In Justin Trudeau, young Canadians everywhere have found their man.
For them, “sovereignty” remains a boogeyman, but one that has taken on a new form. They don’t worry that Quebec will separate from Canada. They worry that Harper’s revolution will so transform the nation that Canada will separate from its people.
There should be no moral objection to the Conservative party’s ascendancy. They have earned their victories, for the most part, by the rules. But there should now be a total moral objection to the Harper government, which has not interpreted its first majority electoral victory as the right to implement an honest and transparent agenda, but instead as the right to deceitfully change the country.
Trudeau gets it. What the political hacks and their sensationalist traditional media don’t understand is that the young parliamentarian is speaking right past them to the hearts of a new generation. What the Harper revolution did not account for is the absolute conviction among this rising generation in the just society and the promise of a middle-power’s leadership. But Trudeau gets it.
Trudeau spent years engaging high school and university students. He understands the shift that is happening here and throughout the world. He understands that multiculturalism in this country is not merely progressive politics; it is a sacred trust. He understands that environmentalism is not the product of radical, “tree-hugging” sentiment; it is the expression of new religion. He understands that the Charter is not simply a guarantee of rights and freedoms; it is the soul of a new world.
The Harper revolution is not finding opposition in the streets — not yet. Instead, it finds its fiercest opposition in the youthful individual, who hears in Harper’s every speech and policy a dissonance that threatens the congruity of his mind and heart.
The sound has not yet discomforted this new generation to the march. The alarm has not yet sounded. But should the Harper revolution continue on its current track, by the leadership of Justin Trudeau, the alarm will sound.
