Weekend reads: On humility

From the Prime Minister on down, we all need to ask ourselves: What if I'm wrong?

Justin Trudeau addresses Liberal Party supporters at a private fundraiser at the Edmonton Convention Center, on August 26, 2023. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images.)

This week, as the national Liberal caucus retreat wrapped up in London, Ontario, Canadians sent a message to Ottawa that they are fed up with the status quo. New polling shows the lowest levels of support for the Liberal party since 2015, with the CBC reporting that members of parliament are taking heat from voters on doorsteps and are complaining that the Prime Minister does not listen to their concerns. (One MP told The Toronto Star: “This is a prime minister who never likes to even allow you to finish your sentence in national caucus … [If] you’re going to say something he’s not going to like, he always cuts you off.”)

A poll from the previous week, meanwhile, found that just one in four people feel like the country is moving in the right direction.

Theories abound on what has finally pushed the public over the edge, whether it is the housing crisis, the cost of living, or the government’s overall economic strategy.

No doubt all are factors. But to that list, I would add: Canadians have had it with the hubris of our politics, and indeed, of our Prime Minister.

Our leader has, at critical junctures, chosen to dismiss dissenting voices, exhibiting an astonishing level of certainty in his own position. This has, unfortunately, set the tone for our political class and parts of our legacy media, contributing to a hostile and polarized public conversation that, as best I can tell, the majority of Canadians find exhausting and counterproductive.

Justin Trudeau has failed to ask himself one simple question: What if I’m wrong?