“I know Justin. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. This guy is an empty trust-fund millionaire who has the political depth of a finger bowl. He can’t read a briefing note longer than a cocktail napkin.”

Ouch!

The critic was Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party, in an interview with the Calgary Sun in May.

“The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

      But the queerest they ever did see

     Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

      I cremated Sam McGee.”

– Robert W. Service, 1907

The Northern Lights have seen many queer sights in the century-plus since the Bard of the Yukon published “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” But few have been stranger than the emergence of social media as a potent, some would say overwhelming, force in political systems around the world.

Stephen Harper would not be amused.

He would not be amused at all by the Chief Justice of Canada not only holding a press conference – something that did not happen in Harper’s years as prime minister – but actually fielding questions that called for responses that – horrors! – bordered on the political.

There must be days when Justin Trudeau, his patrimony notwithstanding, must be asking himself why the heck he wanted to be prime minister.

The easy days of happy selfies with adoring fans and rave reviews in foreign media are fading. Sunny ways are being overtaken by harsh reality.

For Trudeau, reality means no more playacting as Donald Trump’s obliging northern neighbour and best pal. Reality now means fending off the bully who amuses himself by alienating his closest allies and trading partners, a president who thinks trade wars are good politics and are easy to win.