Thursday November 5, 2015
By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 5, 2015
No more selfies, but way more drama
(James Mennie column) When you consider we’ve just come through a federal election campaign where the selfie proved itself a legitimate and highly effective political tool, it wasn’t surprising this weekend to see Justin Trudeau, the undisputed winner of that campaign, proving once again he is the most photogenic prime minister designate in recent Canadian history.
If you missed it, the Trudeau family’s trick or treat theme on Saturday night was rather eclectic, Mom and Dad going with a generic Star Wars look while the two older children opted for your standard Disney princess and sword toting bird ensemble while the youngest (the choice presumably made for him) was led from door to camera-crew-surrounded door as a Ninja Turtle.
Given that Trudeau had already tweeted a Happy Halloween message and family portrait to his 932,000 followers, the images flooded social media and the comments seemed for the most part to be positive, many of them expressing delight at the country’s being led by so down to earth and happy looking a family. And when you consider that even the crustiest, most hard bitten political analysts have acknowledged that Trudeau’s message of hope and positiveness pretty much cut Stephen Harper’s campaign to ribbons, it’s a pretty safe bet the optimistic glow engendered by the Liberal victory on Oct. 19 will continue beyond the swearing-in ceremony for Trudeau and his first cabinet scheduled for Wednesday.
That said, I’m not entirely sure that glow will still be around by, say, Christmas. And the reason I suspect Trudeau’s national honeymoon won’t survive 2015 is that the selfie taking, Star Wars loving, YouTube dancing, drama teaching, musketeer mustachioed candidate- the guy who actually won this thing – will, by sheer political necessity, cease to exist once the words “So help me God” have left his lips on Wednesday.
The transformation won’t be due to pressure from any opposition in the House of Commons. The Tories are far too busy trying to figure out how to re-invent themselves and disinfect their party of the political agenda they spent 11 weeks defending during the campaign to effectively hound the new government any time soon. And the NDP is (I suspect) still preoccupied doing a slow burn over how they managed to let a principled stand on a wedge politics issue like the niqab sink their shot at governing while the same stand had no effect whatsoever on the Trudeau Liberals.
No, in the end, I think that Trudeau the prime minister will say good-bye to Justin the candidate because, just like anyone else who’s trained in drama, Trudeau knows when it’s time to change roles. And it’s becoming clear that the role of Justin the candidate has served its purpose. (Continued: Montreal Gazette)
Letter to the Editor
Spec’s Trudeau endorsement seems suspect
RE: Editorial cartoon (Nov. 5)
I find this cartoon disrespectful and lacking in humour. Especially two days before our new government is sworn in.
Considerable effort is already underway to live up to the promise of getting 25,000 refugees in by the end of the year. Numerous groups across Canada are hard at work, our armed forces are looking at ways to implement the plan and other initiatives are under evaluation.
It might be mentioned that the actual number of Syrian refugees taken into Canada, after a few years, is shockingly less than 5,000.
We did not honour our initial promise to take in 1,300 by the end of 2014.
Just another reminder that the Spectator’s endorsement of Justin Trudeau continuous to seem suspect.
Richard Ring, Grimsby
By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday December 4, 2012