Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 7, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba THINK TANK COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 TUESDAY JANUARY 7, 2025 Ideas, Issues, Insights Too late to change Liberals’ fate P RIME Minister Justin Trudeau has finally announced his intention to step down as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, after a new party leader is chosen. Many Canadians are thankful he has finally done so, but others must wonder what took him so long to make the decision. After all, Trudeau’s Liberals have been far be- hind Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in the polls for more than a year, and his job approval and “best prime minister” poll numbers have been just as bad for just as long. During that time, columnists and editorial writ- ers across the country argued that his resigna- tion at that time — a year or even several months ago — would give the Liberal Party sufficient time to choose a new leader, chart a new path for the country, and fight the Tories on more equal terms in the next election. Trudeau ignored all of that good advice, howev- er, and the Liberals’ polling numbers continued to plunge, as has the time remaining before the next election. It appears that he only began to take the matter seriously in the past three weeks, after the ma- jority of MPs in his party’s Atlantic, Quebec and Ontario caucuses, comprising the majority of all Liberal MPs, called for him to immediately step down. Liberal MPs are no doubt shaken by two recent polls that indicate they now trail the Conserva- tives by a greater margin than at any time in the past century, if ever. In a poll conducted last week, the Angus Reid Institute found that 45 per cent of voters would cast ballots for Conservative candidates. The NDP ranked second at 21 per cent, while the Liberals were even further behind, at just 16 per cent. The same poll found that almost one-half of respondents feel Trudeau should step down, but an even larger percentage of Liberal supporters — 60 per cent — said he should go. The Reid numbers are largely echoed by the findings of a Nanos Research poll, which found that the Tories were at 47 per cent, with the Lib- erals trailing at 21 per cent and the NDP at 17 per cent. The poll also revealed that 40 per cent of re- spondents preferred Poilievre as prime minister, while just 17.4 per cent preferred Trudeau as PM. All those numbers mean that the Conserva- tives would win a record majority of seats in the House of Commons if an election was held any time soon, while the Liberals could be reduced to as few as a handful of seats — the party’s worst electoral outcome ever. With the momentum flowing against them, it is easy to understand why so many Liberal MPs have finally summoned the courage to tell their boss to walk the plank, but they are too late. They have waited far too long and that has very likely doomed their re-election hopes, even under a new leader. The Liberals are in no position to conduct a viable national election campaign anytime soon. They don’t have enough time left in their man- date to conduct a genuine leadership contest, choose a new leader and sell a new platform and narrative that is capable of reversing the Tories’ momentum. Beyond that, the Liberals lack sufficient elec- tion infrastructure throughout a large chunk of the country, especially in rural Canada, and there are now only a handful of truly “safe” Liberal seats in the nation. In almost every unheld riding, and even many held ridings, Liberal riding associations either barely exist or only exist on paper. They have neither the candidates, the money nor the vast number of volunteers required in order to cred- ibly compete for wins in the majority of ridings across the nation. The Conservatives, on the other hand, are swimming in cash at both the national and riding levels, including here in Manitoba. Combine the Tories’ poll numbers with their money advantage and their army of enthusias- tic volunteers and it is easy to see the electoral tsunami on the horizon. Trudeau’s slow-motion departure at this too-late point doesn’t alter that likelihood. His refusal to step down months ago, when there was still an opportunity to reverse the tide, created this disaster-in-the-making. Now, with his eventual departure, somebody else will be left to clean up the mess. Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon. deverynrossletters@gmail.com | X: @deverynross Tip for leaders dealing with Trump: keep calm BEFORE he officially takes over the Oval Office, Donald Trump has once again been busy break- ing long-standing presidential norms. Recently, he threatened to somehow take back control of the Panama Canal. Now, it is true that the canal is strategically important to the U.S. and it serves as a critical passageway for Ameri- can commercial interests (which are responsible for three-quarters of its annual cargo traffic). The canal was also originally built by the U.S., but two treaties between the two countries were signed in 1977 that turned over its control to Pan- amanian authorities in 1999. It is also instructive to note that revenues accruing to the Panamanian government each year from the canal amount to roughly US$2.5 billion. Still, Trump has been complaining about the high transit fees that Panama has been charging (or “ripping off”) American merchant and naval ships. He has also falsely claimed that China is seeking to operate the canal and to deepen its involvement in Central America. Accordingly, he noted in a Dec. 21 social media post that unless the Panamanian government addresses these matters promptly, “we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.” The next day, he posted an image of an American flag rising from the waters around the waterway that included the caption: “Welcome to the United States Canal.” Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, who is, incidentally, known for his pro-U.S. leanings, was quick to respond with his own toughly worded statement. “Every square metre of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be,” he said pointedly. And just in case Trump missed the central point, Mulino intoned emphatically, “The canal will remain in Panamanian hands as an inalien- able patrimony of our nation.” He then went on to add for good measure: “Our country’s sovereign- ty and independence are not negotiable.” It is possible that Trump’s ill-considered comments about the canal could open up some opportunities for China to exploit. That would mean that Trump’s mindless efforts to block Chi- na’s involvement in the canal, and Panama itself, could actually serve to accelerate them. Moreover, if Trump does indeed follow through on his threat, he will have succeeded in doing something that few other U.S. presidents before him have managed to do — namely, to unite both right-leaning and leftist governments in Latin America against official Washington. Each nation could be forgiven for thinking: If Panama, then which country’s sovereignty will be violated next? It would also be extremely counterpro- ductive to any Trump plan to craft a successful Latin America policy, and would totally kneecap his Americas-focused Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Foreign policy often involves sending signals and messages to other countries around the world, which partially explains why Trump is making mischief over the canal. His musings are also right out of the populist playbook, where Trump is constantly looking for useful foreign “enemies” to exploit for internal electoral pur- poses. He obviously believes that singling out and taunting countries like Panama, Mexico and even Canada is good domestic politics. It reinforces the idea of an unorthodox, irregular and disrup- tive approach to conducting U.S. diplomacy, and it is clearly “red meat” for members of his MAGA constituency. In addition, this is about Trump trying to look strong and tough before taking the reins of power in late January. He is also seeking to fortify the perception of a chaotic, impulsive and unpredict- able U.S. foreign policy. This, in turn, is supposed to generate pressure on other governments and to intimidate foreign leaders. It is certainly not clear, though, how exactly Trump would go about regaining control over the canal. It’s hard to imagine that Trump would invade the country for little or no reason — especially given that the U.S. did so in December 1989 and it resulted in the deaths of thousands of poor Panamanian civilians. Indeed, invading would be a colossal foreign policy misadventure that would taint Trump’s presidency for the next four years. Maggie Haberman, the accomplished New York Times reporter and Trump chronicler, has said that the U.S. president-elect is a man of very few moves. His latest outburst about the Pana- ma Canal is very reminiscent of the things that Trump said in his first term — that is, building a wall and making the Mexicans pay for it, buying Greenland from the Danes and turning North Korea into a major tourist destination. The best thing for political leaders and foreign governments to do is to politely refrain from tak- ing the bait, to ignore his “flood the zone” strat- egy and to not get drawn into a shouting match. And when it comes to Trump, the one thing that you can count on is that he will quickly move on to another distraction. So the trick is to keep calm, avoid engaging Trump on his terms and don’t get caught up in his word games. Peter McKenna is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown. Ukraine needs a new sales rep for Trump and the GOP A NEW administration is coming to town, and the U.S. president-elect has sent some decided- ly mixed signals about continued support for Ukraine. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeat- edly boasted he could quickly negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and at one point complained that Ukrainian President Volo- dymyr Zelenskyy “should never have let that war start. That war’s a loser.” Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and — short of unilateral surrender — there was never any way for Zelenskyy to deter the attack. But if a recent report in the Financial Times is correct, Trump is willing to maintain U.S. military supplies to Kyiv after his inauguration, “according to three other people briefed on the discussions with Western officials,” but Trump will demand NATO members more than double the current “two per cent spending target — which only 23 of the alliance’s 32 members currently meet — to five per cent, two people briefed on the conversations said. One person said they understood that Trump would settle for 3.5 per cent.” If the Ukrainian government wants to keep the arms supplies coming, it needs to tailor its arguments to be persuasive to Trump, his administration and congressional Republicans. And that might well require thanking the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, for her service and sending a replacement. For example, in theory, it was a good idea to have Zelenskyy visit a Scranton, Penn., ammu- nition factory in September to thank the work- ers who are producing one of the most critically needed munitions for his country’s fight. (At other stops on the trip, Zelenskyy met separate- ly with both Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris.) But this was just weeks before the Nov. 5 election, and Zelenskyy visited the plant with two prominent Pennsylvania Democrats, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Bob Casey, who was then in a tight (and ultimately unsuccessful) bid for re-election against Republican Dave McCor- mick. The all-Democratic photo opportunity with Zelenskyy left some Republicans fuming. House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote to Zelen- skyy, demanding the Ukrainian government immediately fire Markarova. “The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris and failed to include a single Republican because — on purpose — no Republicans were invited,” Johnson (R-Louisiana) wrote. “The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event de- signed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.” It didn’t help that a few days earlier, in an in- terview with the New Yorker, Zelenskyy had said, “My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how,” and called JD Vance “too radical.” Markarova has done yeoman work making Ukraine’s argument to the Biden administration and congressional Democrats. But there are fair questions about whether the Ukrainian diplo- matic presence in the United States has tried hard enough to court Republicans. Markarova has appeared on Fox News only a few times, most recently July 2023, although she was a guest on a Fox podcast in Febru- ary 2024. But in November, she did present a Ukrainian award to conservative Newsmax TV anchor Greta Van Susteren, in recognition of her support. Mark Strand tells me that before his retire- ment last year as president of the Congressional Institute, he invited Markarova and others at the Ukrainian Embassy to address several of the Republican-aligned organization’s events, but the invitations were declined. Luckily for Ukraine’s cause, representatives from the Brit- ish, Polish and Romanian embassies did attend and talked about the importance of standing up to Russian aggression. In late March 2022, one month after Russia invaded Ukraine, a YouGov-Economist sur- vey found 68 per cent of Trump supporters favoured sending weapons to Ukraine. By late November 2024, the same pollster found just 13 per cent of these supporters wanted to increase military aid to Ukraine, and only 23 per cent wanted to maintain the same amount of military aid to Ukraine. Almost half, 49 per cent, wanted aid decreased. There are arguments for aiding Ukraine that appeal to the right side of the political spec- trum, including the need to counter Russia’s brutal suppression of evangelical Christian churches in occupied territories and its hunger for Ukraine’s vast natural resources. Also, pressing Ukraine to cede territory to Moscow in a peace deal would make the United States look weak, emboldening other hostile nations. Starting on Jan. 20, Republicans will be running the White House, Senate and House of Representatives. Ukraine needs an advocate who understands them, speaking with a fresh voice to their perspective and priorities. — The Washington Post JIM GERAGHTY ADRIAN WYLD / CANADIAN PRESS FILES Forty per cent of Canadians prefer Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as prime minister according to a recent Nanos Research poll. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he plans to step down as Liberal leader has come too late to sway the party’s fortunes, Deveryn Ross writes. DEVERYN ROSS PETER MCKENNA ;