Federal Politics

The sesquicentennial celebrations marking Canada’s 150 years as a nation on Saturday will feature the biggest birthday bash on Parliament Hill since the centennial in 1967. It will be a great party – and, with a budget of $2.5 million, it should be.

But no matter how splendid the weather, how spectacular the entertainment, how dramatic the air show, or how eloquent the speeches, this year’s event will not hold a candle to the bash 50 years ago.

Fifty years? Can it be?

“Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable – the art of the next best” –
German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)

Today’s politicians might be forgiven for amending the Iron Chancellor’s observation to something like this: Politics is the art of learning to live with the impossible.

There are plenty of examples in Canada and the United States.

The challenge facing Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government this summer has come like a bolt of lightning. It has come out of nowhere – or out of nowhere foreseeable when Trudeau was elected in October 2015, from a direction that was barely foreseeable as recently as 12 months ago.

The challenge can be stated in two words. No, those two words are not “deficit spending” or “electoral reform” or “Syrian refugees” or “gender parity”  –  words that now seem so 2015. The two words are simply “Donald Trump.” 

In the early months following their 2015 election defeat, there was a sense among Conservatives that they were facing two terms in opposition. They knew the patient Canadian electorate generally grants new governments a second term, unless they screw up royally in their first one.