{"id":43720,"date":"2015-10-25T18:41:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T22:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=43720"},"modified":"2015-10-25T18:41:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-25T22:41:51","slug":"pierre-and-justin-trudeau-charismatic-father-and-son-prime-ministers-of-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=43720","title":{"rendered":"Pierre and Justin Trudeau: Charismatic Father and Son Prime Ministers of Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rajan Philips<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Monday, October 19, Canadians elected a majority Liberal government led by a handsome, young politician with a famous last name. Justin Trudeau, Canada\u2019s new Prime Minister, is the 43 year old son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau (1919-2000), one of Canada\u2019s better known world figures and a former Prime Minister for 16 years from 1968 to 1984. The young Trudeau has become a global celebrity in his own right almost instantly after his Party\u2019s stunning electoral victory. His victory speech capped off a campaign of optimism and for change, promising “sunny ways” like Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canada\u2019s Prime Minister a hundred years ago, and invoking “the better angels of our nature” as Abraham Lincoln did fifty years before that.<\/p>\n

Justin Trudeau\u2019s victory is the success story of a campaign that persuaded the better angels of Canadian society to reject the cynically calculated targeting of Canadian Muslims for electoral gains by the incumbent, and now defeated, Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. The Trudeau platform included bold and credible promises challenging libertarian orthodoxies and xenophobic undercurrents: increased taxing of the super-rich and more help to the middle classes; Keynesian deficit financing to boost the economy; withdrawal of Canadian fighter jets deployed in the Middle East and resumption of Canada\u2019s traditional emphasis on interventionist diplomacy; welcoming more refugees from Syria and recognition of citizenship as a permanent right; a leadership role in the global fight against climate change; compassionate support of euthanasia; and legalizing the regulated use of marijuana.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The father and the son<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joe Clark, a political adversary of the father and himself a former Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister, captured best the historic significance of the two Trudeaus. Mr. Clark said that both have demonstrated the charismatic ability to identify with and represent their respective political generations. The older Trudeau was exceptionally remarkable for his cerebral disposition, rigour and detachment, as well as physical athleticism and martial arts abilities. He was also a made-for-TV political leader. Although born in 1919, his ascent to power in 1968 coincided with the advent of the television as a political medium, the cultural tensions of the baby boomers in society, and the global uncertainties of the Cold War. There were other fires that flared during his terms in office: postwar stagflation and the global energy crisis, as well as Quebec separatism and the repatriation of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Pierre Trudeau heralded the birth of the new age of gay rights, the right to divorce and the woman\u2019s right to choose by declaring that “the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.” A French Canadian from the Province of Quebec, he invoked the War Measures Act to quell the violent strands of Quebec separatism, telling those who questioned him how far he would go in suppressing political violence: “Just watch me!” At the same time he insisted that Canada must not hold Quebec by force if the people of Quebec elected to separate peacefully and democratically through a referendum. He led the federalist campaign and defeated the separatists in the first referendum they called in 1980. Two years later, he repatriated Canada\u2019s constitution from its British womb and reinforced it with a Charter of Rights that has since defined the state and society of Canada. He opened the doors to immigration from all corners of the world and made Canada an officially multi-cultural society. If during the colonial era, Canada was known in the world for its Royal Canadian Mounted Police, after the older Trudeau, Canada has become known for its multi-culturalism, the Charter of Rights, and its exemplary Supreme Court interpreting the Charter.<\/p>\n

Pierre Trudeau retired from political life in 1984, when Justin Trudeau was 13 years old, and passed away sixteen years later in 2000. Fifteen years later the son has become Canada\u2019s Prime Minister. But their paths to and the challenges of office, 47 years apart, are hardly comparable. The older Trudeau\u2019s ascent began with the invitation of the then Prime Minister Lester Pearson to join his government and ended with Trudeau succeeding Pearson as Prime Minister. He was already an established public intellectual and political figure and Pearson\u2019s invitation set the stage for \u2018Trudeaumania\u2019 to unfold. Justin Trudeau, on the other hand, was born with a famous last name but had to endure his uncharitable characterizations by his political detractors, both within the Liberal Party and outside, as a shallow and a lightweight aspirant son of a famous father. The younger Trudeau is neither shallow nor a lightweight and his opponents underestimated him at their peril. The truth is he is not merely the inheritor of father\u2019s last name, but he is also the beneficiary of being raised by his prime-minister-father.<\/p>\n

Justin is the oldest of three sons born to Pierre and Margaret (Sinclair) Trudeau, when their father was Prime Minister of Canada. The parents separated in 1977 and were divorced in 1984. Remarkably, the three boys were brought up by their single-father for most of their lives while maintaining cordial relationship with the mother. It is a testament to Pierre Trudeau\u2019s parental abilities that his three sons became well-adjusted and well-disciplined young men and citizens. Quite evidently, he has not only tutored them culturally from Greek classics to modern poetry, but also trained them physically in boxing and outdoor sports. Tragically, the youngest brother died in an avalanche while skiing, in 1998, at the age of 23, devastating the father and accelerating his own end two years later. The older Trudeau did not encourage his sons to enter politics, but he gave them the norms and disciplines that would keep them out of trouble in any department of life.<\/p>\n

Justin Trudeau\u2019s eulogy at his father\u2019s funeral was described as one of the more significant events in Canada in fifty years. Eight years later Justin Trudeau entered parliament from a tough riding in Montreal, Quebec, where the Party leadership had placed him expecting him to lose the election and disappear from politics. Instead the young Trudeau worked hard and won his immigrant and working class riding, unlike the affluent riding that his father represented and won with nominal effort. In 2013, he went on to become the Leader of a depleted Liberal Party, reduced in status \u2013 from the natural governing party to third party in parliament, and in size \u2013 from past majorities to a mere 34 MPs. Now, within two years and against all odds he has achieved what no pundit thought would be possible \u2013 vaulting the Liberal Party from a 30 party opposition to majority government and increasing its caucus from 34 MPs to 184 MPs. For the first time after his father in 1968, the Liberal Party has representation in all the regions of Canada\u2019s vast geography stretching from the Atlantic (four provinces), through the Central (Ontario and Quebec), the Prairies (three Provinces), to the Pacific (British Columbia), and including the three Northwest Territories. Everywhere except the three prairie provinces, the Party won convincing majorities, in fact, sweeping every seat in the Atlantic Provinces and the Northwest Territories.<\/p>\n

The father and the son share striking similarities and also have significant differences. Justin Trudeau is not cerebral and the towering intellectual his father was, but that comparison that his opponents have been making much ado about is grossly unfair, because no other Canadian political leader or Prime Minister could be compared to Pierre Trudeau in those respects. On the other hand, Justin Trudeau is full of political instincts and is warm hearted and wholly affable, unlike his father who was described by Prime Minister Pearson as having “ice water flowing in his veins”. He is a product of his age and representative of the generation that he has been elected to lead, just as his father was in his time. From that standpoint, Justin Trudeau could be described as the world\u2019s first millennial prime minister. It is not a coincidence that he is quite at home with the political values associated with the millennial generation: a throwback to classical economic liberalism; genuine concern over climate change and sustainability; and progressive assertions of gender equality, same-sex marriages, and, legalizing euthanasia and marijuana.<\/p>\n

Restoring Liberal Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the same time, Mr. Trudeau is respectful of traditions and old school values. The liberal ethos and politics in Canada are products of the country\u2019s location and circumstances in time and space. Modern Canada began as a quintessential imperial colony brutally displacing the First Nations of native Americans. Its foundational definition was conservative at its core: a rejection of the revolution in France by the French immigrants and the American independence by the British immigrants. But over 150 years Canada has evolved into a country of modern institutions that privilege and promote tolerance, diversity and plurality in politics and in society. Bountifully endowed with natural resources ranging from timber to fossil fuel, and augmented by reasonably well-performing industry and service sectors, the Canadian economy has not only kept pace with the rest of the world but also placed the country in the small club of the world\u2019s elite economies. In political terms, the two major parties, the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives, have consistently been to the left of the Democratic Party in the US. A third party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), has been the voice of social conscience and the party of the trade unions. The NDP has won power many times at the provincial level, but has never come close to power at the federal level. In foreign policy, there has been no major difference between the three parties, and successive Canadian governments have consistently supported the United Nations, multilateralism, and peaceful diplomacy to resolving international conflicts.<\/p>\n

But for the last nine years, the calm Canadian political universe has been jolted from the right, by the now defeated Conservative government of Stephen Harper. Intelligent and disciplined in his own way, but unlike any previous leader, Mr. Harper brought an ideological edge to politics and disoriented the Canadian government to the right of the Republicans south of the border. Internally, he attacked the judiciary, ridiculed the scientists and dismissed environmental concerns, and even interfered in the national census calling it too invasive to libertarian sensibilities. Very cynically and ambidextrously, he found common ground with \u2018new stock\u2019 Canadians in opposing gender equality and gay marriages, while stoking the fears of the \u2018old stock\u2019 Canadians against newcomers especially if they were Muslims. In foreign policy, Canada became undiplomatic and belligerent under Harper\u2019s watch. And Mr. Harper established himself as the only world leader offering uncritical support to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Everything \u2013 whether targeted tax cuts, fear mongering over security, or taking positions internationally, was done to identify and appeal to specific cohorts of voters and their worse demons. Harper\u2019s grand scheme was to dismantle the liberal edifice of Canada, especially the legacies of Pierre Trudeau.<\/p>\n

In the election Harper called to extend his term for another four years and carry on with his demolition job, the better angels of Canadian society prevailed over the worse demons that Harper had been cultivating. Fittingly and ironically, it turned out to be a Trudeau who called time-out on Harper. Remarkably, as well, the younger Trudeau did it on his own, thanks perhaps to the training under his father but with no dynastic tailwind behind him. He ran a “campaign for the ages”, one commentator exuded. The challenges ahead are formidable, but the millennial Prime Minister has the goodwill of everyone, including many conservatives, for restoring Canada\u2019s pre-Harper ethos and values.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Island<\/em><\/p>\n

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by Rajan Philips On Monday, October 19, Canadians elected a majority Liberal government led by a handsome, young politician with a famous last name. Justin Trudeau, Canada\u2019s new Prime Minister, is the 43 year old son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau (1919-2000), one of Canada\u2019s better known world figures and a former Prime Minister for 16 …<\/p>\n

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