So here’s a hot take: Canadians should be happy with Justin Trudeau right now.
On Monday, he stood up to India to defend Canadian sovereignty and international law; on Friday, he stood beside Ukraine to defend Ukrainian sovereignty and international law; and in between, he stood before the United Nations to call for international cooperation in reducing poverty and mitigating climate change.
For comparison, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s big win of the week was getting to call “jet-setting Justin” a “carbon hypocrite” for flying to New York. Because everybody knows that “everyday Canadians” walk to New York.
Regarding Trudeau’s decision to publicly confront India over the murder of Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar: It would have been much easier to simply let Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s government get away with it. India has the world’s largest population, after all, making it the world’s biggest domestic market.
So it would make economic sense to look the other way when India violates Canadian sovereignty.
Something similar can be said of Trudeau’s support for Ukraine: It would be much easier to simply let Russian president Vladimir Putin get what he wants. Russia is much more powerful, after all, and it has a much bigger economy.
So it would make economic sense to look the other way as it eliminates Ukrainian sovereignty.
But Trudeau recognizes that Ukrainians aren’t simply fighting to defend themselves: Ukrainians are fighting for the fundamental right to democratic self-determination. And if Canadians can agree on anything, it should be that democratic self-determination is worth fighting for – or worth spending billions in tax dollars to support the fight for.
And that brings us back to reducing poverty and mitigating climate change: It would be much easier to simply cut taxes and leave those problems for some future government to deal with. That’s exactly what former prime minster Stephen Harper did – as well as what presumed future prime minister Pierre Poilievre would most likely do.
Sometimes it takes a real leader to make unpopular decisions. And Trudeau is extremely unpopular right now. So maybe he’s doing something right?