CANADA: Trudeau’s Face-Lifting

Canada’s aloof Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, 56, was once considered a dashing new face on the political scene. But after eight years in power, Canadians see him as all too familiar and feel the same way about his government. With the popularity of his Liberal regime fairly crashing in the polls, Trudeau last week decided it was time for a cosmetic treatment. He announced a sweeping Cabinet shakeup, unmistakably designed to help him get back into good graces with the electorate before the next elections in 1978.

In the latest Canadian Gallup poll the Liberals, who won 43% of the vote in the 1974 election, were held in favor by only 29% of the electorate, v. 47% for the rival Progressive Conservatives. If an election were held now, the Liberals would be out of power for only the second time in 40 years, with their strength confined mainly to French-speaking Quebec, Trudeau’s home turf.

The Liberals got into trouble because of Trudeau’s reputation for arrogance, and also because voters are confused by a series of policy flip-flops and fudges stretching back over a year. After campaigning hard against wage and price controls as a cure for Canada’s double-digit inflation, Trudeau abruptly introduced them last October, alienating labor. Shortly afterward, the Prime Minister unsettled the business community by announcing that the “free-market system” in Canada was dead. What he meant was that new solutions, possibly government-imposed, would have to be found for the persistent problem of stagflation. Many mistrustful Canadians, however, took Trudeau’s comment to mean that new, authoritarian measures were in the offing.

English-speaking Canadians—two-thirds of the country’s population of 23 million—have chafed at the Liberals’ occasionally zealous pursuit of English and French bilingualism in the federal civil service. Francophones, on the other hand, have lately felt that Trudeau is not doing enough to protect their rights (TIME, July 19).

While inflation has been tamped to just over 6%, unemployment is still high (7.2%), and new economic problems loom. The rate of new direct foreign investment in Canada has dropped almost to zero. With its current account deficit now over $5 billion, the country may also be approaching a balance of payments crisis.

Deciding on what he called “major surgery” in his 29-member Cabinet to help solve his problems, Trudeau bumped out two party veterans and added seven new faces, including two women. External Affairs Minister Allan MacEachen, a skillful party tactician, was transferred back to lead the currently disorganized Liberals in Parliament. In MacEachen’s place, Trudeau appointed a rotund, voluble Newfoundlander named Donald Jamieson. His diplomatic experience is scant (his last post was Minister for Industry, Trade and Commerce), but Jamieson’s known affection for the U.S. promises an improvement in the tone, at least, of U.S.-Canadian relations.

In the course of the shuffle, Trudeau lost the Cabinet’s most popular member, volatile Corporate and Consumer Affairs Minister Bryce Mackasey, 55. Mackasey’s unexpected resignation was the second by a well-liked Cabinet Minister in a year. (The other was that of former Finance Minister John Turner, 47, who quit in disagreement with Trudeau’s direction of government affairs.) Mackasey gave no reason for his departure beyond wanting to earn better pay. But privately he indicated that he was dissatisfied with what he perceived as a rightward shift in Trudeau’s government. Mackasey’s defection will not help Trudeau to recover the confidence of the troubled Canadian voter.