Article content continued

Harper’s government has always been touched with an aura of illegitimacy. Whispers of voter suppression that never came to anything, dodgy robocalls that never really had an impact on any electoral outcome, distrust for a first-past-the-post system that could grant the Tories a majority mandate with a mere 40 per cent of the popular vote. (Funny how no one seems to be complaining about that now.)

Our new Prime Minister is so much Stephen Harper’s antithesis — young, open, charming — that it’s easy to ignore the fact that he is the personification of old world power, or the closest thing we’ve ever had to it in this country.

Yet even the fact that his ascension marks the beginning of our first familial dynasty in federal politics is treated like a charming footnote, instead of what it is. It’s no coincidence that Trudeau’s nickname before assuming office was the Dauphin. Margaret Trudeau is now marked with the rare public distinction of being both a mother and a wife to a prime minister, like some kind of democratic dowager queen.

I note a conspicuous silence from progressive corners who have become quick, of late, to express skepticism toward white men elevated to positions of authority aided by ancient social and familial connections. Privilege is apparently nixed when such leaders promise to ban abortion debates and run deficits. That, or royal blood is back in vogue. Because it’s 2015, I guess.

The transition from one era to another is always exciting. And I can’t begrudge the aura of glamour Trudeau has cast around himself and his family, nor the theatrics of his swearing in. However, some of the adulation is so obsequious, the obituaries to Harper so ungracious, that it’s fair to wonder if the Conservatives paranoid style wasn’t justified. I have real objections to the way the Tories treated journalists, for example. Admittedly, this is self serving, but refusing to take questions or explain policy shows disrespect not just to the media, but to the citizenry and the electorate we inform. That said, I can also empathize with a feeling of outsiderness so bitter that it should still be entrenched after 10 years of power.