OTTAWA—Unicorns and rainbows did not make the cut of Justin Trudeau’s first speech from the throne; neither did much of the flowery language that has attended similar texts in the recent past.

At less than 2,000 words, Friday’s speech was one of the shortest on record. In the spirit of the imminent holiday season the précis of the recent Liberal election platform delivered on Friday on behalf of the new government by Governor General David Johnston reads more like a shopping list than a political manifesto.

By comparison, Stephen Harper’s last throne speech in 2013 came in at more than 7,000 words. Paul Martin used up more than 6,000 words to lay out his agenda in 2004 and more than 4,000 to restate it a year later.

The brevity of the Trudeau throne speech was not the only feature that distinguished the opening of the new Parliament from previous similar occasions.

In the past three decades, regime change on Parliament Hill has tended to inspire almost equal doses of hopes and fears to the federal capital.

Prior to taking office in 1984, Brian Mulroney had famously campaigned on the promise to hand scores of civil servants “pink slips and running shoes.” The introduction of his first government’s agenda was greeted with decisively mixed feelings in and around Parliament Hill.

Jean Chrétien was sworn in against the backdrop of a unity crisis and a runaway budget deficit of an unprecedented magnitude. It was clear from Day 1 that big spending cuts would be in the offing.

His first victory also coincided with the massive arrival on the opposition side of the House of Commons of two parties — the Bloc Québécois and the Reform Party — whose very existence was meant to shake the pillars of the federal temple

Stephen Harper had let it be known before he won his first election in 2006 that he believed the federal capital to be home to a liberal trifecta made up of the media, the civil service and the judiciary.

He came into office convinced that every parliamentary institution was rigged against the Conservatives. Then he spent a decade turning that perception into a reality. Ironically, his biggest nemesis turned out to be some of his own appointees.

By comparison to Chrétien, Trudeau inherits a federation more or less at peace with itself and fiscal books that are in relatively decent order. In contrast to Harper, the new prime minister is seen as a liberator by a significant segment of the public service that will toil under his rookie government.

On that score, the dawn of Trudeau’s mandate actually finds Parliament Hill in a rare state of suspended disbelief.

More than a few insiders hope that sheep will be able to safely sleep with lions in the Senate and, in the process, change the culture of a place that has long been a home to some of the most carnivorous partisan animals in the country.

They want to believe that freeing senators of their partisan chains will not just make them easier prey for the army of lobbyists who are about to go to war for a share of the bounty attendant to an activist government agenda.

Most MPs — regardless of party affiliation — want to think that it is it possible to make the more than 300 of them who are neither party leaders nor cabinet ministers feel relevant enough that they no longer feel the need to vent by heckling each other in the House of Commons.

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The parliamentary press does hope (against hope in this instance) that the country’s vice-admirals and/or their civilian equivalent in the upper reaches of the public service will, as of now, feel free to speak more candidly about the shortcomings of their departments — including those that come at catastrophic costs to the taxpayer — rather than blow smoke to cover them up.

The best one can wish the 42nd Parliament is that looking back on the goodwill that attended to its birth in a year or two, Canadians will not be mourning the loss of the most auspicious opportunity in decades to make federal politics more than a game not always worth watching.

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