The thin line between love and hate: the road from 1968’s Trudeaumania to election protests of 2021

The Canadian election of 2015 was defined by Justin Trudeau’s appropriation of Sir Wilfred Laurier’s “Sunny Ways” speech from 1895. The 2021 election can only be described as “stormy ways.” We’ve all heard the clichés about the thin line between love and hate, and the Trudeau dynasty is learning the reality of that dynamic in human emotion. Whatever people may point to for the reason, whether it be anti-vaccination zealotry or alt-right Canadian nationalism, the central point of anger being expressed by Canadians seems to be surrounding the principle of personal freedom. This issue of freedom has become paramount to many Canadians who see progressivism devolving into authoritarianism at best, tyranny at worst. Why? It all goes back to 1968 and the political culture of the 1960s that led to Pierre Trudeau’s historically noteworthy rise to power through the charismatic force of Trudeaumania. In 2021, the Liberal Party is facing a Canada that is economically squeezed to exasperation by the affordability of life’s necessities. Spiritual hopelessness also pervades the Canadian psyche about the future of personal liberty in the early 21st century. In 1968, Canadians had insatiable hope in the Trudeau dynasty creating a new Canadian polity that affirmed both individual liberty and progressivist state care. That dream is fading quickly into distressing anger on the current Canadian campaign trail towards the Canadian left. The 2021 election hits upon two major issues that emerged in the 1960s that have come to define the Canadian left. On the one hand, there was the cynical lamentation for traditional Toryism’s future place in Canada in defining the contours of human liberty, as best expressed by George Grant in his landmark work Lament for A Nation. Alternatively, there was the globalist ideal of a new Canada focused on the “global village” found in Expo 67. Both trends created the base for Pierre Trudeau’s approach to leadership, which was centred on Canada being open to the world and effectively progressivist in its default approaches to public policy. Whatever way one wishes to describe the current protestors on the campaign trail and their intentions, the longer the Canadian political establishment ignores how important principles of individual liberty are to millions of Canadians, the more chaotic and anger-driven will our elections and political affairs become soon, writes Douglas Jarvis. Screenshot courtesy of CBC News What was eventually lost in all this was the traditional notions of individual liberty defining Canada within the Canadian left, as clearly expressed by John Diefenbaker’s acclamations behind the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960. Whatever way one wishes to describe the current protestors on the campaign trail and their intentions, the longer the Canadian political establishment ignores how important principles of individual liberty are to millions of Canadians, the more chaotic and anger-driven will our elections and political affairs become soon. In 2021, the Canadian left is facing the ghost of Diefenbaker in starker terms than in either 1979 with Joe Clark’s short term as prime minister or Stephen Harper’s rise to majority government power in 2011. This is not to say Canada is rooted in libertarianism or individual-centred principles of natural right, as seen in the U.S. Canada has always had a communitarian dynamic to how it understands both representative democracy and personal freedom. However, Canadians have always had grave respect for those two values. As even Grant admitted in the 1960s, despite socialist reform being the only means for affirming Canadian nationhood amid the American empire, the personal freedom of classical liberalism is always preferable to socialism in matters of human dignity. Prior to Pierre Trudeau, leading figures of the left from that same period, such as Tommy Douglas, always understood that social democracy meant fundamental individual freedoms had to be guaranteed for Canadians, as opposed to what occurred in the Soviet Union. Even Pierre Trudeau understood the importance of individual freedom, as enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Following Pierre Trudeau’s charisma during 1968, statist progressivism has increasingly been viewed by the Canadian left as the default reality of being Canadian, and those classical liberal values of personal liberty were incrementally put to the side by the Canadian political establishment. Those ideals are making their way—in a vitriolic manner, it unfortunately seems this year—back into the limelight of what it means to be Canadian. Whether one is from the Liberals, NDP, or Conservatives, leaders will have to further walk that tightrope between many Canadians’ passionate care for personal freedom and the expectations of progressivist care in Canadian political opinion. That is what is really borne out of the current protests dogging the 2021 general Canadian election. Dr. Douglas Jarvis is an assistant professor of political science and history at University of Northern British Columbia. He has published in The Journal of Family History, American Review of Canadian Studies, The Canadian Review of American Studies, and The Hill Times. The Hill Times