The most revealing moment in Justin Trudeau’s keynote address to the Liberal party on the weekend was when he invoked his father and the Just Society, a byword for Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s commitment to fairness in income and opportunity.
“He devoted his entire life to that principle,” said Trudeau the Younger. “Wrote about it, thought about it, promoted it every chance he got. Heck, some say he even named his firstborn child after it.”
It was a touching grace note. Sons of politicians celebrate their fathers in public sparingly, because they want to be their own people. It’s understandable. You can get a complex about your old man, whether it was Paul Martin, Jr., about Paul Martin, Sr., or Randolph Churchill about Sir Winston.
It is hard for a son to measure up. No wonder Randolph came to grief, plagued by alcoholism. No wonder Paul Martin, Jr., won the job that eluded his father but lost it when he didn’t know what to do with it.
Justin Trudeau lives in the shadow of an icon. Pierre Trudeau was a strongman with a steel-trap mind and a beguiling mien who led a feverish life like no other. Justin’s challenge is to show that he, too, has the right stuff, different in temperament and intellect than his father, but still serious and substantial, with a charm of his own.
In recalling the Just Society, Justin suggests he is heir to his father’s legacy. He will not deny it or hide from it, much as the Conservatives deride it.
After almost a year as leader, Justin Trudeau is comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He is proud of his name and understands its appeal. But he will not exploit it shamelessly.
What it says is that he will do things his way, by his own lights, defying conventional wisdom.
For example, conventional wisdom suggests the Liberals would have had a serious discussion of policy by now. They would have commissioned studies, sought ideas and invited experts to contemplate what it means to be a Liberal in 2014.
You might have expected they would have even convened another Kingston Conference, as they did in 1960, which generated many of the ideas (pension, universal health care, bilingualism) that animated Lester Pearson’s Liberals in the 1960s.
That is what a party that suffered the worst defeat in its history in 2011 might have done. But the convention here was more politics than policy.
There is a similar lassitude around the two commissions on the economy and defence and foreign policy that Trudeau created last fall.
Then again, this must be what the leader wants. No big idea, no big moves. It came through in Trudeau’s keynote speech, some of which could have been given by Stephen Harper.
This ambiguity isn’t just tactical, a politician’s reluctance to show his hand too early. It is strategic, a reluctance to be bold and inventive when polls suggest you don’t have to be.
Trudeau defies conventional wisdom in other ways. Firing his caucus in the Senate was a political coup de grâce. More personally, it shows the confidence of a leader prepared to reject institutional memory and some useful counsel.
Is Trudeau drawing advice from anyone outside his circle? If not, it underscores, again, his belief in himself and his judgment, which a leader must have.
That he might meet regularly with a range of outside experts, as his father once did; that he might make a series of speeches around the country offering a consistent critique of the government; that he might personally approach prominent Canadians to run as candidates; that he might talk with ambition about Canada at home and abroad; that he might appear in the House every day — all that is yesterday’s thinking.
At the moment, flouting orthodoxy is working. Trudeau is the best retail politician in the country. The party is leading the polls, raising money and recruiting good candidates, some of whom the convention subtly showcased. For a party declared dead three years ago, the brand is strong.
This is now Justin Trudeau’s show, and he’s doing things his way.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.
