On Justin Trudeau

Justin Trudeau will announce his candidacy for Liberal leadership tonight. Since word leaked of the impending announcement, it has received what must be a record amount of attention for a candidate seeking leadership of the third party in the House of Commons. Without a word of his platform being leaked, he’s already being dismissed by some, while others have preached caution and a wait and see approach.

Flickr/jbach

I don’t follow the business of the House of Commons closely enough to speak authoritatively on his record there. I have heard Justin speak a few times, and come away impressed. I think he’s being unfairly judged or sold short in some areas, even before he’s launched his campaign.

On Policy
I’ve previously written about the missing agenda I see for all centre-left parties (and progressives as a whole in Canada). Speaking to Trudeau specifically, I think he’s being unfairly maligned for having unclear positions, though perhaps this is the trade-off he has to accept in order to receive disproportionate attention.

In spite of their long resumes in politics, how many pundits could tell you clearly where Thomas Mulcair, Brian Topp, Peggy Nash, and Nathan Cullen stood on the 5-10 key issues at the start of the NDP leadership race? 6 months into his leadership, would Thomas Mulcair be strongly associated with any policy or idea but for the words “dutch disease“?

As others have said, at this point, it is simply too early to tell. Once launched, if Trudeau’s campaign is built around photo-ops and the “OMG Justin Trudeau” factor, it will then be fair to accuse him of being a lightweight. I suspect this won’t be the case, and that the policies and ideas he does put forward will be examined on their merits, no different than anyone else. Given his background, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Trudeau have a particular emphasis of environmental and youth issues, which – as far as I’m concerned – would be a very welcome addition to political discourse.

On Leadership
For me, a key part of leadership is getting people interested, engaged, and excited. Trudeau clearly accomplishes the first at this point, and should he accomplish the other two, what’s lacking on his paper resume won’t matter so much. Most of the hands-on, tactical management will be up to his Chief of Staff and the party executive director in any case. His biggest challenge will be to engage caucus, find meaningful roles, and get people interested and excited in the party. A key test I will be looking for, should he win, is whether or not he’s able to attract talented candidates who are also new faces to the party. Should he ever position the party as a serious contender to form government, then his executive decision-making style will be a much greater consideration.

On Experience
Yes, his resume is shorter than many other candidates. Legitimate contenders for 24 Sussex tend to take one of two approaches to build their resume. Let’s call them the establishment approach and the entrepreneurial approach.

The establishment approach sees candidates gain experience and rise through conventional institutions to get to higher office. Most likely, this is within government, working one’s way up through party positions, or in elected office from backbencher to a critic/cabinet minister, and so forth. Think Jean Chretien or John Turner. Alternately, one may eschew elected office for a time and build party credentials and alternative executive experience (such as Paul Martin and Brian Mulroney, who had real executive experience, though little to no experience in office prior to running for leadership the first time).

Alternately, there is the entrepreneurial approach, building a party from scratch, or taking a smaller one and building it into a big tent. This is where one gains meaningful experience, and demonstrates their credentials. Preston Manning had a fairly anonymous career prior to founding the Reform Party; Jack Layton was an academic turned long-time legislator on Toronto City Council, but the closest he came to being an executive would be as President (Chair of the Board) at FCM. Stephen Harper’s career outside of politics consists of leading a small office at the National Citizens’ Coalition. All three showed their credentials by building effective political parties. Once they had done that, it was irrelevant that they’d never spent time in the executive suite at Canada Steam Lines or the Iron Ore company.

Bringing this back to Justin Trudeau, should be elected leader, he will inherit a party in distant third place, and is, quite frankly, not competitive in enough parts of the country to form government, and virtually non-existent in some. If he ever becomes a serious contender for Prime Minister, it will be because he has led a team and organization that took a party and brand in disarray, and engineered a successful turnaround. In other words, at such point in time he’d be no less qualified than the sitting Prime Minister and two recent leaders of the opposition who were not dismissed as having thin resumes.

I have higher hopes for Trudeau than most. I’m not about to anoint him as Prime Minister-in-waiting, but am excited to see him jumping into the leadership race tonight.

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