Still reeling from the Toronto-St. Paul’s by-election disaster, Justin Trudeau was asked why he should not take this as his cue to step down. Voters had been unwilling to let any of his recent predecessors stay on past nine or 10 years. Why did he think he was any different?
In answer he referred, not to the by-election result, or his party’s low standing in the polls, or his own unpopularity, but rather to “a challenge faced by democracies all around the world right now.” He cited the elections in France and the United States. In “any democracy around the world,” he said, “we are seeing increasing challenges to people’s well-beings, greater anxieties, an erosion of democratic principles and rights.”
