The Week That Years Are Made Of

On The Highs And Lows

(Friend of the site and connected Newfoundland Liberal Ben Oates swung by the Scrimshaw Show Friday to talk the week that was, where Trudeau came unstuck, where we go from here, and more!)

It would have been January 11th, 2012, if I’m not mistaken.

It was 9 days before my 16th birthday, a Friday where there wasn’t any school work to do, an interregnum before exams. I hung out at a mall in Laval while my mother worked before we dipped to Montreal proper for the afternoon. We walked the city before going to a record store a block up from the Sun Life Building, and I found a 5 disc used vinyl of Springsteen Live 75-85 for $15. And then we walked down to Dorchester Square.

That moment - leaning against the statue in Dorchester Square, staring at the building my Grandfather worked for so many years, that Springsteen vinyl limply hanging from the bag around my wrist. That moment saved my life, because I felt a deep certainty and a deep calmness that I hadn’t felt in the nearly five years before that moment from my realizing I was gay to then. I felt a peace in Dorchester Square, a resolve to not break like I desperately wanted, a newfound certainty and clarity that lifted through years of hell. If not for that moment I wouldn’t be here.

I can’t stop thinking about Dorchester Square and that fateful day today, because that kind of clarity is so desperately needed in Canadian politics. This has been a week political junkies would kill to live through, and the coming weeks will continue to be insane (even if there’s a Christmas shaped slump in news). I’m obviously on the record about what I want to happen, and I’ll use this platform and any other ability I have to ensure it happens. But at the end of the day, at some point Canada needs an answer. Because this is not sustainable. Justin Trudeau needs to find his version of Dorchester Square and find the clarity that has eluded him for years. Or we’re heading off a cliff.

..

Crises are fun, at some level. They’re sexy and shambolic and visceral, they get the blood flowing and the pretences gone. The rush of swapping info or finding something out is an adrenaline better than most drugs could deliver. There’s also the quieter, softer moments that crisis can create, the quiet tap on the shoulder from a caring friend designed to stop you from making a mistake off going too far. To those who did that for me about a certain cabinet situation this week, you have my eternal gratitude. But as fun as the chaos of a crisis is for those of us who mainline political drama like it’s cocaine at the bachelor party of a Bay Street banker, it’s not good for the country.

Now, plenty of the blame for that lies with Justin Trudeau, in so far as he could have resigned or in any way acknowledged this crisis in June after St. Paul’s or in September after LaSalle, but he didn’t and now we’re here, and blame is less interesting to me that a path forward. (The fact that the blame exceedingly obviously lies with Trudeau and the Wedding Party makes that easy to say, in fairness.) But we are here now and the country is suffering.

We are 30 days from Donald Trump resuming the American Presidency and potentially acting on a threat to drop an economic bomb on us. That seems bad. We have no idea if Justin Trudeau can make it to January 20th without resigning as Liberal Leader, we have no idea if Parliament will return on January 27th or not. We have no idea if Parliament would be able to debate any meaningful legislation to enact a response to that bomb being dropped due to the never ending procedure crisis that is also Justin Trudeau’s fault. We have no idea how soon after a return to permanent regular order would see a Confidence vote end Trudeau’s government and bring an election, though the reporting is soon after. We have no idea whether the Cabinet as it’s currently constituted will be there on January 20th, with persistent second hand rumours that certain members of Cabinet know Trudeau must go but are trying to actualize a more private, dignified exit for the PM. That's a lot of important things not to know the answer to.

Canada may not be broken, but this Prime Ministership is. Justin Trudeau cannot leave the country in utter confusion for much longer. If he is intent on staying, then he needs to come forward and say so, and finally either stay down his critics now so we at least know he is staying or get knifed by them. And if he is intending on allowing a new leader, then he must get that process started without delay.

The reason this crisis, and the crisis of the Liberal Party this year, animates me so deeply is its deep importance to the country I love. Trudeau, for good or for ill, leads my country. I wanted the best from Stephen Harper and will want the best from Poilievre when he wins, because fundamentally a healthy country is one where sometimes your opponents win. If Canada is only a worthwhile country when the Liberals win we’re not a country worth believing in. But when Poilievre does any number of bad, cruel, inhumane, or just plain bad things, I’ll be livid, because I love Canada. It is a great country that serves as a beacon for much of the world. And it deserves clarity from its PM and its leaders.

When I agreed to go to Montreal nearly 12 years ago, I genuinely thought it would be the last time I went, because I was utterly captured by certain ideations. That afternoon gave my the clarity and the peace to admit that the path I was going down didn’t need to be mine anymore. I don’t know where the Prime Minister’s Dorchester Square is - hell, it might actually be Dorchester Square, after all he is a Montrealer - and he needs to find it fast. Otherwise we will all suffer for it. This week has had years worth of news in it, and has seen the culmination of a decade’s worth of grudges, anger, distrust, and resentment explode in public. It is the kind of week that we last saw in 2008. It maybe 2040 before we get one again, who knows. For all the enmity I have for the party and the PMO, on a purely selfish level this has been an amazing week full of conversations and realizations I’ll never forget. It’s also breaking this country like a condom from a 30 year old dispenser in a shitty dive bar bathroom.

This has been a week I’ve been waiting for for 16 years. I also desperately want to avoid another one in 17 days.

What a fucking week.