John
Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. His work has been
published in National Review, the New York
Post, the South China Morning Post, and the
Sydney Morning Herald. He can be found on Twitter
at @ghlionn. This article first appeared in The
Spectator (London).
The
tragedy of Justin Trudeau isn’t that he lost power.
It’s that he was ever given it in the first place.
Justin
Trudeau has finally found something he can’t bankrupt
– a washed-up pop star. The former prime minister, now
liberated from the burden of office, was recently spotted
aboard Katy Perry’s yacht in California, sharing a kiss
so 
theatrical
it would have been cut by a good director.
But
Trudeau was always drawn to drama. The kind with lighting,
makeup and someone else footing the bill. His life has become
a soap opera, though not the kind with decent writing or respectable
ratings. There was the recurring racist phase, the peace-and-love
phase, the power-and-profit phase and now the Malibu make-out
phase. Once hailed as the fresh-faced heir to liberal idealism,
Trudeau swiftly dissolved into a puddle of melodrama and moisturizer.
His
years in power left Canada poorer, angrier and more divided
than at any point in living memory. He preached virtue but
practiced vanity. He championed empathy while governing with
arrogance. He turned Canada – long admired for moderation
– into a running gag on the world stage.
Spare
a thought for his ex-wife, Sophie Grégoire, and their
three teenage children, who must now watch their father prance
around the Pacific like a man auditioning for a midlife-crisis
cologne ad called “Hubris.” These are the years
when a father’s guidance matters most, yet Trudeau seems
intent on performing adolescence rather than parenting it.
The family he once paraded for photo-ops has been abandoned,
collateral damage in a career built on self-adoration.
It’s
a fitting metaphor for his time in office. Trudeau inherited
a stable nation and left behind a shattered one. Under his
leadership, Canada’s national debt doubled, small businesses
suffocated under regulation and housing became an impossible
dream for a generation. The middle class – once his
favourite talking point – was gutted. Canadians now
pay more taxes for fewer services, while the political elite
grow fatter and smugger on their own sanctimony.
Trudeau
sold himself as a feminist reformer. But under his watch,
women faced soaring living costs, record food insecurity and
a healthcare system closer to Congo than Canada. He vowed
to unite the country. Instead, he governed like a leader allergic
to accountability, dividing Canadians into obedient followers
and ideological foes. Those who questioned his mantras or
mandates were branded extremists. When truckers protested,
he branded them fascists, then froze their bank accounts.
The man who looked like he could play the next Bond ended
up acting like a Bond villain, just with better hair and worse
judgment.
And
for what? To preserve his ego. The Emergencies Act he invoked
wasn’t about protecting Canadians but punishing them.
He turned a protest into a purge, revealing that beneath the
charm and charisma lurked a control freak of the highest order.
Canada
became a cautionary tale. A country built on freedom slid
into tyranny, cheered on by citizens too polite to protest.
Foreign
policy fared no better. He alienated India, annoyed China
and amused the world with a conveyor belt of photo ops and
platitudes. Diplomacy became his favorite vanity project,
each summit another red carpet. When the flashes faded, so
did Canada’s influence. Trudeau was never taken seriously
abroad because, deep down, he never took the job seriously.
And
now, shirtless and shameless, he’s chasing pop stardom
by association. As for Perry, her own decline mirrors his
– from pop princess to self-parody. Once the voice of
youthful rebellion, the part-time astronaut is now a Vegas
lounge act in search of validation. Together, they are a duet
of decline. Two faded brands clinging to each other in the
hope of renewed relevance. He’s the patron saint of
performative decency. She’s the high priestess of performative
empowerment. Together, they are the unholy alliance of fame
and fakery.
Trudeau’s
defenders will say his love life is his business. Perhaps.
But this is a man who never met a camera he didn’t flirt
with, who turned politics into performance and leadership
into lifestyle. Privacy was never his language. Every grin,
every tear, every contrived display of humility was a stage
cue. Even now, his post-political life plays out like a poorly
written sequel – Love Actually meets Keeping Up with
the Kardashians.
Canada
deserved a statesman. It got a showman. He entered office
promising “sunny ways” and left behind a long
winter of division, delusion and decline.
While
the Liberal Lothario suns himself on borrowed yachts and chases
pop stars past their prime, Canadians are left with the mess
– higher taxes, weaker freedoms and a fractured sense
of nationhood. He didn’t just betray his voters; he
betrayed his family, his vows and the quiet dignity that once
defined his country. The tragedy of Justin Trudeau isn’t
that he lost power. It’s that he was ever given it in
the first place. Katy Perry sang about fireworks, but with
Trudeau, everything ends in flames.
