or May would have to swear and oath to follow cabinet secrecy rules and would lose their ability to speak their minds until and unless they resigned, and even then they would be limited on what they could talk about from their days in that cabinet. Is that really something you think is a good idea either?

    In the end I think we got as good a result as we could have hoped for, and Trudeau clearly energized the citizenry to come out and vote and vote for him, the numbers showed that, and he got the youth out voting too, not a minor accomplishment either and in the longer run good for the nation whatever parties they end up aligning with down the road. While I agree that a lot of what we saw Monday was fueled by anti-Harper emotion, I also would suggest there was more than a little inspiration from Trudeau as well. The man clearly inspires, and in many ways could be fairly compared to being our version of a President Clinton or Obama in terms of how well he was able to connect and inspire the citizens to come out and support him.

    For in the end it was that increased turnout and its choosing essentially one side to bring its weight down that really defeated Harper, if instead we had had the turnouts of the past couple of elections, I fear we could still be dealing with PM Harper, and even worse a possible second majority PM Harper. It may sound far-fetched now, after watching the flameout of the last few weeks of that campaign, but looking at the hard numbers and the way the CPC turns out its vote…*shrug* So if getting rid of Harper really was your first priority this time out, the Trudeau was what you needed, and a majority Trudeau government the tool it was going to take. I’m not asking you to love it, but I do believe you should see it as worth the price given what Harper truly was.

    Scotian

    Reply

  4. Pingback: Liberal 1 Year Report Card | Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff

Leave a comment