Daylight savings time will make Justin Trudeau’s last day as Liberal party leader an hour shorter; his desired tenure has been abbreviated by much more than that. Once upon a time it was sunny ways. A delayed sunset is a fitting end for a prime minister who lingered in the spotlight too long.
The Trudeau years began with the white-hot glamour of his sparkling celebrity. Eventually, in the remarkable assessment of Jody Wilson-Raybould, his former attorney general, Trudeau made the skin crawl.
Canadians could be proud of the final fortnight of Trudeau’s premiership in relation to Ukraine. He was in Kyiv for the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion and then attended the London summit intended to remind Ukraine that Europe and Canada were still on its side, even though the American president has apparently switched to Moscow’s side.
Trudeau crossed the Atlantic twice in one week to make that point. He was in Ukraine last year too for the war’s anniversary. He has made four visits to Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022, and an additional visit before that.
The value of his Ukraine visits highlighted that foreign travel has been an important part of the Trudeau premiership. In his first full month in office, he toured the world like a rock star, visiting Turkey for the G20, the Philippines for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, London to see the Queen, Malta for the Commonwealth summit and France for the United Nations climate conference. In Turkey he was mobbed for selfies; in Manila billed by the international press as an “APEC hottie”; in Paris, feted as the new poster boy for climate change. He was given a state dinner at the White House within six months, an honour not granted to Stephen Harper in nine years.
Being the toast of foreign capitals may have gone to his head. It certainly came to a head in February 2018, when he staged his Bollywood and bhangra tour of India. Upon his return from that costumed catastrophe, the Trudeau Liberals slipped behind the Conservatives in the polls for the first time since the 2015 election. And there they have largely stayed, winning minority governments in 2019 and 2021 despite losing the popular vote to the Conservatives.
Given the impact of Trudeau’s travel, his leave-taking leaves a matter outstanding: Israel.
He did take an overnight trip to Israel in September 2016 for the funeral of Shimon Peres, leading a delegation that included Jean Chrétien and Harper. Indeed, the federal opposition leaders were invited, as well as the premiers and former prime ministers.
Trudeau followed what Ronald Reagan did in his first year, sending three former presidents — Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter — along with Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger, to the 1981 funeral of Anwar Sadat in Cairo.
Yet aside from that sui generis visit, Trudeau never set foot in Israel. He spent more time as prime minister in Iceland.
He steered clear, more rather than less, of the entire region. Aside from the Turkey G20 and a one-day visit to Canadian troops in Kuwait in 2020, he did not visit the Middle East. Israel thus may have been lumped together with a region in which Trudeau had little interest — and to which he perhaps received few invitations.
That was all plausible before the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023. President Joe Biden was on the ground in Israel 12 days later. European leaders went. Leading allies sent heads of government, foreign ministers and defence ministers on multiple visits.
But Trudeau did not visit.
Perhaps he simply thought the massacre insufficiently grave to alter his apparent policy of not visiting the Middle East. As the weeks and months went by, though, and support for Hamas manifested itself on Canadian streets, a prime ministerial visit became a necessary counterpoint.
More disturbing, antisemitism erupted in major cities and campuses across Canada, often including incitement to violence. There was actual violence too, with gunshots and firebombings of Jewish schools and synagogues. Jewish-owned businesses suffered vandalism. The prime minister said the right words about antisemitism in Canada. A visit to Israel would have made that more clear.
On Ukraine, Trudeau understood that strong words in Ottawa are different than strong words delivered in Kyiv. On Israel, he did not take the in-person approach. It was a mistake.
On his watch, undisguised hostility to the Jewish state ramped up across the western world. It found some sympathy in his foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, who last summer put wartime Israel under an arms embargo.
It was widely discussed in Jewish circles that, after October 7, the Israeli government and Canadian friends of Israel were not keen on Trudeau visiting, unsure of what he might say or to what purpose his visit might be put. Had he had a record of visiting Israel before the war, those fears would not have been as acute.
A wartime visit might have been criticized by some as too little, too late. But it would have been something. It would have been the least he could do. In failing to meet that low standard, he left a stain on his record.
National Post