Unless Garneau can transform into JFK, not even an Americanized debate can save him
By Mohamed Sheriffdeen
Photos by Ben Buckley
A smile has always been the most important weapon in a politician’s arsenal. Ever since John Kennedy charmed the pants off TV viewers at home, it is imperative that a leader be as presentable as they are capable. This brand of reductive politics has been on display during the Liberal Party’s frantic attempts to package together an attractive leader for all Canadians.
Even before he announced his candidacy for the job, Justin Trudeau towered over all comers based on his name alone, and he has parlayed his carefully managed image and youthful good looks (not to mention the pre-debate boxing stunt — hello Paul Ryan!) into an immense surge of popularity, discounting whether he actually has insightful ideas on how to repair Canada’s global standing.
This is not to say that he’s an empty vessel. Trudeau is a passionate man, and he wants every Canadian to know that — passionate about education, passionate about the middle class, passionate about protecting BC’s environment (though he doesn’t mind re-routing the proposed pipeline through the East Coast). With his seemingly unstoppable momentum, Trudeau’s heaviest criticism has been levied by his hardiest opponent: Marc Garneau, who has challenged the front-runner’s lack of substantive discussion, claiming he’s spoken in “vague generalities” throughout the campaign.
Garneau would, in any other time, appear an excellent candidate: a retired astronaut and soldier, former head of the Canadian Space Agency, an Officer of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Canadian Forces Decoration. It makes you forget Garneau’s own lack of experience or major success in politics. He was only elected in October of 2008, using his own politically irrelevant brand-name to bulldoze his way into office by over 9000 votes. Three years later, he barely scraped by NDP challenger Joanne Corbeil (prevailing by just over six hundred votes) and was passed over for Bob Rae as interim leader of the party.
Nevertheless, Garneau’s tactic for undermining his opponent is banking on his self-proclaimed experience, so much so that he invited Trudeau to a one-on-one American-style leadership debate in a move that smacked of desperation. Garneau is by no means an idiot; he sells himself with his platform, suggesting economic reforms and the improvement of Canadian student funding while Trudeau has stringently refused to discuss anything concrete, focusing on paeans to the middle class and increased post-secondary enrollment. But guess who’s winning?
In Feb. 20 The National Post Andrew Coyne hammered the Liberal Party for all but engineering Trudeau’s ascension to the throne, selling his magnetic personality in lieu of any significant political wherewithal or experience. But this is a syndrome emblematic of so much more than one party.
It’s not that Canadians don’t care about the issues. The last hundred years of global politics has perfectly illustrated that the cult of personality sells, and Canadians, just like any other peoples, gravitate towards the person who most emphasizes those qualities we desire in ourselves. The beautiful, charismatic, well-read Trudeau is the type of man we see as representative of our inner ideal — cool, young, hip and sexy. Consider it a delayed reaction to the political envy that gripped this country when Obama rose to power in 2008: we want that.
Trudeau said it best while chiding Garneau during one of the debates: “You can’t win over Canadians with a five-point plan. You have to connect with them…in the debate we have coming forward.” But what of the direction and substance of that debate? For Trudeau, a clear position is irrelevant because qualifications, morality, religion and political philosophy are window dressing to a killer smile. Garneau, Hall-Findlay and every politico and pundit knows that. Getting them to admit they’re not the prettiest candidate in the room however, is unlikely.
