Opinion

Obama Is Your Trudeau, I Tell American Friends

For an expat Canadian, it all comes rushing back.

By Paul Myers, 18 Sep 2008, TheTyee.ca

Trudeau and Obama

Two of a kind? Others have said so.

Text size:

Rate this:

Login/Register

Even though I currently reside in Northern California, where news from Canada has to be sought out on the web on sites like The Tyee, I am well aware that Harper has called an election. I voted in the last federal election (I was in Vancouver then) and I'll feel frustrated again if Canada tilts even more to the right, away from our proud liberal heritage that, to some extent, still makes us the envy of the world.

Down here, of course, they've been in election mode for over a year now. The American presidency has a built-in timetable for withdrawal from the Oval office, so no one is ever surprised by the leader suddenly calling an election.

As a Canadian liberal in King George's court, I've had a ringside seat to the rabid culture war currently being fought on the bunting clad steps of town halls across this divided land. And it makes me think, sometimes, of home.

Down, way down, in the USA

Since most Canadians (Conrad Black and David Frum aside) would probably be Democrats, it's no surprise that Barack Obama is the candidate closest to my heart. He's inspiring to listen to, dynamic to watch and, after eight years of W, it's fascinating to see an intellectually curious person giving reasonable answers to the often ridiculous flag-pin questions asked by the appalling cable media down here.

Yet, all across the echo chamber of the right wing media, Fox News and AM talk radio, the conservative attack machine assails the hope-based movement of Barack Obama, who has gone, in their minds, from being the "presumptive" Democratic nominee for president of the United States to the "presumptuous" one.

"Hope is just buzzword!" they scream.

"Young liberal idealists!" they sneer.

"Change is just empty rhetoric," they assure themselves.

In the face of trying to prop up former maverick John McCain, who long since left the Straight Talk Express for the Trash Talk express route to the hearts of right wing neo-cons with the rather desperate and cynical addition of celebrity creationist Sarah Palin to the ticket, all these commentators can do is vainly try and counter the Audacity of Hope with their own Ferocity of Hate. Oh, and if that weren't cynical enough, now the McCain / Palin team have co-opted the word "change" to mean more of the same, or worse.

Keep (stylish) hope alive!

But as a Canadian who came of age in the Trudeau years, I can attest to the fact that hope, optimism and youth can play a significant part in raising a country's belief in itself and can go a long way to inspire a country to raise its potential. As a child, I may not have fully understood our own audacious change agent, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, but I knew two things for sure. Trudeau was cool, and for the first time in my short life, I found myself thinking that, by extension, Canada itself was cool.

The Trudeau years were our own version of Britain's swinging '60s "Cool Britannia" days of the mod fashions and groovy innovation. Sussex Drive was hardly Carnaby Street, but Trudeau dated pop singers and then married a chick from B.C. who went on to hang out with The Rolling Stones! He drove a sports car, went canoeing in a fringy buckskin jacket fit for Neil Young, and John Lennon even went to Ottawa to meet him!

When I got a little older, I became aware that Trudeau had invoked the War Measures Act to quell the Quebec crisis. While this struck chilling dissonance against my established image of the man, it didn't erase the fact that he had drawn the curtains on years of parochial federal government voyeurism by decriminalizing homosexuality and abortion in the Criminal Code of Canada and asserting that: "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" and adding, "What's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code."

Political details, however, had not mattered one metric iota to me as an apolitical child. I was buying the promise of a Cool Canada and Trudeau was the man who wore a funky designer hat to the Grey Cup kickoff. A year after Expo '67, here was this young-thinking guy with a mongrel French accent, with hints of Oxford erudition, telling it not just like it was but, like, how it could be.

Creating a 'Just Society'

I talk to a lot of Obama supporters down here, and read their thoughts on the blogs. Quite a few of them know the detailed specifics of Obama's policies to wrest America back from the failed strategies of Bush's neo-con puppet masters. They know them by heart. But for some Obama supporters, it doesn't even matter. These kids were born long after the hopeful fires of John and Bobby Kennedy became eternal flames on well-tended lawns. For these young people, it's enough that someone in public life wants to inspire them, and challenge them to be a force for positive change after so many cynical so-called leaders have disenfranchised them in the recent past.

And I'm here to tell them, based on my own memories of the Trudeau years, that hope might just be enough, as long as you're willing to fill in the blanks and work for it. I remember that irrational but incredibly powerful feeling that Canada was capable of being a "Just Society."

I still think that, even after the Harper years, and Canada's social politics still command respect from any American who actually knows anything about our proud history of liberal social policy.

I tell my American friends that they can have their own Trudeau, his name is Obama, and that they have to fight for what Dr. King called "the fierce urgency of now" in the face of what I call "the false potency of No."

Related Tyee stories:

[Tyee]

Paul Myers is a musician, graphic artist and author who recently moved from Vancouver to Berkeley, California. His latest book is It Ain't Easy: Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues.

36 Comments:

Login or register to post comments

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Paul Myers

    Sounds just a bit like you're dining out on the spent fumes of a Scarbourough boyhood...your 'liberal' vision of a distant Trudeau past seems to have blinded you to the Dion/Kennedy present and the slightly more recent memory of Paul Martin/Jean Chretien.

    Harper ain't much, but he's only slightly more right wing than the current version of the Liberal Party.

    No more Just Society I'm afraid.

    Good luck with Obama, btw...I enjoyed the book.

  • spark.1234

    3 years ago

    Dear Paul Myers,

    Thankyou for your forth payment to me, King Mmnboogoo in Nigeria. I am very sorry that your share of the gold coins kept in the banished princess's underground vault have not yet found their way to you in Northern California. We have another messenger that we must bribe; one who calls himself Obama. I hear that many others have bribed him successfully in the past - over 300 from the Council of Foreign Relations alone. He is extremely cunning and deceitful and will stop at nothing to please his puppetmasters. His policies of taking troops out of Iraq and moving them directly to Afghanistan and Pakistan will help in his goal to obtain the gold. His harshly worded support of AIPAC and his promise to use more muscle in South America make him a mighty force of change in this world indeed. His policy of supporting the FISA ammendment bill and subsequent evisceration of the 4th amendment show how far he will go to spy on his citizens to achieve his goals.

    If he is unsuccessful in his bid, there is no need to worry Mr Myers, as we have also bribed a man called John McCain. He uses methods unlike Obama but strives to achieve the same goal nonetheless. I call my double edged plan: "The phony left right paradigm" - either way you will get your gold. It is a cunning plan and one which I am confident will fool most people.

    I await your payment and then we can proceed with your rightful gold shipment.

    Sincerest Regards,
    King Mmnboogoo in Nigeria.

  • nightbloom

    3 years ago

    More mythmaking, I'm afraid.

    More mythmaking, I'm afraid. Obama is no Trudeau, and our 'change agent' in the 1960s was Pearson not Trudeau (who got most of the credit for the things Pearson set in motion).

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Now that IS funny

    Pearson as a 'change' agent!

    Pearson spent most of his time as PM fighting off John Diefenbaker, remember.

    Obama's story has yet to be written.

  • sanamark

    3 years ago

    Garth

    Garth, most of the legislation that Trudeau is giving credit for was formed while he was the justice minister under the Pearson cabinet. Many of the social programmes that we Canadians cherish, including our medical plan and the CPP were enacted under Pearson's mandate.

    EDITED FOR PATRONIZING PERSONAL INSULT -- TYEE MODERATOR

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Canada's medicare plan

    Canada's medicare plan came from Saskatchewan - where it was first instituted on a partial basis in the Swift Current Health District in, if memory serves, 1947, he established a medical school at the University of Saskatchewan from which a number of my relatives have graduated and increased the mental health budget. After the 1960 general election on the issue of universal state-run health insurance, Douglas began to set up the parameters of the Medicare system that, several years later, Pearson adopted.

    By the way, I've also pushed the 'offensive' button on you once again.

    Try and stick to the issues and leave the personal stuff for the right wing websites.

  • sanamark

    3 years ago

    Correction, Garth

    Deep breaths....

    The Medical Care Act was passed in 1966 by a vote of 177 to 2. Pearson was indeed the Prime Minister.

  • Frank

    3 years ago

    G

    I guess somebody thinks "The Greatest Canadian" was Pearson.

  • nightbloom

    3 years ago

    Read the history

    Pearson’s residency at 24 Sussex lasted only five years – April ’63 to April ’68 – and in spite of the handicap of two short minority governments in succession, he left Canada with so much that has become emblematic of the nation itself: universal health care, the Maple Leaf flag, a bilingual civil service, the abolition of capital punishment, the Canada Pension Plan and Canada Assistance Plan, a new Labour Code and Bank Act, collective bargaining for the civil service, the Autopact, comprehensive reforms of government departments and the parliamentary committee system, open immigration, a new policy towards China and the developing world, initial overtures to the Organization of American States, the doubling of development aid, increased investment and incentives in research, improved federal-provincial relations (co-operative federalism), the “invention” of peacekeeping (as Secretary of State for External Affairs) and finally a visionary foreign policy that – for a time – made Canada’s name golden around the world.

    Read the history.

  • alive

    3 years ago

    Pierre who?

    All that aside, it is a pity that Paul Myers was taken in by the charisma instead of substance, but that seem to still be how it goes.
    Maybe we should hope that Obama benefits from his charisma?
    Next we should hope he can live up to the expectations, once the multinationals start to lean on him?

  • monty

    3 years ago

    Someone is selling nonsense

    Unfortunately Palin is proving to be a diversion away from the real issues in the U.S. Her history in Alaska bears careful scrutiny--what you see is NOT what the U.S. "hockey Mums" are going to get.

    Now let's consider some options:
    Integrity. Honesty. Trustworthiness. Reliable. Authentic. Incorruptible. Old fashioned words whose meaning has been forgotten? Or, mere conveniences trotted out by candidates at election time to con the voters.

    Ask your candidate to sign a pledge to represent your communities' interests NOT merely serve as a lackey to some leader.

  • garth_harris

    3 years ago

    trudeaus legacy?

    ol pierre was not the man many seem to think he was.

    he brought home the constitution, to the dismay of many of us because of his pathetic manipulations of the laws(pedophiles now have free reign to practice and flaunt their sickness,one need only look through the newspaper archives)trudeau made many mistakes,personal and public,just like any other human being.

    obama will no doubt make mistakes and ally himself with nasty people when the circumstances dictate.that is politics!that is political life anywhere!you do what you gotta do to move forward and sometimes that is both nasty and difficult and your bedfellows are often bloodied by the battles within allied forces.

    yet i feel OBAMA will be a good president,better than G.W.BUSH in any stretch of the imagination and that is moving forwards,for our great neighbours to the south of us.their country will be highly regarded and loved for trhe simple fact that OBAMA is PRESIDENT.A BLACK MAN!
    so his spot in history is secure and the mythmakers will be employed for some time to come.

    so like trudeau the myths will prevail and that is the only likeness i see.

    as for PEARSON,here is a man the mythmakers left behind and out of the books completely .

    as a military man in PEARSONS era i saw personally what a GREAT CANADIAN ,LESTER B.PEARSON was and he was ol pierres boss then and you can read what an ungrateful lout trudeau really was in the history books.

    any person riding around montreal wearing a nazi military helmet giving nazi salutes should be considered a GREAT CANADIAN

    hope you notice the SARCASM ,especially the trudeau acolytes who blindly follow the great man and constantly APOLOGIZE for his many shortcomings/mistakes.

    so other than the mythmaking,what was the substance of this article.where were the similarities?

  • Tieleman

    3 years ago

    Oh puhleeese! Obama has enough trouble without Trudeau burden

    Are you just trying to sink Barack Obama completely? Isn't it bad enough that John McCain will almost surely win without saddling Obama with the Trudeau burden?

    Trudeau was only an idealistic leader for a brief moment in 1968 - then we found out that he was an autocratic, anti-democratic, cynical, hypocritical politician - a vendu as many said in Quebec.

    I also don't think Trudeau had any of the transformational qualities of Obama's candidacy - win or lose - that will hopefully alter the desperate state of American politics.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    sanamark

    Please READ more carefully...this is what I wrote:
    Canada's medicare plan came from Saskatchewan - where it was first instituted on a partial basis in the Swift Current Health District in, if memory serves, 1947, he established a medical school at the University of Saskatchewan from which a number of my relatives have graduated and increased the mental health budget. After the 1960 general election on the issue of universal state-run health insurance, Douglas began to set up the parameters of the Medicare system that, several years later, Pearson adopted.

    Deep breaths not necessary, a little concentration is.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Nazi Military helmet?

    I'm no fan of Trudeau's but you need to check your history...it was an old WWI helmet...called a 'Pickelhauben'.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Yep! Five torturous years with Pearson as PM

    Most of his time spent fighting stupid battles with John Diefenbaker when he wasn't making nuclear deals with the Americans and pretending to stand up to Lyndon Johnson.

    Had he actually instituted the tax reforms suggested in the Carter Commission we'd be a different country today - and I'd be singing his praises...he didn't, and I'm not.

    Just another Liberal corporate sell out I'm afraid..

  • garth_harris

    3 years ago

    dogs

    when you lay down with the dogs of war,you get up with fleas,BIGTIME!

    EDITED FOR PERSONAL INSULTS. THE TYEE DOES NOT PROVIDE THIS FORUM SO THAT INDIVIDUALS CAN LOB TAUNTS AND INSULTS AT EACH OTHER. STICK TO THE SUBJECT MATTER, PLEASE, OR TRY ANOTHER WEB SITE FOR COMMENTING. -- TYEE MODERATOR

  • Skywalker

    3 years ago

    Egads, I hope Obama is more..

    ..than a Trudeau. I think telling an American that Obama is their Trudeau might be damning Obama with feint praise. I'm with G West on this one.

  • ME2

    3 years ago

    Faint hope, I think.

    To date, the prime similarity between Obama and Trudeau is the tremendous charisma and attracive public persona they exhibit(ed).

    Both promise(d) positive "change".

    I'm a Trudeau fan, but I'm not prepared to engage in uselessly debating my belief that he delivered on that promise.

    My growing suspicion re Obama is, however, that if elected, we'll see him offer little challenge to the ruling oligarchy and the corrupted system that keeps them there - which Trudeau DID do, the NEP for example.

  • pender paul

    3 years ago

    the real trudeau

    I remember the glorious summer evening at Beacon Hill Park in Victoria when Trudeau swooped up from the sea in a helicopter and landed on the slope overlooking the sea. It was as god himself had arrived to deliver us into the new Canada. But reality was something altogether different. Trudeau was perhaps the worst prime minister this country has ever seen--yes, worse even than that madman King. He introduced 'wage and price controls'--a favourite of the neo-liberals, and he controlled wages--I had to pay back $300, which at the time I could ill-afford, earning a paltry $35 per day as a substitute teacher, with a wife and two children to support. Did he control prices?--he did not. He was not a friend of the working class, and with little wonder--just have a squint into how he was raised and you'll quickly realize that he represented only the capitalists and was quick to enact their agenda. If there are any similarities between Obama and Trudeau then the Americans would be well advised to vote for McCain and the ditz--at least with those two you know exactly what you're getting.

  • Budd Campbell

    3 years ago

    RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, PAUL

    "... As a child, I may not have fully understood our own audacious change agent, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, but I knew two things for sure. Trudeau was cool, and for the first time in my short life, I found myself thinking that, by extension, Canada itself was cool."

    Paul Myers, you were right back then. That was about the extent of it, alright.

  • nominalis

    3 years ago

    we watched him...

    Only a great leader would inspire such wrath so many years after the fact.

    Unlike Obama, Trudeau wasn't a flavor-of-the-week politician.

    But then we're experiencing an entire flavor-of-the-week election in Canada.

    Do you think P.E.T. would be falling all over himself to out-green the other candidates?

    When Pierre Trudeau opened his mouth, something of substance always came out, something he believed in.

    When Barack Obama opens his mouth a tightly scripted series of sound-bites reflecting the latest polls is all we ever hear.

    Obama is more like Harper, Dion, Layton or May, a 2 dimensional cut-out being run by a party that has no real direction.

  • garth_harris

    3 years ago

    "When Pierre Trudeau opened

    "When Pierre Trudeau opened his mouth, something of substance always came out, something he believed in.

    When Barack Obama opens his mouth a tightly scripted series of sound-bites reflecting the latest polls is all we ever hear.

    Obama is more like Harper, Dion, Layton or May, a 2 dimensional cut-out being run by a party that has no real direction."

    guess you missed the point in history where the MEDIA adopted SOUND BITES/BYTES !

    WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    and TRUDEAU was considered by most in the LIBERAL PARTY as a LOOSE CANON an ARROGANT man with petty politics supplanting most of what SERIOUS LIBERALS wanted to do.

    shown by his "JUST WATCH ME "statement ,his ARROGANCE WAS UNBELEIVABLE and his ballet performance behind the queen showed EXACTLY what a PUNTER this CLOWN was on the WORLD STAGE.

    he was COOL only to the mental midgets that adored his childish petty ways and arrogance of a rich man playing the DILLATANTE to the EXESSES he always tried to embrace.

    and his spot in history is there, only because our history is so pathetic and filled with the sad offerings of the day.

    we would have many minor figures to boast about,but when it was time to step up to the plate ,we never had a great politician.

    our history is filled with the second best,we had no CHURCHILLS,we had whack jobs like Mackenzie King and Dieffenbaker.

    SO ITS NO WONDER PEOPLE WANT TO SET P.E.T ON A PEDESTAL !

  • G West

    3 years ago

    you gotta admit though garth_harris

    Trudeau looks pretty damn good when compared with someone like our own CEO Campbell.

  • garth_harris

    3 years ago

    when ur right !

    UR RIGHT !

    that leads to raif mair and his AXIOMS

    P.E.T was a five and Campbell is a negative 3 !

    did i get that right rafe ?

    probably not ,but that is my opinion of Herr Kampbell ,someone dressed in the flag of province/country and selling off everthing precious to us,so he can live like a king and piss on the little people.

    one thing i loved about ol P.E.T was the fact of his PATRIOTISM , HE DID LOVE CANADA,JUST LIKE WE DO.

    that was/is undeniable

  • RickW

    3 years ago

    Pearson

    ...needed a gimmick to throw at the public, and came up with extending medicare. It worked.

    As for PM's, we haven't had one of substance for quite a while. So we may as well go for the shutzpah, which Pierre had buckets of.

  • Dr Alexander

    3 years ago

    Trudeau may draw some ire from some...

    But he sure wasn't as universally disliked like Mulroney.

    Say, let's examine this for a second, given the thesis presented in the article

    Obama = Trudeau so,
    McCain = Mulroney

  • nominalis

    3 years ago

    "Only a great leader would

    "Only a great leader would inspire such wrath so many years after the fact."

    I think grath_harris' cap laden response supports the above line.

    BTW, My parents and I had the pleasure to have afternoon tea with Mr Diefenbaker when I was 13 y/o.

    I have many positive comments on him too.

  • Dr Alexander

    3 years ago

    Only a great _____ would inspire such wrath

    Two types of political figures would inspire great wrath

    a) leaders

    b) con artists

    With respect to Mulroney, I'll vote for second choice, "with bells on" at that.

  • Bobb999

    3 years ago

    Kinsella's insider Liberal history

    Liberal insider Patrick Kinsella has an interesting behind the scenes mini recent Liberal history piece on his site. It's posted under his "Day 15" campaign commentary.
    http://www.warrenkinsella.com/

    He describes how divisions between Martinites and Chretienites persist to this day, with Chretienites like him remaining the most alienated, with many refusing to help the party this election. He even claims he and others secretly cheered when Libs were reduced to a minority, and cheered again when Libs got ousted by Harper's gang.

    -Loyal bunch, those Chretienites!

  • Bobb999

    3 years ago

    Oops, WARREN Kinsella

    not "Patrick" in my prior post. Typo.

  • Dr Alexander

    3 years ago

    Kinsella's Insight and political leadership in Canada

    I am not surprised at what may be happening within the Liberal party. I suppose it it not much different from the Conservatives with respect to the battle between the faux-Conservative Reform Party faction (led by Harper) and the old Progressive Conservative faction (led by ?) which is effectively silenced by Harper's obsession with control.

    With regards to "leaders". We don't need leaders and this "leader thing" is not really part of Canadian political fabric, although Harper is trying to make it so. After all, a strong leader can make sure "the trains run on time".

    I submit that Canadians elect a Prime Minister and his/her party via the election of a local representative. We don't elect a "leader" in the American sense. That's why it is so annoying when somebody says that "George Bush is the leader of the Free World". What complete and utter nonsense. He is the President of the US. No more, no less. Harper wants to become the leader of Canada.

    We don't need any more leaders thank you very much.

  • YerMomma

    3 years ago

    Avro Arrow

    I have always blamed Diefenbaker for destroying the Canadian aerospace industry in it's infancy. Sure, maybe he was under pressure from the states to stop producing the most advanced plane in the world, but did he have to have the planes themselves and all the plans destroyed? Here is the link to his explanation, sounds like politics to me:
    http://archives.cbc.ca/science_technology/aeronautics/clips/2573/

  • happy

    3 years ago

    Arrow revisited

    The Americans were completely to blame for the destruction of the Arrow program. What they said or did to have Diefenbaker shut it down, and as you pointed out, even break up the prototypes, remains a deep dark secret to this day.

    However YerMomma, the Canadian Aerospace industry didn't die. Canada is the third largest builder of civilian aircraft in the world today and has world class engine and avionics manufacturers, mainly in Ontario and Quebec, but BC has a signifigant presence also.

  • canuck

    3 years ago

    Charismatic leaders like

    Charismatic leaders like Trudeau and Obama tend to attract people that either love or hate them.

    Trudeau repatriated the Constitution and the Bill of Rights against strong opposition and one of the provinces didn't sign. A feat that couldn't be accomplished since 1867. There is much unfinished business left to do. Competition is now the hallmark of people living in their individual provinces. Most forget that were all Canadians living under the same sky and everyone wishes people living in provinces other than their own, prosperity, good health, a lot less competition and much more co-operation and regard for their fellow citizens.

    Will we ever elect a Prime Minister that is able to bring us together instead of driving us further apart?

    This much I can promise them...it won't be Harper. Was Trudeau a divider or a uniter during his long period in office? He sure was a hell of an improvement over the jerk that's presently in office. :-)

  • Bobb999

    3 years ago

    Con and Lib divisions

    Dr. Alexander,
    You're right the Cons too are divided between the old PCs and the Reform/Alliance
    bunch, and many old PCs, Joe Clark being a prominent example, having abandoned the new party entirely. Still, if Kinsella's portrayal is accurate, it sounds as if the virulence of the bad blood between Chretienites and Martinites
    eclipses Con divisions, and may be harming the Libs more than Con divisions damage that party. Harper's enemies within his party seem remarkably mute.

    It's interesting Chretien made party enemies partly through doing something very similar,if on a lesser scale, to what Harper's done, centralizing power in the PMO, and marginalizing and ignoring MPs. Many such disgruntled members were easy converts for Martin to recruit in his revolt against Chretien,
    a revolt that's left the Libs divided to this day.

    The question comes to mind, why isn't Harper's power grab, arrogance and marginalizing of MPs, including most cabinet ministers, causing serious revolt yet? Ministers must endure interference/micromanagement from the PMO, and are forced to be nearly mute and invisible. It may not have bourne fruit yet, but Harper has planted seeds that may come back to haunt him someday in the form of internal revolt within his party against his autocratic, marginalizing style.

    On leadership, I believe that in some ways our British style parliamentary system potentially gives PMs even more power than US Presidents have under the Constitution.
    Bush has no direct control over GOP members of Congress.

    But Cdn. PMs can and do demand party discipline, and gov't MPs who vote against gov't bills risk being kicked out of caucus. Bush has no such power. Despite Bush's attempts to subvert Constitutional checks and balances, still
    they remain as mechanisms that potentially rein in his power.

    Canada would have a fairer, more democratic system if we had better checks on the power of PMs. Harper has demonstrated just how our system allows PMs to abuse power, virtually unchallenged, even in a minority gov't!

    • The discussion for this story is closed. No more comments can be added.