The most popular political leader in the entire country dropped into this province for a quick whirlwind tour last week, and l can’t help but think the visit left our provincial political leaders feeling more than a tad green with envy.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shows few signs of shedding his popularity with the public, even after being in government for more than a year and making some tough policy decisions that angered various constituencies.
Meanwhile, B.C. Premier Christy Clark is heading into an election campaign carrying the kinds of negative baggage that the leaders of government inevitably get weighted with.
And NDP leader John Horgan is simply an empty vessel for most voters, as his public profile continues to be almost zero.
In stark contrast stands Trudeau, who has largely retained his shiny, youthful image as a positive breath of fresh air.
During his visit to B.C., the prime minister never even directly met up with members of the public, though I doubt that will hurt him one bit. Instead, he opted to talk to the major news outlets — Global BC, The Vancouver Sun and CKNW and CKWX radio – thus ensuring he could reach an enormous audience even without a public appearance.
He was asked tough questions at each venue — about pipelines, taxation, health care, the drug overdose crisis, party fundraising etc. — and breezed his way through it all.
At Global BC, he faced a public town hall, which politicians are sometimes loathe to take part in because of their sometimes unpredictable nature. But for Trudeau, it was a snap.
I have to assume his decision not to hold a public event was tied to security concerns. Even his own personal popularity doesn’t diminish the chance that any public event in Metro Vancouver that he attends will be disrupted by environmental activists upset with his decision to approve the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
Those security concerns are also why Alberta Premier Rachel Notley also met only with selected media outlets when she came to B.C. earlier this month to make a pitch for supporting the pipeline (the new reality may be that public appearances by political leaders not opposed to pipelines may become rarer and rarer, given the threats of protests and civil disobedience by activists).
Of course, Trudeau is helped immensely by the fact that his political opposition is, for the most, part badly fractured. There are serious questions whether the federal NDP can ever even recover credibility and popularity with more than a rump of the public, while the federal Conservatives look far from being unified as they sort their way through a leadership race.
But even with his opposition in tatters, there is no denying the appeal Trudeau continues to offer. A recent Abacus Data poll showed Trudeau has by far the most positive set of impressions when compared to four previous prime ministers (only his father came even close to his numbers).
Half of all Canadians have a positive impression of Trudeau, almost double that of former NDP leader Tom Mulcair, and he dwarfs that of any potential Conservative leadership candidate.
As well, Trudeau is far ahead of provincial premiers in popularity in their own provinces (with the exception of Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall). He beats Clark in B.C. by 32 points, and is ahead of Notley by 13 points in Alberta, a province not known for extending its warmth towards any Liberal Party.
I’m not sure when his popularity will wane. Perhaps after he makes a few more hard decisions, but perhaps not for a while yet.
His storied father also enjoyed a honeymoon with the voters, but it didn’t last long. He became mired in Quebec’s nationalist ventures and alienated the West with his energy and agriculture policies.
Yet, the younger Trudeau shows no signs of making the same kind of mistakes. He’s popular in all provinces and has yet to do anything to really alienate any of them – even the stalled health accord talks are unlikely to derail him.
In the meantime, Clark and Horgan can only watch with envy as they head into an election campaign hoping to match the young prime minister’s grip on public opinion.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global News.
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