The biggest service the Liberal Party and all its activist thugs could do for Canada is to quietly disappear for a good long period out of power contemplating their navels. This is a party full of ideologues whose sole purpose is to do what’s best for them and their ideologies while holding on to power at all costs regardless of the countrys welfare.
I agree that the Liberal Party needs a time out for a while. They are doing the country no favours in staying. To call them "activist thugs" is a bit over the top. It is true that they are more concerned about the diversity, equity, and inclusion file seemingly to the exclusion of most other aspects of governing and the country has suffered for it. There is room to be concerned about trying to ensure that all Canadians are treated fairly, but there are other files that require as much, or more, attention, such as defence, the tax code, and the deficit/debt.
The Liberals are no different from any other party in wanting to retain power for as long as possible. All parties eventually succumb to the notion that what's good for the party is good for the country.
Entirely correct & no need to wonder. They are thugs. From the get-go, Butts labeled anyone who dared to question, literally, anything, as a yellow-vested fascist. And that was in the regime’s opening (honeymoon??) days. Abuser, meet the ever-hopeful abused victim who dares to question you. Welcome to the new Liberal Canada & its sunny ways.
As for Guilbeault, there are no words that can adequately describe him in a public forum.
When I hear Liberals on YouTube describing JT as warm, nice, engaging, I question their ability to actually see what they’re looking at. They’re still spewing the same bs that essentially says, ‘are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes?’
I would argue that Canada long ago achieved as much DEI as is reasonably possible. Attempting to push further on these types of issues would be well past the point of diminishing returns. Through distraction, the Liberals have regressed on areas such as productivity, debt, housing and defence.
I have thought for years that many Canadian political parties, at the federal and provincial levels, are simply extensions of the leader du jour. In Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives flop from being in support of a carbon tax to being opposed depending on the leader. The party itself apparently has no position on the topic. This column confirms my suspicion and worry. Political parties changed from being the primary institution of electoral politics; that is, the mechanism for generating policy ideas and electoral planks of a party, to being a reflection of the moods and preferences of the leader.
Konrad Yakabuski wrote a very interesting article in the Globe this past weekend on a similar change in the relationship between the federal civil service and the governing political party. Where the civil service used to be a source of policy analysis and advice, it has become a tool for implementing the political promises of the governing party. The governing party no longer looks to the civil service for advice and guidance. The governing party, in the form of the PMO, tells the civil service what to do.
Both are examples of the centralization of power in the hands of a single individual: the PM. It's not for nothing that Jeffrey Simpson nicknamed Canada "The Friendly Dictatorship" and that was years ago. It has only become worse under the last two Prime Ministers.
Re the civil service: yes, their devotion to the Liberals became apparent when they openly cheered after he was elected in 2015. Of course, that meanie Harper had some layoffs in mind, so they really had their own best interests in mind.
My point is not that the civil service is pro-Liberal. In fact, it is quite neutral, that one episode in one department notwithstanding.
My point is that the governing party, whether Liberal or Conservative, no longer looks to the civil service as a source of neutral, evidence-based analysis and policy advice. Both parties see the civil service as, in effect, an implementation organisation. "We have the ideas, you implement them" seems to the rule of the day. In doing so, one of the key values of the civil service is lost.
I have not done the article justice. I encourage readers who are interested in the governing of the country to take a look at it. It is quite analogous to Mr. Klietsch's article.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, insofar as your assessment of the relationship between the government du jour and the federal public service was concerned.
It is the case that senior public servants have long since moved from being purveyors of tough and impartial advice to executioners of whatever "the man (and political party) of the moment" call far.
Yet another red flag for Canadian politics and democratic principles.
On top of policy debates, the NS PC Party sends cabinet ministers to a conference room and sits them at various round tables with rank-and-file members who have developed ideas that fall under their respective portfolios. I have seen well-received government policy spin out of these discussions. I agree with the notion that connecting with grass roots members is important to good governance. Great article.
Many former Reform supporters, including I suspect Stephen Harper, thought that the PC Party and the Liberal Party had outlived their relevance 30 years ago. So it is ironic that the Liberal leader who defeated Harper in 2015 appears to be the one who will kill this so called " natural governing Party ". The only thing that seems to be preventing the Liberals from dropping into the teens in polling numbers is the complete shambles the NDP is in. Singh is a disastrous leader . Any self respecting Liberal that would like to jump ship to another left leaning political group comes to a full stop when they think of Singh . If a Mulcair or Layton were leader there, I think that you would see that 40% left polling split to be 25% to 15% for the Dippers.
The Liberals have been in a death spiral since about 2004. All Trudeau did was temporarily arrest the decline with his celebrity. The last gasp of a dying brand is often a celebrity spokesperson.
Stefan, it's a pretty good analysis and gives some perspective on party politics and Trudeau's approach that I haven't read elsewhere. I have only one suggested correction... where you refer to Trudeau's cynicism, replace that word with narcissism. His advisors and I suppose pretty much every riding president were either duped by his self-serving messages or saw something in it for themselves. Currently, the only reason I suspect he gets a standing ovation from his MP's in session no matter how foolishly he speaks is because they're all on camera and will get a call from one of Katy's toadies at the PMO if they don't. One hopes most of them will be looking for work shortly and that the Libs figure out the difference between democracy and divine rule. Now that's cynicism, and the few Trudeau supporters that remain would say delusional ;)
Thanks for the compliments. I don't see a special level of narcissism in Trudeau though, compared to other Prime Ministers. He did turn the Liberal Party itself into even more of a personality cult, but he has not otherwise particularly worsened or improved the concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office.
The Conservatives by contrast are abiding by the provisions of the Reform Act, but Poilievre has pledged to reverse the precedents of the Notwithstanding Clause never being used and of Senators being appointed through a non-partisan process, which would allow more de facto power to the Prime Minister. It does not look like the Poilievre Conservatives would seriously devolve power away form the PMO.
I'm not really persuaded that the problem is failing to heed policy conventions. Liberal leaders have a *long* history of tossing their platform and taking politically pragmatic actions whenever they see fit. Think Mackenzie King and conscription, Trudeau suddenly embracing wage & price controls, or Chretien ditching his 1993 Red Book for a series of program cuts. The Young Liberal conventions used to be a reliable source of political headaches for the Liberal establishment as well, producing fairly radical or extreme policies that'd make for an easy attack by their conservative opponents.
The Liberals seem to have lost the pool of talent that used to inform that pragmatic response: the current cabinet is characterized by a dearth of talent compared with previous Liberal governments, and the "brain trust" of experienced ministers from previous governments isn't there. They don't know what to do, and they've been ignoring critical feedback that would've prompted previous governments to change their approach.
I don't think that you can equate a pragmatic willingness to backtrack on platform promises with an absence of grassroots feedback.
You write, "The Young Liberal conventions used to be a reliable source of political headaches for the Liberal establishment as well, producing fairly radical or extreme policies that'd make for an easy attack by their conservative opponents."
But did these policy proposals ever result in the Liberals suffering known losses in votes? I don't think that voters care whether a division exists within a political party, so long as the party leadership properly communicates where it stands and the enterprise seems stable. At any rate, we know that the cannabis legalization policy came from the Young Liberals, who do not seem to have much prominence in policy debates now.
I agree with your comments about the pool of talent, Trudeau is the only Liberal Prime Minister I can think of who was not a Cabinet Minister under a prior Liberal government. Few sitting Liberal MPs even have lived political experience of the Harper era, which I think plays a factor in the party's weak messaging against Harper sycophant Poilievre.
That’s quite a statement of institutional capture by Team Trudeau.
People are leery of calling the current incarnation of the LPC a “cult”, but articles like this can reinforce the notion. Once an Alpha dominate player captures the organizational structure they automatically control the membership apparatus and squelch dissent dead in its tracks.
It's a great thesis that does a great job expanding one's horizon, but it makes the mistake of assuming that the reader is familiar with how parties are (supposed to be) run, which I don't think is the case of every reader, as politically savvy as they may be.
A brief background primer at the beginning would have helped clarify.
The lyrics from Your so Vain by Carly Simon truly reflect Justin Trudeau's narcistic personality. It is not difficult to come to the conclusion, that Trudeau believes that every time Canadians stand up and sing the national anthem, they are singing it for our Prime Minister. "he thinks this song is about him"
NOTE to Author: The former Attorney General and Justice Minister’s name is JODY, not “Judy”, and it’s Wilson-Raybould that is hyphenated, not “Judy [sic] and Wilson.
Perhaps Trudeau's greatest political liability is his own lack of character, repeatedly demonstrated over the years and on tedious display for all to see in Question Period. His authoritarian streak is none too attractive either, but it's my view that, temperamentally, Canadians would be perfectly okay with an autocrat as leader, provided he/she was fair, benevolent, trustworthy and competent. As it happens I've just been reading about archetypal Prussian autocrat Albrecht von Roon, the man who reformed Prussia's armies to the point where they were able to overwhelm the French in the Franco-Prussian War. Apparently Roon was highhanded and not much of a dinner guest--"sunny ways" definitely weren't for him. But he was also incorruptible: and everything he did was for the nation. According to one biographer, Roon had "an inner integrity and decency which high office, fame, and success never spoiled or corrupted."
Who could even pretend that such a description fits our embarrassingly narcissistic, virtue-posturing but ethically flexible Prime Minister? He's worked hard on the autocracy part; it's just the competence and inner integrity that are missing.
What do you believe to be Trudeau's worst precedent for enhancing "autocracy"?
My article explained how Trudeau made his own party more autocratic and identified how the Prime Minister has disgraced himself on some occasions. Neither of these, however, amount to Canada itself becoming more autocratic. Being a real autocrat means that you take a step to try to centralize power with a new *permanent* defect in the political system, and try to condition the general population to have tolerance for that new defect.
Trudeau does not have an authoritarian streak. His lack of policy understanding and general experience requires far more programming than of a typical political leader. That places more importance on his inner circle, mainly people like Telford.
I can see why the Liberals are dying: they are rotting from the insides out. Maybe it's more accurate to say they're already dead.
I'm now forming the opinion that over the past decade, anybody with any degree of passion or idealism (ie. anybody under 40?) or intellect who was hoping to join the Liberal party because they were passionate about serving the public and "the common good" etc. would have been sadly disappointed and ultimately chased away.
If healthy debate and democratic principles can't survive within a political party, that party deserves to die. I predict a split of some sort.
What a disappointment -- you go to the well to get a drink and you realize the well is dry.
I have a little experience with party politics and its and I have no doubt there are variations on the theme of important grassroots input from one party to the next. The idea is to attract members, real Canadians who care about the political system and want to contribute to party policy. And those people are there along with a ton of kids who are at uni or recent poli sci grads, whiz kids and nerds.
Hospitality suites are busy and the Libs knew there would be no one in attendance for the policy debates. I have been one of those sycophants, arranging committees and meetings, inviting stakeholders, discussing and drafting policy recommendations. To be vetted by the Leaders staff with some deleted before even making it to a convention. Could it be that Trudeau took a lesson from Stephen Harper who kept tight control over his caucus and grassroots party members unlike
Andrew Scheer and Erin O'Toole? The party apparatus that isn't skillfully managed can come back and bite. And there are tons of great ideas coming out of the people who actually care enough about Canada to get involved in the party process. With more independent adults (as opposed to one issue groups such as sex education in Ontario) involved, the parties will have to become more accountable and actually take them seriously.
The biggest service the Liberal Party and all its activist thugs could do for Canada is to quietly disappear for a good long period out of power contemplating their navels. This is a party full of ideologues whose sole purpose is to do what’s best for them and their ideologies while holding on to power at all costs regardless of the countrys welfare.
I agree that the Liberal Party needs a time out for a while. They are doing the country no favours in staying. To call them "activist thugs" is a bit over the top. It is true that they are more concerned about the diversity, equity, and inclusion file seemingly to the exclusion of most other aspects of governing and the country has suffered for it. There is room to be concerned about trying to ensure that all Canadians are treated fairly, but there are other files that require as much, or more, attention, such as defence, the tax code, and the deficit/debt.
The Liberals are no different from any other party in wanting to retain power for as long as possible. All parties eventually succumb to the notion that what's good for the party is good for the country.
Perhaps thug is a bit strong but then I think of Guilbeault and some of the back room types like Butts and am left wondering.
Entirely correct & no need to wonder. They are thugs. From the get-go, Butts labeled anyone who dared to question, literally, anything, as a yellow-vested fascist. And that was in the regime’s opening (honeymoon??) days. Abuser, meet the ever-hopeful abused victim who dares to question you. Welcome to the new Liberal Canada & its sunny ways.
As for Guilbeault, there are no words that can adequately describe him in a public forum.
When I hear Liberals on YouTube describing JT as warm, nice, engaging, I question their ability to actually see what they’re looking at. They’re still spewing the same bs that essentially says, ‘are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes?’
I would argue that Canada long ago achieved as much DEI as is reasonably possible. Attempting to push further on these types of issues would be well past the point of diminishing returns. Through distraction, the Liberals have regressed on areas such as productivity, debt, housing and defence.
I have thought for years that many Canadian political parties, at the federal and provincial levels, are simply extensions of the leader du jour. In Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives flop from being in support of a carbon tax to being opposed depending on the leader. The party itself apparently has no position on the topic. This column confirms my suspicion and worry. Political parties changed from being the primary institution of electoral politics; that is, the mechanism for generating policy ideas and electoral planks of a party, to being a reflection of the moods and preferences of the leader.
Konrad Yakabuski wrote a very interesting article in the Globe this past weekend on a similar change in the relationship between the federal civil service and the governing political party. Where the civil service used to be a source of policy analysis and advice, it has become a tool for implementing the political promises of the governing party. The governing party no longer looks to the civil service for advice and guidance. The governing party, in the form of the PMO, tells the civil service what to do.
Both are examples of the centralization of power in the hands of a single individual: the PM. It's not for nothing that Jeffrey Simpson nicknamed Canada "The Friendly Dictatorship" and that was years ago. It has only become worse under the last two Prime Ministers.
Re the civil service: yes, their devotion to the Liberals became apparent when they openly cheered after he was elected in 2015. Of course, that meanie Harper had some layoffs in mind, so they really had their own best interests in mind.
My point is not that the civil service is pro-Liberal. In fact, it is quite neutral, that one episode in one department notwithstanding.
My point is that the governing party, whether Liberal or Conservative, no longer looks to the civil service as a source of neutral, evidence-based analysis and policy advice. Both parties see the civil service as, in effect, an implementation organisation. "We have the ideas, you implement them" seems to the rule of the day. In doing so, one of the key values of the civil service is lost.
I have not done the article justice. I encourage readers who are interested in the governing of the country to take a look at it. It is quite analogous to Mr. Klietsch's article.
It may be intended to be neutral, but it is not at all neutral under Trudeau. Do you really think that new 40% is neutral?
I don't think that one department is an anomaly either.
You are correct. It absolutely is NOT an anomaly.
The public service unions sure campaigned hard against Harper, which is not neutral at all.
The liberals have expanded the public service over 40% since they were elected in 2015.
That’s not a good thing.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, insofar as your assessment of the relationship between the government du jour and the federal public service was concerned.
It is the case that senior public servants have long since moved from being purveyors of tough and impartial advice to executioners of whatever "the man (and political party) of the moment" call far.
Yet another red flag for Canadian politics and democratic principles.
On top of policy debates, the NS PC Party sends cabinet ministers to a conference room and sits them at various round tables with rank-and-file members who have developed ideas that fall under their respective portfolios. I have seen well-received government policy spin out of these discussions. I agree with the notion that connecting with grass roots members is important to good governance. Great article.
This is it exactly.
It is no longer the 'Liberal Party'.
It is the Trudeau Party.
A Party that needs to End.
Many former Reform supporters, including I suspect Stephen Harper, thought that the PC Party and the Liberal Party had outlived their relevance 30 years ago. So it is ironic that the Liberal leader who defeated Harper in 2015 appears to be the one who will kill this so called " natural governing Party ". The only thing that seems to be preventing the Liberals from dropping into the teens in polling numbers is the complete shambles the NDP is in. Singh is a disastrous leader . Any self respecting Liberal that would like to jump ship to another left leaning political group comes to a full stop when they think of Singh . If a Mulcair or Layton were leader there, I think that you would see that 40% left polling split to be 25% to 15% for the Dippers.
The Liberals have been in a death spiral since about 2004. All Trudeau did was temporarily arrest the decline with his celebrity. The last gasp of a dying brand is often a celebrity spokesperson.
I would add, his celebrity (a function of both his looks and his name) plus his pandering to Singh.
Other way around. Singh is a Trudeau knock-off.
Stefan, it's a pretty good analysis and gives some perspective on party politics and Trudeau's approach that I haven't read elsewhere. I have only one suggested correction... where you refer to Trudeau's cynicism, replace that word with narcissism. His advisors and I suppose pretty much every riding president were either duped by his self-serving messages or saw something in it for themselves. Currently, the only reason I suspect he gets a standing ovation from his MP's in session no matter how foolishly he speaks is because they're all on camera and will get a call from one of Katy's toadies at the PMO if they don't. One hopes most of them will be looking for work shortly and that the Libs figure out the difference between democracy and divine rule. Now that's cynicism, and the few Trudeau supporters that remain would say delusional ;)
Thanks for the compliments. I don't see a special level of narcissism in Trudeau though, compared to other Prime Ministers. He did turn the Liberal Party itself into even more of a personality cult, but he has not otherwise particularly worsened or improved the concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office.
The Conservatives by contrast are abiding by the provisions of the Reform Act, but Poilievre has pledged to reverse the precedents of the Notwithstanding Clause never being used and of Senators being appointed through a non-partisan process, which would allow more de facto power to the Prime Minister. It does not look like the Poilievre Conservatives would seriously devolve power away form the PMO.
It is a combination of cynicism AND narcissism, and in Trudeau these are mutually reinforcing.
They need to spend a good long while in a minivan.
I'm not really persuaded that the problem is failing to heed policy conventions. Liberal leaders have a *long* history of tossing their platform and taking politically pragmatic actions whenever they see fit. Think Mackenzie King and conscription, Trudeau suddenly embracing wage & price controls, or Chretien ditching his 1993 Red Book for a series of program cuts. The Young Liberal conventions used to be a reliable source of political headaches for the Liberal establishment as well, producing fairly radical or extreme policies that'd make for an easy attack by their conservative opponents.
The Liberals seem to have lost the pool of talent that used to inform that pragmatic response: the current cabinet is characterized by a dearth of talent compared with previous Liberal governments, and the "brain trust" of experienced ministers from previous governments isn't there. They don't know what to do, and they've been ignoring critical feedback that would've prompted previous governments to change their approach.
I don't think that you can equate a pragmatic willingness to backtrack on platform promises with an absence of grassroots feedback.
You write, "The Young Liberal conventions used to be a reliable source of political headaches for the Liberal establishment as well, producing fairly radical or extreme policies that'd make for an easy attack by their conservative opponents."
But did these policy proposals ever result in the Liberals suffering known losses in votes? I don't think that voters care whether a division exists within a political party, so long as the party leadership properly communicates where it stands and the enterprise seems stable. At any rate, we know that the cannabis legalization policy came from the Young Liberals, who do not seem to have much prominence in policy debates now.
I agree with your comments about the pool of talent, Trudeau is the only Liberal Prime Minister I can think of who was not a Cabinet Minister under a prior Liberal government. Few sitting Liberal MPs even have lived political experience of the Harper era, which I think plays a factor in the party's weak messaging against Harper sycophant Poilievre.
Wowsers!
That’s quite a statement of institutional capture by Team Trudeau.
People are leery of calling the current incarnation of the LPC a “cult”, but articles like this can reinforce the notion. Once an Alpha dominate player captures the organizational structure they automatically control the membership apparatus and squelch dissent dead in its tracks.
It's a great thesis that does a great job expanding one's horizon, but it makes the mistake of assuming that the reader is familiar with how parties are (supposed to be) run, which I don't think is the case of every reader, as politically savvy as they may be.
A brief background primer at the beginning would have helped clarify.
Here here!
The lyrics from Your so Vain by Carly Simon truly reflect Justin Trudeau's narcistic personality. It is not difficult to come to the conclusion, that Trudeau believes that every time Canadians stand up and sing the national anthem, they are singing it for our Prime Minister. "he thinks this song is about him"
Margaret Trudeau has a "connection" to that song as it is allegedly about Warren Beatty.
Any JT discussion is always a few degrees of separation from celebrity.
NOTE to Author: The former Attorney General and Justice Minister’s name is JODY, not “Judy”, and it’s Wilson-Raybould that is hyphenated, not “Judy [sic] and Wilson.
Thanks, that was a typo.
Yes, I realize that. I just thought it should be corrected.
Would have loved to be a fly on the wall when Trudeau and Raybould had their SNC chat.
Some of the conversation details were published in JWR's 2021 book, "Indian" in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power".
Perhaps Trudeau's greatest political liability is his own lack of character, repeatedly demonstrated over the years and on tedious display for all to see in Question Period. His authoritarian streak is none too attractive either, but it's my view that, temperamentally, Canadians would be perfectly okay with an autocrat as leader, provided he/she was fair, benevolent, trustworthy and competent. As it happens I've just been reading about archetypal Prussian autocrat Albrecht von Roon, the man who reformed Prussia's armies to the point where they were able to overwhelm the French in the Franco-Prussian War. Apparently Roon was highhanded and not much of a dinner guest--"sunny ways" definitely weren't for him. But he was also incorruptible: and everything he did was for the nation. According to one biographer, Roon had "an inner integrity and decency which high office, fame, and success never spoiled or corrupted."
Who could even pretend that such a description fits our embarrassingly narcissistic, virtue-posturing but ethically flexible Prime Minister? He's worked hard on the autocracy part; it's just the competence and inner integrity that are missing.
What do you believe to be Trudeau's worst precedent for enhancing "autocracy"?
My article explained how Trudeau made his own party more autocratic and identified how the Prime Minister has disgraced himself on some occasions. Neither of these, however, amount to Canada itself becoming more autocratic. Being a real autocrat means that you take a step to try to centralize power with a new *permanent* defect in the political system, and try to condition the general population to have tolerance for that new defect.
Trudeau does not have an authoritarian streak. His lack of policy understanding and general experience requires far more programming than of a typical political leader. That places more importance on his inner circle, mainly people like Telford.
Thanx for the peak behind the curtain. The Wizard of Oz wasn't even this callous!
A helpful article, thank-you.
What a sad state of affairs.
I can see why the Liberals are dying: they are rotting from the insides out. Maybe it's more accurate to say they're already dead.
I'm now forming the opinion that over the past decade, anybody with any degree of passion or idealism (ie. anybody under 40?) or intellect who was hoping to join the Liberal party because they were passionate about serving the public and "the common good" etc. would have been sadly disappointed and ultimately chased away.
If healthy debate and democratic principles can't survive within a political party, that party deserves to die. I predict a split of some sort.
What a disappointment -- you go to the well to get a drink and you realize the well is dry.
I have a little experience with party politics and its and I have no doubt there are variations on the theme of important grassroots input from one party to the next. The idea is to attract members, real Canadians who care about the political system and want to contribute to party policy. And those people are there along with a ton of kids who are at uni or recent poli sci grads, whiz kids and nerds.
Hospitality suites are busy and the Libs knew there would be no one in attendance for the policy debates. I have been one of those sycophants, arranging committees and meetings, inviting stakeholders, discussing and drafting policy recommendations. To be vetted by the Leaders staff with some deleted before even making it to a convention. Could it be that Trudeau took a lesson from Stephen Harper who kept tight control over his caucus and grassroots party members unlike
Andrew Scheer and Erin O'Toole? The party apparatus that isn't skillfully managed can come back and bite. And there are tons of great ideas coming out of the people who actually care enough about Canada to get involved in the party process. With more independent adults (as opposed to one issue groups such as sex education in Ontario) involved, the parties will have to become more accountable and actually take them seriously.