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Whatever the cause, Canadians do seem particularly susceptible to the many pretty lies the diplomatic establishment likes to tell about this country, and in times of international trauma, our political leaders do seem to encourage us to retreat into the comforting fictions that have proved so useful in justifying Canada’s abdication from the duties unavoidably implied by the “Canadian values” they’re always talking about.

There are variations in the blandishments that distinguish the Liberal, Conservative and NDP encomiums to Canadian virtue, of course. We are either “peacekeepers,”or we are “honest brokers” who strive to “punch above our weight,” or we are a principled people, averse to the unseemliness of merely “going along to get along.”

As the global order continues its collapse across the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe, and as China reverts to its nastiest police-state habits throughout the Asian Pacific, Canada’s political elites are making only greater exertions to encourage an ever-deeper retreat into the rich fantasy life we’ve invented for ourselves. We’ve even taken on its make-believe lexicon, as though “the world stage” was a real place, and all that matters is merely which of Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair or Justin Trudeau is best suited to play the leading role on behalf of Canada’s “international reputation,” which must either be maintained, or restored, or traded upon.

Following upon the Munk Debate on foreign policy this week, we judge the federal leaders more on their “performance” than on what useful purpose they propose to put Canada to in the world. And yet we marvel that Justin Trudeau emerged out of nowhere only a couple of years ago with nothing much to show for himself except a famous last name and habits of style that recalled nothing so much as melodramatic iterations of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, and he now not only matches Harper and Mulcair in the turf accountants’ poll rankings, but he genuinely and rightly deserves to be there.