As the little girl was being tucked into bed by her Grandmother she asked, “Grandma, do all fairy tales start with, ‘Once upon a time?’ “Why no,” Grandma replied, “some start with, ‘If I’m elected, I promise…!’
Well, well, well, Prime Minister Trudeau. Seems to me I’ve heard that somewhere before. Everything old is new again. I’m sure Justin was taken as much by surprise as we were and making promises when you think maybe you won’t have an opportunity to make them come true is one thing, but now we’ll see.
I recall being fresh out of high school in 1968, you know, that time of life when you know everything. I wasn’t really politically savvy then but along came Pierre, and his charisma was overwhelming.
He appeared on TV in a turtleneck and sports jacket instead of a dark suit, white shirt and blue tie like all the other politicians.
He looked US presidents and Russian premieres straight in the eye and cared more about national unity and sovereignty than he did about Quebec. “Trudeaumania” swept up the young voters who were intrigued by this swinging young bachelor and we were even more impressed when he dated Barbra Streisand for a time.
He gained even more popularity in the west when he secretly married a much younger girl from North Vancouver. Throw in the Mercedes convertible he drove and he was a regular Pied Piper, we were ready to follow him anywhere. Like him or hate him, his governments made some sweeping changes to our society.
For the last three months we have all been annoyed by the TV ad that constantly told us Justin was ‘just not ready yet.’ We are going to find out, aren’t we, and, like his dad — love him or hate him — he is here for four years. Ready or not, here he comes.
Now, taking over a new position in any organization is tricky but there are some ways to cover your butt. You can say that your predecessors left things in a bigger mess than you anticipated and it’s going to take longer than you thought.
You can use words like ‘prioritize’ and say that you will get to those promises in due course but there are more pressing matters to attend to right away.
You can set up task forces or conduct studies and tell the people that you are going to do what you said but, golly, you want to do it right so your task force is going to conduct a study to determine which the best method to address the priority is. See how that all rolls together.
There is the story about the Russian general who was being forced to step down. He gave his replacement two envelopes marked 1 and 2 and said, “When the first crisis occurs, open envelope 1; when your second crisis occurs open envelope 2.”
When the first crisis came the new man opened envelope 1 and it said: “Blame Me.” Later when the second crisis occurred he opened envelope 2 and it said: “Prepare 2 envelopes.”
So, here we go. Remember, we survived Chretien, Mulroney and Diefenbaker, we’re very adaptable. One of the cutting-edge questions I heard a reporter mulling over this week was if Justin would put his Christmas tree in the same place he did as a little boy.
Let’s hope we all live happily ever after.
At least, that’s what McGregor says.