Head Tale

I find it fascinating that Justin Trudeau has run on a slogan of “Real Change” when there are a few very clear signs that he’s not either of those things…

• First off, he leads the Liberal Party which is often called “Canada’s Natural Governing Party” and which held power in Canada for 69 of the 100 years during the 20th Century.
• Although we haven’t had a Liberal government in Canada in 10 years, many of the top people from that era, including former Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin have still been actively involved in the current campaign.
• …and obviously, the fact that, if he becomes Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau stands to be our first-ever family legacy Prime Minister, means that there’s not a lot of change if we do the much-more-accepted-in-America thing and elect somebody’s family member (the past 20+ years of the American presidency go: Bush -> Clinton -> Bush -> some Kenyan Dude -> possibly Clinton or Bush).  Is that a trend we want to follow in Canada?  And does that mean Justin Trudeau could be running against Steven Harper’s son, Ben, in a decade or so? 😉

But even though he’s not the biggest “change” option in this election which is all about change, there’s still a chance that Trudeau could end up winning.  Why?

I ran into the same issue during the last Sask NDP leadership race – I volunteered on the campaign of Dr. Ryan Meili who was the candidate who I felt represented the most change for the party after the disastrous leadership of Dwain Lingenfelter.  And, just like in that race, people said they were clamouring for a big change but ended up electing Cam Broten, someone who was a lot more familiar and comfortable.

What I said at that time about the difficulty of representing the most change in any election applies to the contrast between Justin Trudeau’s false promise of “Real Change” and Tom Mulcair’s actual change in this election as well…

You’re probably reading this and thinking I’m dismissing the other three and holding up Ryan as some perfect choice for the party. In a weird way, I think it may be the opposite.

In my view, Ryan’s the right choice. But he’s got probably the biggest hurdle in front of him to make this case to others who will be voting for leader. Even with the debacle of the last provincial election, studies have repeatedly shown that people are naturally resistant to major change – even when they should know better – and this leadership race could end up being another example of that.

Being a *true* change candidate – being completely different not only in policy and approach from the current governing party instead of just in a few ways – isn’t an easy mantle to wear, even in a “change” election.

One week from now we’ll see if Tom Mulcair has convinced Canadians that he, more than Justin Trudeau, represents real change from the Steven Harper era.