With that in mind, I had planned to avoid any mention of my father in my speech that night. I believed it would only hurt my cause if the members suspected I might be trying to ride on his coattails.
Reine advised otherwise. She reminded me that parts of the modern Papineau riding were once within the borders of neighbouring Mount Royal, which meant at least some voters in the room had been represented in Parliament by my father. Failing to at least acknowledge this fact might strike these people as being disrespectful of him. And besides, she told me, if you do this right, this one time, it’ll be a long while before you need to bring him up again. Her words guided me as I prepared my speech.
I began with a short nod to history. “In the fall of 1965,” I said, “the residents of Parc-Ex helped send Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who listed his occupation as ‘teacher,’ to the House of Commons for the first time. Times change, and riding borders change, but what you were part of forty years ago changed Canada forever.” I reminded them that it had been twenty-five years since my father had given Canada the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, one of the most valued tools the world has ever seen for ensuring the protection and full exercise of human rights. “Now we are all children of that Charter,” I said. “Of that we are immensely proud. So you can understand how fiercely proud I am to be able to say that your Prime Minister Trudeau was also my dad.”
I went on to speak from the heart about Papineau itself, naming and congratulating the community leaders who were the heart and soul of its neighbourhoods and cultural communities. Then it was time to cite the Conservative government policies that I would oppose as a Liberal MP. “The Conservatives want to divide us on social justice. They want to divide us on the environment, on Kyoto, endangering the future of our children. They want to divide us on Canada’s role in the world, with positions copied from the American right.”
For two months, I had been up and down every street in the riding, visited every mall and shopping area, shaken hands with thousands of people, and listened to innumerable stories. I felt I had gotten to know the people of this riding and their concerns. No matter how the votes went that evening, no one would be able to say that I hadn’t worked to win the nomination.
But as I delivered my speech to the crowd, something began to happen. Wherever I looked, I saw familiar faces looking back at me, people I had stopped to chat with on the sidewalks of Saint-Laurent, Saint-Hubert, and Christophe-Colomb, or whom I had met on their front porches along Rue Everett and Avenue de Chateaubriand. I had connected with these people. They smiled at me. More important, they supported me once balloting began.
I won on the first ballot that evening, taking 690 of 1,266 ballots cast, versus 350 for Ms. Deros and 220 for Mr. Giordano. When the numbers were announced I gave Reine a huge hug, then looked over to see Sacha blinking back tears of joy at my victory.
In the midst of our celebration, Stéphane Dion telephoned to offer his congratulations. He and his team might have favoured Mary, but now that the decision had been made he didn’t hesitate to offer his sincere congratulations, and I told him that I greatly appreciated his gesture. Our relationship had been neither warm nor antagonistic during the nomination race. Stéphane had treated me with nothing but respect, and during the politically turbulent year and a half that would follow my victory, I was careful to show him the same respect in return.
While celebrating my victory that night, I knew my fight had just begun. This had been, after all, a skirmish among friends. The real battle would take place when I went up against the incumbent MP, Vivian Barbot. Mme Barbot had forged an impressive career as an educator, feminist, and leader of the local Haitian community before winning the Papineau riding by defeating Pierre Pettigrew, a prominent Liberal cabinet minister. She was a more than worthy political opponent, and I knew there was no time to waste if I wanted to defeat her in the next election.
My first step was to create an organization, a network of people with the experience and insight to run an effective campaign. Reine and Franco had been invaluable to me, but they were moving on to other commitments. Family and friends had provided plenty of help in the final weeks of the nomination run, but I couldn’t expect them to be available through the marathon of a federal election.
The first position I needed to fill was that of a full-time campaign manager, and I discovered that the ideal person had been in the room with me the night I won the nomination. Louis-Alexandre Lanthier had been brought in by Reine to act as my scrutineer. I had briefly met him in Ottawa during my Katimavik days. Still in his thirties, Alex was a veteran of many political campaigns, following in the footsteps of his mother, Jacline Lanthier, who had worked for Jean Chrétien. I liked Alex’s background and his commitment to making the upcoming election a success for us. I especially liked the way he summed up the strategy for the upcoming campaign in a single sentence. “Justin,” he said, “until the next election, you’re going to act like you are already the MP for Papineau.”
It was an extension of the strategy we had pursued successfully during the nomination battle. At every restaurant opening, every religious festival, outdoor carnival, fundraising event, parade, fashion show, arts exhibition, bazaar, town hall meeting, or any other public event taking place in Papineau, I would be there shaking hands and talking to people. I wouldn’t be asking for their vote—the election date hadn’t been set. I would be there to let people know who I was, to put a face and a voice to the name they would see first on campaign material and later on the ballot. When the time came to decide how they would cast their vote, they would remember the guy who shook their hand and who asked how they were doing and who wanted to hear their concerns. It was perhaps the ultimate form of retail politics, and I could hardly wait to get started.
Alex’s grandfather had run a laundromat in Papineau for many years. A lot of people in the neighbourhood were unable to afford their own laundry appliances, so the business became something of a local institution where people would gather to chat and knit and read and, almost incidentally, get the family’s laundry done. I couldn’t think of better grounding for someone assigned to familiarize the voters with me and me with them.
From spring 2007 until the general election of October 2008, my days were consumed with showing up at events and talking to people. I can’t say that I met every single voter in Papineau during that year and a half, but if I didn’t it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Wherever I appeared and whomever I spoke to, I made strategic decisions about the way I communicated my message. Identity politics might have been one way of establishing rapport with voters, the kind of divide-and-conquer strategy favoured by the other parties. But I had no intention of going down that road. I tried to build common ground around common values that I believed were widely shared in the riding. No matter where the people came from, what language they spoke, or how they prayed, I believed we all shared certain values, and I wanted to emphasize this connection between us.
The largest ideological sticking point I faced, particularly in the Villeray neighbourhood, dealt with the question of Quebec’s status within Canada. I’d regularly knock on a door, watch it open, only to see a face visibly blanch upon recognizing me. “I’ll never vote for you,” they’d start. “I don’t agree with you.”
“Ah . . . ,” I’d reply with a friendly smile. “You don’t agree with me on the environment? Or on social programs, education, health care? On an economy that provides opportunity for everyone? On disagreeing with Mr. Harper?”
“No, no, we agree on all that. We just disagree on Quebec!”
“Well, okay, except that we don’t actually disagree on the need to protect the French language and culture here in Quebec. Where I suspect we may disagree is in the best way to do that: I believe in strengthening and sharing our language and culture. I don’t believe in turning inwards and building walls.”
However the conversation went, I’d let people know that I w
as glad to have met them and that I hoped to be a strong voice for them in Ottawa on important issues, whether they voted for me or not.
I was always careful not to disparage the Bloc MP, Vivian Barbot. I had a good deal of respect for what she had accomplished in her life. Personal attacks are not the way to win a voter’s allegiance.
I became convinced that the only way to fight the sovereigntist perspective over the long term is to make the positive case for Canada. Like other divisive forces within the country, the sovereigntist attitude is fundamentally a choice to emphasize the few things that divide us rather than the many things we hold in common. When you scratch the surface on the streets of communities across Quebec, you soon find those common values and aspirations. As I would say a few years later when launching my leadership campaign, I share those values, but strongly believe that Canada, not just Quebec, is the best place to translate them into reality.
I was able to bond with just about everyone I met in Papineau, sovereigntist or otherwise, by discussing my opposition to Stephen Harper’s agenda. In the short time since they assumed power as a minority government in 2006, Harper’s Conservatives had managed to alienate most of Quebec. In Papineau itself, Tory support was abysmally low.
My political style began to be profoundly influenced by Sophie, who, as well as having a deep, intuitive understanding of Quebec, also kept a close watch on my campaign materials and my media appearances. Whenever she saw me veering toward anything approaching a negative style, she was quick to tell me. She also made it clear that she would not stand by and watch the petty feuds and frictions of political life poison my personality. The reason I got into politics, she would remind me, was to promote my image of a better Canada, not merely to score zingers in the next day’s news cycle. Sometimes it’s easy for people who have made politics their livelihood to get caught up in the heat of battle and forget about their personal values. Sophie never does, and no matter how intense things get, she makes sure I don’t either.
Still, there were times when it was necessary to speak directly about Vivian Barbot. I would emphasize that no matter how many admirable qualities Mme Barbot had as a person, the fact remained that as a Bloc Québécois MP, she represented a party that had as its goal to divide people. And that what the riding, and world, need most are politicians who are focused on bringing people together.
When I spoke at community events, I learned to keep things clear and simple when discussing Liberal policies. It wasn’t because voters weren’t interested in the details, but many of my interactions with voters were necessarily brief, and I needed to give the “elevator pitch” on our platform. Sophie was invaluable at times like these. Before any major event, she would ask me to go through the points I wanted to make, explaining each one in direct and simple language, and she would make me restate anything that sounded complex or confusing. It worked. Eventually I was able to explain even intricate policies, such as Stéphane Dion’s ill-fated Green Shift, in thirty seconds or less.
Social issues cropped up often in discussions with Papineau residents, especially among some newer immigrants who were opposed to gay marriage, abortion, and legal reform on marijuana. I could not simply pander to their position. I had to adhere to my own views, which could be a challenge when I found myself being grilled on such topics during a question-and-answer session at a mosque or church. My response would be to say, “We disagree on this, and since we are both arguing from what we regard as our core principles, there is probably little room for compromise. I hope there is enough common ground on other issues, however, for you to consider voting for me.” The reaction to these words frequently surprised me. At the very least, the audience appreciated the fact that I gave them straight answers to hard questions, even if they weren’t always the answers they wanted to hear.
I remember one episode early on in a Pakistani-Canadian mosque on Rue Jean-Talon when I faced a situation that would become fairly frequent: new Canadians who were very supportive of me but also very socially conservative. Alex had suggested that I avoid talking about gay marriage, but all that did was trigger my desire to talk about gay marriage.
“I know that everyone in this room supports our Charter of Rights,” I told the crowd. “It’s the document that forms the basis of the rights we all enjoy, including the free practice of religion. But guess what? Those rights that protect you also give gays the right to marry and give your daughter the right to marry a non-Muslim. The Charter of Rights protects freedoms for everyone. You can’t pick and choose the rights you want to keep and leave behind the ones you don’t like.” The audience was a tough one—bearded, stern older men—but they nodded and engaged favourably in a great discussion about our shared vision for our kids and our country.
Campaigning in Papineau forced me to do a lot of hard thinking about what we Canadians mean by the term multiculturalism. The concept is embedded in the Charter, yet it remains the subject of widespread misunderstanding. By listening only to radio call-in shows and reading only the op-ed pages of newspapers, you might think multiculturalism is a sort of free-for-all in our society, an excuse for turning a blind eye to cultural practices that we would otherwise find repugnant or even criminal. My experience in Papineau taught me that this is mostly fear-mongering. The majority of immigrants I met were aware of the prevailing cultural norms in our country, from our religious pluralism to our attitudes about equality between the sexes and our rejection of hate speech. They accepted them fully. They also realized that Canada has just one set of laws for everyone. When it comes to enforcing the Criminal Code and the principles of family law, we do not offer special treatment according to race or religion. Many immigrant families I met in Papineau brought with them lingering animosities from their country of origin, but they accepted that Canada was a place where people come to escape old-world feuds, not to nurture them.
So what does multiculturalism mean to these people—and to me? It means a presumption that society will accommodate forms of cultural expression that do not violate our society’s core values. These include the right of a Jew to wear his kippa, a Sikh to wear his turban, a Muslim to wear her headscarf, or a Christian to wear a cross pendant. When I began my campaign in 2007, Jean Charest’s Liberals were in power in Quebec and the Parti Québécois had yet to launch its plans for the Quebec Charter of Values, the so-called secular charter. But these scare tactics about immigrants already were a theme in public discourse. In January 2007, at the point when the question of “reasonable accommodations” was in full swing in Quebec, the small town of Hérouxville passed a resolution banning, among other things, the stoning or immolation of women. The amazing thing about their decision was the fact that the town itself had no immigrants among its residents, and had never witnessed any social strife related to minority cultural practices.
I rejected that sort of fear-mongering then, and I reject it now. In fact, I am proud to say that in 2013 I was the first federal party leader to speak out directly against the PQ’s proposed secular charter. What possible purpose could be served by excluding a single mother in Papineau from the public sector workforce because she was trying to balance her commitments to faith and to her role as a breadwinner? Had Papineau residents been presented with that choice by the PQ, many would not have chosen to shed their religious apparel. Instead, they would have been pushed back from life in the public arena, precisely the opposite result to the goal we should all strive for. We need new Canadians—indeed, all Canadians—to participate in building Canada, not to abstain.
The best way to think of multiculturalism is to picture it as a sort of social contract. Under the contract, newcomers to Canada promise to abide by our laws; teach their children the skills and language fluency necessary to integrate into our society; and respect, if not immediately adopt, the social norms that govern the relationship between Canadian individuals and groups. In return, we respect aspects of their culture that may be precious to them and harmful to n
o one else. Forcing a nine-year-old soccer player to remove a turban, firing a daycare worker because she wears a hijab, banning a cardiologist from the operating room because he wears a kippa—these are gestures that break our side of that social contract.
Canada is perhaps the only country on earth that is strong because of our differences, not despite them. Diversity is core to who we are, to what makes us a successful country. We live it everywhere, in small towns and big cities, all over the country. It is one of our most important and unique contributions to the world. That is why I am so quick to defend minority rights, and to promote the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I believe that our openness is at the heart of who we are as Canadians. It has made Canada the freest, and the best, place in the world to live.
Campaigning is both art and science. Some people are naturally good at it, others not so much. A few basic skills need to be learned and practised.
I needed to learn to be more assertive in reaching out to Papineau voters. It’s all well and good to be polite, but there is no point showing up to an event just to be a wallflower.
One large public fair I attended early on featured an outdoor play for children. Many people were seated directly in front of the stage. Behind them was a large open space where adults and children were milling around during the performance. This was a perfect place to connect with voters, but I held back because I didn’t want to distract attention from the play. I had to be practically yanked out of my chair and pushed toward the crowd, reminded that this was a casual atmosphere and that I was there with a purpose.
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