Justin
Trudeau: 'Globalisation isn't working for ordinary people'
Exclusive:
Canada’s prime minister tells the Guardian why, in a world where
populism, divisiveness and fear are on the rise, he’s taking the
opposite approach
Justin
Trudeau on climate change, the economy and Canada’s future
Ashifa Kassam and
Laurence Mathieu-Léger in Ottawa
Thursday 15 December
2016 10.30 GMT
Ordinary people
around the world have been failed by globalisation, Justin Trudeau
has told the Guardian, as he sought to explain a turbulent year
marked by the election of Donald Trump, the Brexit vote and the rise
of anti-establishment, nation-first parties around the world.
“What we’re
facing right now – in terms of the rise of populism and divisive
and fearful narratives around the world – it’s based around the
fact that globalisation doesn’t seem to be working for the middle
class, for ordinary people,” the Canadian prime minister said in an
interview at his oak-panelled office in the country’s parliament.
“And this is something that we identified years ago and built an
entire platform and agenda for governing on.”
Last year, at a time
when Trump was being described as a long shot for president and the
threat of Brexit seemed a distant possibility, Trudeau, 44, swept to
a majority government on an ambitious platform that included
addressing growing inequality and creating real change for the
country’s middle class.
One year on, what
has emerged is a government that seems to go against the political
tide around the world; open to trade, immigration and diversity and
led by a social media star whose views on feminism, Syrian refugees
and LGBT rights have provoked delight among progressives.
But as he enters his
second year in power, Trudeau – a former high school teacher and
snowboarding instructor – is under pressure to show the world that
his government has found an alternative means of tackling the
concerns of those who feel they’ve been left behind.
He cited the signing
of Ceta – the free trade deal between the EU and Canada – and a
hotly contested decision to approve two pipelines as examples of this
approach.
“We were able to
sign free trade agreement with Europe at a time when people tend to
be closing off,” he said. “We’re actually able to approve
pipelines at a time when everyone wants protection of the
environment. We’re being able to show that we get people’s fears
and there are constructive ways of allaying them – and not just
ways to lash out and give a big kick to the system.”
Canada has not
remained immune to such pressures, he said – despite what the fresh
wave of interest in migrating to the country in the wake of Trump’s
victory and the Brexit vote would suggest. “I think there’s a lot
of people saying ‘oh well, Canada is a special place,’ and we
are,” said Trudeau. “But we are subject to the same kinds of
tensions and forces that so much of the world is facing right now.”
Trudeau said he is
keenly aware that the world is watching. “I think it’s always
been understood that Canada is not a country that’s going to stand
up and beat its chest on the world stage, but we can be very helpful
in modelling solutions that work,” he said. “Quite frankly if we
can show – as we are working very hard to demonstrate – that you
can have engaged global perspectives and growth that works for
everyone … then that diffuses a lot of the uncertainty, the anger,
the populism that is surfacing in different pockets of the world.”
In January,
Trudeau’s government will face off against its greatest challenge
to date: a Trump presidency. When it comes to US relations, few
countries have as much at stake as Canada – last year saw nearly
three-quarters of Canada’s exports head to the US while some
400,000 people a day cross the shared border.
Trudeau’s father,
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister during the late
1960s, 70s and 80s, once likened living next to the US to sleeping
with an elephant. “No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the
beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and
grunt,” he told the Washington Press Club in 1969.
Nearly five decades
on, his son is poised to weather what will probably be one of the
toughest tests of this sentiment. The prime minister and the
president-elect seem to have little in common; Trudeau is a
self-described feminist who appointed his country’s first
gender-balanced cabinet, while Trump’s campaign saw more than a
dozen women come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct.
Trudeau has sought to champion trade deals such as Ceta, while Trump
has threatened to rip up Nafta and bury TPP.
The contrast was
captured last December after Trump and Trudeau catapulted into global
headlines within days of each other over their response to the Syrian
refugee crisis; Trump, who had called for a temporary ban on Muslims
entering the US, suggested that families fleeing war could be Isis
infiltrators; Trudeau, in contrast was at the Toronto airport to
greet the first wave of the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees
airlifted to Canada in the past year.
Trudeau skirted past
these differences, instead highlighting the links that bridge both
administrations. On Syrian refugees, for example, Trudeau pointed to
underlying concerns around security. “Certainly in a world where
terrorism is a daily reality in the news, it’s easy for people to
be afraid,” he said. “But the fact is that we laid out very
clearly – and Canadians get – that it’s actually not a choice
between either immigration or security, that of course they go
together.”
The two governments
are also keen to create policies that address those who feel that
globalisation and trade have failed to benefit the middle class and
those working to join it, said Trudeau. “There are differences in
the policies, the solutions for it, but I know that when we talk
about making sure there are good jobs for the middle class, that is a
place where we are going to be able to find agreement and alignment
on.”
A silver lining for
Trudeau may lie in Trump’s pledge to resurrect plans for
TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. When the Obama administration
rejected the plan last year, Trudeau said in a statement he was
“disappointed” in the decision. When Trudeau called Trump to
congratulate him after the election, the two briefly spoke about
Keystone, said Trudeau, adding that it remains to be see how the US
will move forward with plans for the pipeline.
Any reticence to
move forward on climate change south of the border could be a boon
for Canadian companies across various sectors, said Trudeau. “I
know Canada is well positioned to pick up some of the slack and when
people finally realise that it’s a tremendous business opportunity
to lead on climate change, Canada will already have a head start.”
But he also cast
doubt on Trump’s ability to completely derail US efforts towards
combatting climate change. “You know quite frankly at the
subnational level in the United States, states, municipalities are
already showing that they understand that climate change is real so
that the potential for the federal government to ease off on actions
is not total,” he said.
Trudeau has
previously said he was ‘disappointed’ in Obama’s decision to
reject the plans for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.
Photograph: LM Otero/AP
Last week’s
announcement of a national carbon price is a key part of Trudeau’s
environmental policy – one that has been derided by
environmentalists for enabling the expansion of fossil fuels,
compensated by initiatives that include investments in clean tech and
promises to phase out federal subsidies for oil and gas companies.
The policy saw Trudeau recently approve a liquefied natural gas
project in British Columbia as well as two pipelines that will offer
Alberta’s oil sands nearly a million barrels a day in increased
capacity.
The approvals have
sparked broad opposition among environmentalists, some First Nations
and several of the communities affected by the planned infrastructure
projects. “There is a number of people out there who’ve always
[believed] if you stop pipeline, you stop the oil sands,” said
Trudeau. “Well, actually as we’ve seen, it doesn’t work that
way and what we end up with is much more oil by rail.”
The discontent has
chipped away at Trudeau’s unprecedented political honeymoon, along
with revelations of fundraisers that offered access to Trudeau and
his ministers for a price, a government decision to push forward with
a C$15bn ($11bn) deal to sell weaponised military vehicles to Saudi
Arabia amid outcry by human rights organisations as well as
speculation that his government is moving away from a promise to
reform the country’s voting system. Still, recent polls suggest
that were Canada to hold an election today, Trudeau’s team would
earn an even greater proportion of votes than they did last year.
The government’s
environmental policy takes a long view on the transition to a
carbon-free economy, said Trudeau. “It’s not going to happen in a
day, or in a week, but it will happen over years and perhaps a decade
or two,” he said. “I know there are people out there extremely
passionate about the environment, who don’t think I made the right
decision on approving a couple of pipelines. But I think that
everyone can see at least what it is we’re trying to do and that
we’re consistent with what I’ve always said which is, you protect
the environment and you build a strong economy at the same time.”
The double-barrelled
approach, said Trudeau, echoes his government’s broader effort to
address the tensions currently wreaking havoc on the political status
quo around the world. “People get that we need jobs, we need a
protected environment,” he said. “On the other hand, if people
have no jobs, if they have no opportunity, they’re not going to
worry about protection of the air and water if they can’t feed
their kids.”
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