CREDIT: CSWIMM / ISTOCK EDITORIAL / THINKSTOCK
Even his hair may not save him in the next election. Justin Trudeau needs to pick a concrete issue to base his campaign.

As every five-year-old learns from his/her parents – generally after a traumatic playground incident – not everyone is going to like you. Whether it’s because they’re jealous or mean or don’t agree with your fiscal policy, you just can’t please everyone.

The key to a successful campaign is to know who will already vote for you, who will never vote for you and how to get the votes of the people in between. Politics is similar to a kindergarten playground in many ways, and this happens to be one of them.

Every election platform has to check the policy boxes: healthcare, education, the economy and the environment. Liberal Party of Canada leader Justin Trudeau is trying to cross off the environment box on his policy checklist with a recent announcement regarding carbon emissions, and underwhelming would be an understatement. While Prime Minister Stephen Harper may have the worst environmental track record of any prime minister in the history of the country, Trudeau seems to hope that his feeble efforts will shine in comparison.

The plan is to create federal oversight that would allow provincial governments to charge companies for the carbon they’re producing. Trudeau cited existing plans in B.C., Alberta, and Quebec, in addition to a similar system in Ontario that is forthcoming. Unless there’s a hotbed of manufacturing in Prince Edward Island that everyone is unaware of, it sounds like the carbon-pricing method of reducing emissions has already been tapped out.

Unfortunately, the environmental issue seems to be indicative of Trudeau’s approach to every major issue – blasé and ineffective.

Trudeau is suffering from the inability to pick a key issue to run with in his election campaign. Even beyond that, he seems incapable of having a concrete opinion on any of the issues he’s already brought to light.

So far he’s dabbled in marijuana legalization and – in the vaguest terms – the environment, but failed to outline a legislative strategy for his stated goal of growing the middle class.

Harper, his opponent, has run almost solely on fiscal policy in previous years, a strategy that led him to a majority government last time around. Trudeau is playing a dangerous game in which he is trying to gain mass appeal without embracing any wedge issues that could disenfranchise anyone.

The struggle for every politician is to combine the ability to lead in with the ability to get elected. There are hundreds if not thousands of individuals in the country with a far better grasp of the issues that are paramount to the success of Canada in an ever changing environment of globalization who will never even run for office.

There’s a common philosophical sentiment that bemoans the fact that wanting to be a leader is one of the worst characteristics to have in a leader. It seems as though Trudeau may end up having exactly what it takes to get elected, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to tell whether he’s capable of making the tough choices a leader has to make.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.