Trudeau’s tenure is brief but he needs to weigh his legacy against the risk of losing it all. Quite a balancing act.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 15, 2024.

Politics is a disease for which there is no vaccination.

How else to explain the reason why politicians have such a hard time retiring?

Most people count down the days until they can stop working. But U.S. President Joe Biden is 81 years old, and still refuses to entertain the idea of getting out.

Ditto for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau has accomplished extraordinary things during his decade in power, which have even his enemies damning him with faint praise.

Norman Spector recently tweeted that Trudeau had been “the most consequential prime minister in his lifetime.” He went on to say Trudeau was even more consequential than his father. That praise was tempered by adding “more decades than I have left will have to pass to know whether the massive changes he’s precipitated are making Canada a better country—or destroying it.”

Trudeau put Indigenous issues on the agenda with more investments and legislative change to support reconciliation than any prime minister in history.

He also introduced nationally accessible child care, dental care and pharmacare, permanently hiked seniors’ pensions, and launched a national school lunch program initiative during the quickest economic recovery in the G8.

Quite a record for a decade which included two years of focussed attention on a worldwide once-in-a-century pandemic.

So why don’t either of these accomplished men want to exit with their heads held high?

To paraphrase former Ontario premier Ernie Eves, the worst day in politics is better than the best day on Bay Street.

Outsiders may think it is hubris that keeps politicians going. But they would be wrong.

The capacity for societal change lands squarely in the lap of politicians, and they know how much their work can actually be the agent for change.

Trudeau understands that his vision will not likely be shared by any successor, whether it be from his own party or the Conservatives.

Biden has devoted his life to fighting for the workers, and he wants to continue that work.

It is up to those closest to these leaders to guide them in the right direction.

In Trudeau’s case, following his separation from Sophie Grégoire last summer, he won’t be getting any pillow-talk counsel. He may be hearing from his children, but their youthful wisdom may not parallel advice from close adults.

Biden is obviously getting an earful from his partner Jill Biden, and his adult children. They are pushing him to stay even though his public performances and aging issues have become the dominant theme on the eve of his presidential re-election fight.

Donald Trump is chomping at the bit, hoping to bait Biden into another encounter since the first debate was so damaging to the Democrats.

Senior Democrats are working on the Biden family to convince them that keeping Joe in the job will end up destroying his legacy, not enhancing it.

Senior Liberals are not able to work on family members who can exercise a considerable amount of influence. Instead, they are reaching out to the inner circle of Trudeau’s key advisers.

That group seems to believe that the prime minister’s campaign prowess will carry him through the current travails.

His chief of staff has been working the back rooms of leadership since she was at Queen’s Park with then-Premier Kathleen Wynne. Katie Telford was there in the 2014 election when Wynne was supposed to lose. Instead, she turned it around and Liberals served one more term in provincial government.

Telford’s job also depends on Trudeau staying, so it may be understandable that she sees possible redemption on the campaign trail.

But Wynne’s second try in 2018 was a disaster with the leader announcing her own retirement days before the campaign ended. The party ended up losing status with few seats, and the worst defeat in Ontario political history.

Telford was not responsible for that debacle, as the campaign was run by David Herle, former adviser to prime minister Paul Martin who led Martin back to the wilderness in 2006.

But Telford understands political history.

Every leader cares about the direction in which they take their country. But at some point, even consequential leadership loses its lustre.

The power of political change is inevitable especially in the post-information age.

In Biden’s case, he has admirably served his country for 52 years. He can leave with his head held high.

In comparison, Trudeau’s tenure is brief, but he needs to weigh his legacy against the risk of losing it all.

Quite a balancing act.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The American claim to ‘exceptionalism’ and its history of support for democracy around the world has been delivered a severe blow.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 11, 2021.

OTTAWA—Whether or not Donald Trump remains in office for the next two weeks is hardly the point.

His ugly legacy has unleashed a venom in America that will be very difficult to suppress.

The world has watched in horror as domestic terrorists stormed the capital, wreaking havoc and death on the ultimate symbols of American democracy.

We have witnessed extremists becoming so mainstream that one of them, Georgian Marjorie Taylor Greene, is now sitting in the House of Representatives.

The American claim to “exceptionalism” and its history of support for democracy around the world has been delivered a severe blow.

Lindsey Graham’s ridiculous response to the Washington attack was to claim equivalency between the attackers and Black Lives Matter activists who took to the streets to protest the death of multiple Black citizens at the hands of the police.

Does anyone truly believe that if the same group of Washington attackers had been racial minorities, there would have been so few arrests?

Graham’s claim that Democrats needed to call out protesters of police brutality at the same time as he was criticizing the terrorists simply reinforced the fact that the day Donald Trump leaves office will not be the end of this reckoning in America.

The CBC revisited footage from the summer protest at the Lincoln Memorial, where row upon row of riot police were lined up to truncheon protesters. That footage was compared to the police treatment of emboldened white supremacists and conspiracy theorists who considered the attack a victory for their cause.

Some television outlets carried footage of those storming the capital taking selfies with police guarding the gates. And the Confederate flag was carried into the Senate by those who paraded their hatred right onto the floor of the Senate.

At the same time as the anarchists were outside of the Senate, chief representatives inside were speaking about the “incredible” four years of Trump rule and some of them were still trying as of last week to claim the election was stolen.

The attack on the Senate was greeted with glee by the president, who tweeted his love for the protesters.

At the same time as the state of Georgia elected its first Black Senator and its first Jewish Senator, most people are not talking about how those elections made history.

Instead, we are witnessing a country that is still deeply divided on racial grounds, and whose leadership actually promotes the supremacy of one race over another.

Trump illustrated his true colours more than three years ago, when white supremacists stormed Charlottesville and killed an innocent bystander while shouting slurs against Jews and minorities.

Trump was the first to lay out this false equivalency when he tried to claim that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville protest.

And multiple members of the Senate still cling to the view that there is validity in the absurdly false claims of election interference.

Notwithstanding these shocking perspectives, even in the consequential Georgia Senate runoffs, the state was almost evenly split on those who supported Trump’s choice and those who opposed.

Largely due to the incredible organizational work of Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight Action to oppose voter suppression, the Democrats were able to pull off razor-thin victories in both instances, thus securing the balance of power in the Senate. That vote paves the way forward for president-elect Joe Biden and vice-president-elect Kamala Harris to receive support in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

But they still have to face the job of uniting a country where almost half of the population oppose their vision.

All those who chose Trump were not voting based on his racial record. But the fact that they could overlook it and cast their ballot for him in such large numbers, is truly frightening.

From misogyny to racism, from his affinity for dictators versus democrats, the president still managed to garner the support of almost 75 million voting Americans, the largest number in the history of the country to vote for a Republican candidate.

Even when the president vacates the office, whether of his own accord or not, his leadership scars will endure long past his departure.

The suspension of Trump’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts are not enough to stem the flood of hatred that has been unleashed during his presidency.

Pre-Trump, racists were largely in the shadows. But his sick vision for America has enlisted millions of followers.

This past week has only emboldened them.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.