There is trouble brewing in Ottawa. Despite recent tragic events in the Middle East forcing him back into public view, to the greatest extent possible, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is apparently intent on sticking by his vow to keep his head down and his mouth closed, a sharp shift from his first four years of selfie-taking, magazine-adorning, virtue-signalling puffery.
Paul Wells, easily one of Canada’s most knowledgeable political pundits, complains in Maclean’s magazine that the Trudeau government appears to have fallen asleep since October. “It’s now been 11 weeks since the 2019 election reduced the Liberals to a minority,” he writes. “Seven weeks since the new Liberal cabinet was sworn in. Even over holidays, governments normally do things over the span of seven or 11 weeks.
Without the prime minister, the press is left with mere cabinet members. Cabinet members are dull.