David Merner’s Times Colonist commentary, “Justin Trudeau: The good, the bad and the ugly,” published on Jan. 8, 2025, two days after Trudeau announced he is resigning as prime minister and as Liberal Party leader, is an instructive summary.[1] It’s also a useful primer for an important question that Merner does not ask: What should Canadian voters look for in a potential prime minister?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2023. Wiki Commons photo by Lea-Kim Chateauneuf.
Merner gives Trudeau due credit for the poverty-reducing Canada Child Benefit and the government’s performance renegotiating NAFTA and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, but takes him to task for broken promises, ethical scandals and the steady loss of ministerial talent.[2]
These latter two points intertwined and hit their nadir with “Trudeau’s undermining of then-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.” Referencing the ethics commissioner’s report, Merner emphasizes the “deep incompetence” not only of Trudeau but of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office, which contributed to an insular prime minister and PMO who tended to dictate to members of Cabinet rather than foster an environment of collegiality among capable, creative people who want to contribute as respected team players, not as puppets having their strings pulled.[3]
Not only does Merner devastatingly refer to “a combination of dysfunction and disregard for the law of Trump-like proportions” with respect to the SNC-Lavalin affair, he also implies a bent to authoritarianism: “Trudeau marginalized, demoted or fired a long list of effective ministers who dared to stand up to an increasingly isolated Prime Minister’s Office, including almost all the most competent women.” As a supposedly staunch defender of democracy and Western liberal values, Trudeau regularly signalled that he opposed authoritarian behaviour.[4]
This is a telling and grievous lack of consistency, born of woeful blind spots—what Merner calls “unmasked character flaws”—that, notwithstanding Trudeau’s earnestness, in the end largely negated his good intentions. Such inconsistency was evident in some of his remarks following his resignation speech. After his broken promise on electoral reform, it was jaw dropping to hear him wistfully say, “I do wish we’d been able to change the way we elect our governments in this country, so that people could simply choose a second choice or a third choice on the same ballot, so that parties would spend more time trying to be people’s second or third choices and people would have been looking for things they had in common rather than trying to polarize and divide Canadians against each other.”[5]
These criticisms, along with those of ministers who have left Trudeau’s cabinet, provide insight into vital qualities a prime minister should have if s/he is going to be an effective leader. Bill Morneau, Trudeau’s first finance minister, found his boss aloof and distant and observed in his Jan. 2023 book Where To From Here: A Path to Canadian Prosperity, that one of the very few times they spoke one-on-one was when he resigned from Cabinet on Aug. 17, 2020.[6] “Our problem was not any clashes between us,” Morneau writes, “but the absence of both a shared agenda and a working relationship.”[7] This lack of personal connection, he adds, also contributed to Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott departing Cabinet.[8]
In the aftermath of the 2015 election, Morneau “came to realize that while [Trudeau’s] performance skills were superb, his management and interpersonal communications abilities were sorely lacking.”[9] The book, according to author and political commentator John Ibbitson, is “a highly unflattering account of a Prime Minister who never really learned how to lead.”[10] In May 2024, Globe and Mail columnist Robyn Urback was expressing a well-established truism when she remarked: “The Trudeau government … excels at making announcements, and trips over its laces when it comes to implementation (see: pharmacare, defence procurement, appointing judges, vaccine development, dental care).”[11]
The inability to be strategic, to focus on details and to follow-through with discipline was a formula for governmental ineffectiveness.[12] Morneau, whose book identifies productivity improvement as “the most important issue on our agenda,” says “neither the PM nor the Prime Minister’s Office saw the need to address our anemic growth record as a first priority.”[13] The lack of a coordinated focus and a connected team led Morneau to make damning statements such as: “The real clashes happened over things that we had never discussed” and “Without a realistic revised deficit target, we were in effect flying by the seat of our pants.”[14] All of this provides context for Trudeau’s extraordinary statement that the budget will “balance itself.”
Others who have more recently departed Cabinet have repeated these themes. While former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland referred in her resignation letter, in December, to “costly political gimmicks,”[15] Marc Garneau, who held the transport and foreign affairs portfolios, says in his recent autobiography A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream, as paraphrased by the Canadian Press, that Trudeau is “an ill-prepared leader who prioritizes politics and makes pronouncements without any follow-through.”[16] Garneau echoes Morneau about Trudeau’s “aloofness” and writes: “It is not sufficient to pay attention only when a concern arises, something this government has made a habit of.”[17]
“A government that obsesses about winning the news cycle”[18] is a government of style over substance that abrogates its responsibility to govern in the long-term best interests of the country. This obsession contributes to the excess of politics and the paucity of real leadership in Parliament and the federal government. One of the reasons Morneau wrote Where To From Here was to attract other business leaders into politics to inject management experience and accountability into government.
In addition to these qualities, a prime minister needs to be an adept orchestra conductor who is available to its members, enabling them to play effectively together, and as soloists, as well as to collectively determine and revise the music they will play (the priorities government will pursue and the related plans and programs it will implement) by debating options, participating in the constructive give and take of creative friction and enabling broadly-supported decisions to emerge from mature deliberation and discernment.
David Merner’s article on Trudeau commented on some of those who may seek to replace the prime minister. All the current Cabinet ministers are “tainted by association with Trudeau,” Merner says, and “None will be able to lead the Liberals to victory over the Conservatives in October.” Mark Carney, despite having “an outstanding CV and being the darling of corporate Canadians” and the favourite of the odds-makers to save the Liberals, “has no team and … no chance of winning the leadership race,” Merner maintains. Merner’s apparent favourite: former B.C. premier Christy Clark who he describes as “a long shot” for “smart bettors.”[19] (Clark announced on Jan. 14, 2025, that she would not be a candidate.)
Although I’m only an armchair quarterback and Merner is a veteran of the political trenches who ran as a federal candidate for the Liberals in 2015 and for the Greens in 2019, I favour Carney and have concerns about Clark and others like her. In a nutshell, she’s a tested Canadian politician and he’s not. That may well be simplistic and unfair to Clark and other seasoned politicians, but I suspect if one of them succeeds Trudeau there’s a good chance that we’ll get more politics as usual: a continuation of highly centralized power coupled with strict party discipline that quickly chokes off opportunities for greater collegiality, teamwork and basic good practice when it comes to management and accountability.
Carney, on the other hand, has that impressive CV showing that he’s successfully headed important institutions like the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, is widely respected on the international stage, has a sophisticated understanding of both national and international issues, and appears to have the ability to both lead and to play well with others. I can’t think of a better bet for reforming the way the federal government is led and managed and for leaving a legacy of sound practice for future governments to emulate.
Sound practice is what we have not received from Trudeau owing to his inadequate skill set for the job. That he sounded and looked good helped him win elections and become an international celebrity as well as a ubiquitous presence in front of cameras and microphones earnestly exhorting Canadians and others. But when more substantive, behind-the-scenes leadership has been needed, he has frequently fallen short.
Character and appropriate experience count for a lot in an effective prime minister who must have the skills of an orchestra conductor and understand how to make the constituent parts of a large, complex organization work in harmony. The trick in finding such a person is not to be oversold on the bling of style at the cost of the gravitas of essential substance.
Patrick Wolfe is a writer and historian based in Victoria, B.C., Canada.
David Merner, “Justin Trudeau: The good, the bad and the ugly,” Times Colonist, Wed., Jan. 8, 2025, A10. The Times Colonist serves Victoria, British Columbia, and the rest of Vancouver Island. ↑
Robyn Urback, “So, what happened to Canada’s gun control emergency?” The Globe and Mail, Sat., May 11, 2024, O11. ↑
Morneau identified a lack of focus on policy details as one of Trudeau’s “most striking” weaknesses. Konrad Yakabuski, “Morneau’s talents were wasted in Ottawa,” The Globe and Mail, Sat., Jan. 14, 2023, O11. ↑
Book Excerpt: “Paths to prosperity,” The Globe and Mail, Sat., Jan. 14, 2023, B1 and B5. ↑
What qualities do we want in a prime minister?
What qualities do we want in a prime minister?
PATRICK S. WOLFE
David Merner’s Times Colonist commentary, “Justin Trudeau: The good, the bad and the ugly,” published on Jan. 8, 2025, two days after Trudeau announced he is resigning as prime minister and as Liberal Party leader, is an instructive summary.[1] It’s also a useful primer for an important question that Merner does not ask: What should Canadian voters look for in a potential prime minister?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2023. Wiki Commons photo by Lea-Kim Chateauneuf.
Merner gives Trudeau due credit for the poverty-reducing Canada Child Benefit and the government’s performance renegotiating NAFTA and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, but takes him to task for broken promises, ethical scandals and the steady loss of ministerial talent.[2]
These latter two points intertwined and hit their nadir with “Trudeau’s undermining of then-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.” Referencing the ethics commissioner’s report, Merner emphasizes the “deep incompetence” not only of Trudeau but of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office, which contributed to an insular prime minister and PMO who tended to dictate to members of Cabinet rather than foster an environment of collegiality among capable, creative people who want to contribute as respected team players, not as puppets having their strings pulled.[3]
Not only does Merner devastatingly refer to “a combination of dysfunction and disregard for the law of Trump-like proportions” with respect to the SNC-Lavalin affair, he also implies a bent to authoritarianism: “Trudeau marginalized, demoted or fired a long list of effective ministers who dared to stand up to an increasingly isolated Prime Minister’s Office, including almost all the most competent women.” As a supposedly staunch defender of democracy and Western liberal values, Trudeau regularly signalled that he opposed authoritarian behaviour.[4]
This is a telling and grievous lack of consistency, born of woeful blind spots—what Merner calls “unmasked character flaws”—that, notwithstanding Trudeau’s earnestness, in the end largely negated his good intentions. Such inconsistency was evident in some of his remarks following his resignation speech. After his broken promise on electoral reform, it was jaw dropping to hear him wistfully say, “I do wish we’d been able to change the way we elect our governments in this country, so that people could simply choose a second choice or a third choice on the same ballot, so that parties would spend more time trying to be people’s second or third choices and people would have been looking for things they had in common rather than trying to polarize and divide Canadians against each other.”[5]
These criticisms, along with those of ministers who have left Trudeau’s cabinet, provide insight into vital qualities a prime minister should have if s/he is going to be an effective leader. Bill Morneau, Trudeau’s first finance minister, found his boss aloof and distant and observed in his Jan. 2023 book Where To From Here: A Path to Canadian Prosperity, that one of the very few times they spoke one-on-one was when he resigned from Cabinet on Aug. 17, 2020.[6] “Our problem was not any clashes between us,” Morneau writes, “but the absence of both a shared agenda and a working relationship.”[7] This lack of personal connection, he adds, also contributed to Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott departing Cabinet.[8]
In the aftermath of the 2015 election, Morneau “came to realize that while [Trudeau’s] performance skills were superb, his management and interpersonal communications abilities were sorely lacking.”[9] The book, according to author and political commentator John Ibbitson, is “a highly unflattering account of a Prime Minister who never really learned how to lead.”[10] In May 2024, Globe and Mail columnist Robyn Urback was expressing a well-established truism when she remarked: “The Trudeau government … excels at making announcements, and trips over its laces when it comes to implementation (see: pharmacare, defence procurement, appointing judges, vaccine development, dental care).”[11]
The inability to be strategic, to focus on details and to follow-through with discipline was a formula for governmental ineffectiveness.[12] Morneau, whose book identifies productivity improvement as “the most important issue on our agenda,” says “neither the PM nor the Prime Minister’s Office saw the need to address our anemic growth record as a first priority.”[13] The lack of a coordinated focus and a connected team led Morneau to make damning statements such as: “The real clashes happened over things that we had never discussed” and “Without a realistic revised deficit target, we were in effect flying by the seat of our pants.”[14] All of this provides context for Trudeau’s extraordinary statement that the budget will “balance itself.”
Others who have more recently departed Cabinet have repeated these themes. While former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland referred in her resignation letter, in December, to “costly political gimmicks,”[15] Marc Garneau, who held the transport and foreign affairs portfolios, says in his recent autobiography A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream, as paraphrased by the Canadian Press, that Trudeau is “an ill-prepared leader who prioritizes politics and makes pronouncements without any follow-through.”[16] Garneau echoes Morneau about Trudeau’s “aloofness” and writes: “It is not sufficient to pay attention only when a concern arises, something this government has made a habit of.”[17]
“A government that obsesses about winning the news cycle”[18] is a government of style over substance that abrogates its responsibility to govern in the long-term best interests of the country. This obsession contributes to the excess of politics and the paucity of real leadership in Parliament and the federal government. One of the reasons Morneau wrote Where To From Here was to attract other business leaders into politics to inject management experience and accountability into government.
In addition to these qualities, a prime minister needs to be an adept orchestra conductor who is available to its members, enabling them to play effectively together, and as soloists, as well as to collectively determine and revise the music they will play (the priorities government will pursue and the related plans and programs it will implement) by debating options, participating in the constructive give and take of creative friction and enabling broadly-supported decisions to emerge from mature deliberation and discernment.
David Merner’s article on Trudeau commented on some of those who may seek to replace the prime minister. All the current Cabinet ministers are “tainted by association with Trudeau,” Merner says, and “None will be able to lead the Liberals to victory over the Conservatives in October.” Mark Carney, despite having “an outstanding CV and being the darling of corporate Canadians” and the favourite of the odds-makers to save the Liberals, “has no team and … no chance of winning the leadership race,” Merner maintains. Merner’s apparent favourite: former B.C. premier Christy Clark who he describes as “a long shot” for “smart bettors.”[19] (Clark announced on Jan. 14, 2025, that she would not be a candidate.)
Although I’m only an armchair quarterback and Merner is a veteran of the political trenches who ran as a federal candidate for the Liberals in 2015 and for the Greens in 2019, I favour Carney and have concerns about Clark and others like her. In a nutshell, she’s a tested Canadian politician and he’s not. That may well be simplistic and unfair to Clark and other seasoned politicians, but I suspect if one of them succeeds Trudeau there’s a good chance that we’ll get more politics as usual: a continuation of highly centralized power coupled with strict party discipline that quickly chokes off opportunities for greater collegiality, teamwork and basic good practice when it comes to management and accountability.
Carney, on the other hand, has that impressive CV showing that he’s successfully headed important institutions like the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, is widely respected on the international stage, has a sophisticated understanding of both national and international issues, and appears to have the ability to both lead and to play well with others. I can’t think of a better bet for reforming the way the federal government is led and managed and for leaving a legacy of sound practice for future governments to emulate.
Sound practice is what we have not received from Trudeau owing to his inadequate skill set for the job. That he sounded and looked good helped him win elections and become an international celebrity as well as a ubiquitous presence in front of cameras and microphones earnestly exhorting Canadians and others. But when more substantive, behind-the-scenes leadership has been needed, he has frequently fallen short.
Character and appropriate experience count for a lot in an effective prime minister who must have the skills of an orchestra conductor and understand how to make the constituent parts of a large, complex organization work in harmony. The trick in finding such a person is not to be oversold on the bling of style at the cost of the gravitas of essential substance.
Text copyright © 2025 Patrick S. Wolfe
All rights reserved. Short segments may be quoted with due attribution.
Patrick Wolfe is a writer and historian based in Victoria, B.C., Canada.
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