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Maggie Baer's avatar

You make a good point: it is true that Justin Trudeau, a born-and-bred blue blood, has unexpectedly used his power in government to enact far more economic and social policies that support middle and low income Canadians than most prime ministers have achieved.

There is only so far that any Canadian PM would go, esp Liberal, to challenge the elite powers that rule this country -- is it 20 families? But PMJT has indeed tackled perennial problems such as child poverty, child care, health funding, climate change, taxes on the wealthy, etc that must piss off his social circle. He's not an ideologue the way Poilievre is devoted to the Milton Friedman bible, but JT seems to genuinely care about the commoners. How ironic that he has been vilified as an out-of-touch elitist. A small handful of PMs have not come from elite families -- Dief, Chretien, Harper. Justin is a rare example of a rich, privileged PM who did not simply protect his class interests, but focused on helping the masses. How comical to watch Morneau whine about the budget....

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Dan's avatar

I believe voters are less interested in the labels moderate / progressive these days. I think they care about doing, or being seen to be doing, something (anything) about issues they care about. They value activity more than the nature of that activity.

The right / moderate wing of the Liberals party has no chance in this environment. Gradual improvement by modest incremental policy changes is not going to get one additional vote. Trudeau understands this (finally now?), and he is not going anywhere till the next election.

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