After a decade of Stephen Harper, the arrival of Justin Trudeau as prime minister of Canada felt like a relief. But as Canadians reckon with the gulf between the dazzling promise of Trudeau’s election and the grim reality of his government, journalist Martin Lukacs makes the case that “real change” was never part of the agenda. Drawing on investigative research and first-hand reporting, Lukacs reveals that behind the latest wave of Trudeaumania was a slick status-quo political machine, backed by a cast of corporate elites and lobbyists who expected a pay-off from Liberal rule in Ottawa. He sheds light on a climate plan hatched in collaboration with Big Oil, the arming of a bloody Saudi war in Yemen, a reconciliation industry masking the ongoing theft of Indigenous lands, and the off-loading of public infrastructure to private profiteers—together these signal not a break from Harper, but a continuation of his destructive legacy. Trudeau’s much-hyped new politics, Lukacs argues, were in fact an Instagram-era spin on an old Liberal approach: playing to people’s desire for far-reaching change in order to ward off a backlash against the Canadian elite. But as the Trudeau formula unravels, Lukacs warns that right-wing scapegoating politicians are misdirecting this growing discontent with the established order. He argues that the only way to defeat the rise of an ugly right—and fulfill the hopes betrayed by Trudeau—is an unapologetically bold response to inequality, racism, and climate breakdown. In this election year and beyond, Lukacs contends that it is time for Canada’s progressive majority to abandon the idea of political saviors and renew the task of collectively winning the world we need.
