Strange inaugural Speech for Justin Trudeau

Stephen Harper rushed off to meet the Aga Khan. Jim Flaherty rushed off to share his latest economic theories with the news media.

Stéphane Dion was already telling them his Liberals won’t try to defeat the Conservatives; and Gilles Duceppe was telling them he can’t wait to dump the Harper gang.

Back in the Commons things were droning on with the B-Team in charge until all of a sudden a young good-looking man – an athletic six-footer, dark black hair, striking blue eyes and a remarkable smile – stood up to speak.

The Commons awoke and rose to their feet with a standing ovation. “It’s him,” said a woman excitedly in the public galleries.

It was Justin Trudeau, the new member for Montreal Papineau riding. First day of the new parliament and this guy was already on his feet speaking for the first time, and there’s almost nobody around.

It wasn’t the first surprise from Trudeau since the night of Oct. 14 when he defeated Bloquiste MP Vivian Barbot by 1230 votes.

On Nov. 6, the day he was sworn in as MP, he brought to Ottawa a huge crowd of supporters from his riding and they all had a big party on Parliament Hill. Thoroughly unexpected.

In a relaxed and articulate voice he first thanked the people who had voted for him. Clever! Somebody had probably told him all politics is local and you always remember the ones who voted for you and they’ll remember to vote for you again.

Speaking in French Justin Trudeau continued: “The government has admitted that like under previous Conservative governments, Canada will be slipping into budget deficits.”

And then he slipped into English, a habit he has of switching from one official language to the other, often in mid-sentence. It infuriates the separatists no end.

Back in the Liberal days, he says, Canada went through SARS, Mad Cow disease, the Mexican peso crisis, the Asian meltdown, and even Sept. 11 without ever running a deficit.

What? Has Justin Trudeau become an expert at economics? And why is he an apologist for the previous Liberal government? We thought he was a big environmentalist. Whatever happened to that?

Lucky for him, none of the Conservatives remembered to remind him his dad was no stranger to federal deficits.

Still flying high, he continued: “If this government had followed the basic principles of a sound fiscal administration that was in place when it came to power it could have defended the interests of Canadians and still generated surplus budgets.”

And suddenly it was over. He sat down. One minute and 28 seconds berating the Harper government. Hardly an “inaugural speech.” More like an “inaugural comment.”

Was this all planned beforehand, to avoid attracting public attention, getting the first speech thing over without getting noticed? Or did some Liberal colleague deliberately mislead him?

The maiden speech of an MP is a statement about a politician’s strongest beliefs, lines that will be quoted for years to come.

Everybody remembers his dad’s famous line about getting the state out of the bedrooms of the nation. Now that was a speech.

But the Trudeaus, father, mother, and son, have always been full of surprises. They do exactly what you don’t expect. Justin is no different.