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The Tories’ pre-election attempts to discredit Trudeau as “just not ready” failed in the light of a long campaign in which he persuaded increasing numbers of Canadians that he was. I don’t imagine many would have said he was much of a deep thinker — his worst moments are almost always when he tries to pretend he is — but people gave him credit for sincerity, personal decency, idealism, and a native political ability that seemed to grow throughout the campaign.

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But now? Asked to name the first quality that came to mind, I suspect increasing numbers might be more inclined to mention his cynicism.

It may not be a coincidence, after all, that his support begins to erode in every poll in early 2017 — just after the decision to abandon electoral reform. Add to that the long list of other broken promises; the ethical lapses, from pay-for-play dinners with Chinese billionaires to vacations with the Aga Khan; and the bullying of Parliament, so reminiscent of the prime minister he replaced, and you have a recipe for disillusionment.

In which circumstances, the little things that seemed so charming at first, all those dashing gestures and glam photo ops, might well come to seem, at first frivolous, then irritating — an impression of unseriousness compounded by a series of bungled foreign-policy excursions of which the India trip was only the last.

Throw in, last, the government’s increasing fixation on pursuing its own ideological hobbyhorses, with ever greater fanaticism, at a time when unease over the economy is growing, of which the blind complacency of the recent budget is a vivid example. What was merely irritating now looks positively dangerous.

Can the Liberals regain the advantage? Of course: the election is still 18 months away. So long as the economy continues on its present pace, voters tend to leave governments in place. But if it should not, the Liberals might wish for their present popularity.