[JaredMilne]

When Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, Trudeau charmed many Canadians with his social media skills and courting millennial votes. He was seen as representing new, energetic change, shaking up the tired Stephen Harper status quo.

Now, more than halfway through Trudeau’s mandate, what has he delivered?

To his credit, many of the changes Trudeau proposed were very good ones, such as reforming Canada’s electoral system, implementing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools, and revising the tax system to reduce loopholes such as personal incorporation and income sprinkling.

Unfortunately, Trudeau also bungled many of these changes. The electoral reform project was scrapped after most consultations supported proportional representation, instead of the listed ballot Trudeau himself preferred. The inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women became a gong show, with commissioners resigning publicly. Many Indigenous people have also been furious in general with issues such as the federal government ignoring courts and human rights commissions ordering it to provide equal support to Indigenous health and childcare. The Trudeau government embarrassingly pulled back on its tax revisions after Finance Minister Bill Morneau failed to put his shares in a company doing business with the federal government in a blind trust. Trudeau himself held fundraisers allowing foreign billionaires to pay for access to him, and went on overseas vacations with the multimillionaire Aga Khan in the Bahamas, which didn’t help his claim that his government worked on behalf of middle-class Canadians. Trudeau also broke his promise to limit the size of Canada’s deficits, which have ballooned well beyond the $10 billion a year he promised.

Disturbingly, Trudeau has also fumbled some key aspects of basic governance. The Trudeau government has let a large backlog of appointments build for everything from judgeships to important officers of Parliament, leaving critical roles such as the commissioners for official languages and the RCMP filled with interim appointees. The Phoenix system used to pay public servants continues to be a mess, as the costs to fix it grow without any tangible results.

In fairness, Trudeau has gotten some things right. Veteran political journalist Paul Wells credited Trudeau for his efforts to attract high-tech knowledge workers, stimulus payments, child care tax benefits, assisted dying legislation, and provincial mental health transfers. The jury is still out on the infrastructure bank designed to address Canada’s infrastructure backlog, and the legalization of marijuana, but if they provide the benefits their advocates claim then Trudeau can rightly claim credit for them.

However, Justin Trudeau may turn out to be much like Stephen Harper. Harper could be credited for many worthwhile “bread and butter” initiatives, but he failed most of his larger goals. Trudeau has also succeeded at bread and butter issues, while making a hash of his larger-scale changes.

When Justin Trudeau originally became Liberal leader in 2013, I was asked what I thought of him. I said at the time that Justin had inherited his father Pierre’s charisma, but not Pierre’s intellect.

Sometimes I hate being right.

[CharlesAnthony]

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

To his credit, many of the changes Trudeau proposed were ...

... composed by somebody else and stuffed in front of his face.
Trudeau is just a bad actor. The only thing he leads is a public kabuki dance. That is his job as was Harper's job as was every other PM's job.

Trudeau does not have power and he does not make decisions.

[martin14]

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

When Justin Trudeau originally became Liberal leader in 2013, I was asked what I thought of him. I said at the time that Justin had inherited his father Pierre’s charisma, but not Pierre’s intellect.

Sometimes I hate being right.

Father's looks, mother's brains.

And he is still not ready.

[HyperionTheEvil]

All i see is the trajectory of a lightweight now on the down slide

[Zipperfish]

[BartSimpson]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

[PluggyRug]

[PluggyRug]

[Zipperfish]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

:mrgreen:

[BeaverFever]

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

When Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, Trudeau charmed many Canadians with his social media skills and courting millennial votes. He was seen as representing new, energetic change, shaking up the tired Stephen Harper status quo.

Now, more than halfway through Trudeau’s mandate, what has he delivered?

To his credit, many of the changes Trudeau proposed were very good ones, such as reforming Canada’s electoral system, implementing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools, and revising the tax system to reduce loopholes such as personal incorporation and income sprinkling.

Unfortunately, Trudeau also bungled many of these changes. The electoral reform project was scrapped after most consultations supported proportional representation, instead of the listed ballot Trudeau himself preferred. The inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women became a gong show, with commissioners resigning publicly. Many Indigenous people have also been furious in general with issues such as the federal government ignoring courts and human rights commissions ordering it to provide equal support to Indigenous health and childcare. The Trudeau government embarrassingly pulled back on its tax revisions after Finance Minister Bill Morneau failed to put his shares in a company doing business with the federal government in a blind trust. Trudeau himself held fundraisers allowing foreign billionaires to pay for access to him, and went on overseas vacations with the multimillionaire Aga Khan in the Bahamas, which didn’t help his claim that his government worked on behalf of middle-class Canadians. Trudeau also broke his promise to limit the size of Canada’s deficits, which have ballooned well beyond the $10 billion a year he promised.

Disturbingly, Trudeau has also fumbled some key aspects of basic governance. The Trudeau government has let a large backlog of appointments build for everything from judgeships to important officers of Parliament, leaving critical roles such as the commissioners for official languages and the RCMP filled with interim appointees. The Phoenix system used to pay public servants continues to be a mess, as the costs to fix it grow without any tangible results.

In fairness, Trudeau has gotten some things right. Veteran political journalist Paul Wells credited Trudeau for his efforts to attract high-tech knowledge workers, stimulus payments, child care tax benefits, assisted dying legislation, and provincial mental health transfers. The jury is still out on the infrastructure bank designed to address Canada’s infrastructure backlog, and the legalization of marijuana, but if they provide the benefits their advocates claim then Trudeau can rightly claim credit for them.

However, Justin Trudeau may turn out to be much like Stephen Harper. Harper could be credited for many worthwhile “bread and butter” initiatives, but he failed most of his larger goals. Trudeau has also succeeded at bread and butter issues, while making a hash of his larger-scale changes.

When Justin Trudeau originally became Liberal leader in 2013, I was asked what I thought of him. I said at the time that Justin had inherited his father Pierre’s charisma, but not Pierre’s intellect.

Sometimes I hate being right.

Great post! I think your criticism is fair.


My comments/ questions:

1). No mention of the 50% female cabinet? This was actually the thing that sparked my interest in the JT Liberals

2). Electoral reform: My first comment is that it was a mistake for him to put electoral reform on the agenda (personally I think the current system is best). So to me this is a double blunder: failure of campaign Policy and failure of policy implementation.

I thought there was no clear consensus on what Canadians wanted, wheras you say the consensus was an option that JT didn’t like. Do you have a link?

3). Im not sure Trudeau wears Phoenix JUST YET but yeah time’s running out for him to blame the predecessor

[BRAH]

martin14 martin14:

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

When Justin Trudeau originally became Liberal leader in 2013, I was asked what I thought of him. I said at the time that Justin had inherited his father Pierre’s charisma, but not Pierre’s intellect.

Sometimes I hate being right.

Father's looks, mother's brains.

And he is still not ready.

Incompetent as JT is can anyone imagine what Canada would be like if Tom Mulcair won?

[JaredMilne]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

When Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, Trudeau charmed many Canadians with his social media skills and courting millennial votes. He was seen as representing new, energetic change, shaking up the tired Stephen Harper status quo.

Now, more than halfway through Trudeau’s mandate, what has he delivered?

...

When Justin Trudeau originally became Liberal leader in 2013, I was asked what I thought of him. I said at the time that Justin had inherited his father Pierre’s charisma, but not Pierre’s intellect.

Sometimes I hate being right.

Great post! I think your criticism is fair.


My comments/ questions:

1). No mention of the 50% female cabinet? This was actually the thing that sparked my interest in the JT Liberals

2). Electoral reform: My first comment is that it was a mistake for him to put electoral reform on the agenda (personally I think the current system is best). So to me this is a double blunder: failure of campaign Policy and failure of policy implementation.

I thought there was no clear consensus on what Canadians wanted, wheras you say the consensus was an option that JT didn’t like. Do you have a link?

3). Im not sure Trudeau wears Phoenix JUST YET but yeah time’s running out for him to blame the predecessor

Damn it, I realize that I never got around to answering this:

1) With these articles, I only get to use about 500 words. Hence I can't touch on everything I would have liked. So yes, one can credit Trudeau on this. That said, this sort of thing isn't exclusive to the Liberals-at one point, the Conservatives were the ones with the most ethnically diverse caucus in the House of Commons.

2) Here's Andrew Coyne, discussing the matter, and how some form of proportional representation was a clear preference of both the committee that analyzed and recommended a change, and the Canadians who filled out the online questionnaires:

$1:

Now, you may wish to protest that this is untrue: that the overwhelming majority of those who presented testimony before the committee, whether experts or laymen, argued for some form of proportional representation, and that this, rather than the details of design, was the fundamental question before Canadians.

Further, you may point to the results of that online questionnaire that hundreds of thousands of Canadians dutifully filled out, which for all the skewed questions and tendentious summaries showed a clear willingness to entertain the idea of multi-party governments, of a kind that critics of proportional representation warn will bring disaster.

3) Two years in, and there's no fix in sight. Along with the demands from the federal public service union for compensation (which the Conservatives are almost certain to hammer Trudeau with in Question Period) I'd say he wears this.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

0:

harper.jpg [ 124.77 KiB | Viewed 570 times ]

-J.

[Sunnyways]

The MMIW issue was always going to be difficult; at least he tried unlike Harper. He was right to bring in tax reform for modestly rich (certainly not middle class) pseudo-entrepreneurs like doctors and the errors of a mega-rich person like Morneau do not change that. Electoral reform was disappointing but Canadians don't seem to care very much. The Aga Khan business was an unnecessary mistake which he should have avoided.

On the plus side, he's interacted better with the provinces than his predecessor and has managed the Trump NAFTA nightmare surprisingly well. Overall, he shows the importance of temperament and toughness in politics. Despite being a poor speaker he gets his message across.

[N_Fiddledog]