Justin Trudeau shows Leadership and Backbone

The last few weeks have shown that Mr.Trudeau does not shy away from the hard decisions and he is alot tougher than many of his critics will admit.

The first example was when he decided to buy the Trans Mountain Pipeline.  That whole situation was a no win one for the government.  No matter which decision the government made they were going to piss off a bunch of people.

The ideal solution of course would have been for all of the stakeholders to compromise on the pipeline. The Trudeau government worked very hard to help the various stakeholders to find common ground and come up with an agreement but in the end one was not forthcoming.  So, with the deadline looming the Trudeau government made their decision.  Whether it is the right decision is up for debate and that debate will not be resolved any time soon.  However, they did make a decision.  They did not waffle, obfuscate or deflect.  They made their decision and they are going to let the chips fall where they may.  

The second example is the reaction of the federal government to the new tariffs that the Trump Administration is levying against steel and aluminum as well as the latest temper tantrum by Mr. Trump after the G7 summit.

The Trudeau government is planning on imposing their own tariffs and they have not wavered from that decision.  The Trudeau government has answered Mr. Trump's insults with quiet resolve.

Make no mistake a trade war with the United States would not be good for either country but any impact would hit the Canadian economy much more than the US economy.  That is just a simple function of the relative sizes of the two economies.  Considering what is at stake it would be easy to capitulate but it should be obvious to everybody that if the Canadian government gives in now Mr. Trump will not stop.  He would just push for more.  He comes from an environment where you win it all or you lose it all.  He does not do win-win.

For the last couple of weeks the Trudeau government has been tested like they have never been tested since they won power in 2015.  As of today I would say they have passed those tests.