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“Parliamentary government,” said the late Eugene Forsey, constitutional expert, “is not just a matter of counting heads instead of breaking them. It is also a matter of using them. It is government by discussion, not just by majority vote.”

From the moment of his majority victory in 2011, Stephen Harper gave Canada governance without discussion. Harper democracy was a long line of unamended government bills forced through with as little debate as possible, with time allocations and committees controlled by the government’s majority. As a result, and at the first opportunity, Canadians threw him out on his ass.

The new prime minister has pledged to re-start the national conversation at every level — in Parliament, in a renewed Senate and in the media. It is a tall order but he sports an impressive record; first, a TKO of Senator Patrick Brazeau, then a KO of Harper in the October 19 election.

But the fight of his life awaits him. He must now turn ambitious promises into realities in a system not built for speed. Not only that, he must pull off this political alchemy against the backdrop of sky-high expectations created in part by his own magnetism. It will be a while before people realize that he’s just the prime minister — not Batman.

There’s a precedent here — not a good one. A campaigning Barack Obama promised to immediately close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo if he became president. He pledged to give Americans a public option in health care. They never got the public health option under Obamacare. And nearing the end of his second term, Gitmo remains open for business. The world of power always looks simpler and easier to fix when you’re peering in from the outside.

And so it is with promises: there’s the “if”, but also the “when”. For Obama, “Change You Can Believe In” too often turned into Change Denied or Deferred. What will become of Trudeau’s “Real Change” over the long hours of the legislative clock?

The new minister for Indigenous and Northern Affairs, Carolyn Bennett, has already felt the pressure to call a public inquiry into 1,200 missing and murdered native women that Stephen Harper refused to call. In the first scrum of the new cabinet, Bennett had to point out that you just don’t just ‘announce’ inquiries.

There is a great deal of groundwork that must be done, including soliciting input from indigenous groups and other departments of government. How much should be budgeted? How long should hearings take? How broad should the scope of the inquiry be? When will Parliament get its report? Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould obviously will be a key player in helping define those parameters. The right commissioners also will have to be found.

And that’s just one of the easier tasks facing Bennett. There is the PM’s vow to deliver safe drinking water to reserves within five years. There are the stunning gaps in native health and education services to be filled. And lurking just below the waterline of this tumultuous department are the biggest icebergs of them all: the longstanding two per cent cap on the department’s budget and the implementation of all those treaties. How much patience will indigenous voters show before today’s unbridled optimism corrodes into the old familiar mistrust?

Some of the promises might fall behind schedule. Others might even be broken. And the opposition and the media will be there to measure every centimetre that opens up between the new prime minister’s words and his actions. Some of the promises might fall behind schedule. Others might even be broken. And the opposition and the media will be there to measure every centimetre that opens up between the new prime minister’s words and his actions.

Bennett’s colleagues all face similar dilemmas of one kind or another. Canadians didn’t much like the Liberal party voting for Stephen Harper’s police-state security bill, C-51. Trudeau made his position palatable with the promise of significant amendments, including the pledge that C-51 must be Charter-compliant. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, despite deep experience in government, will be hard pressed to move fast enough to please critics of C-51 who never wanted it passed in the first place. And what will Canadians think of the parts of C-51 the new government retains — even with a sunset clause?

Immigration Minister John McCallum, another of the new government’s experienced hands, faces the hardest struggle of them all. The PM has promised to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by year’s end. Better relations with UN agencies and NGOs in Harper’s absence doubtless will make that task easier. But it will still be far from easy. Everyone will be watching to see if the new government keeps Trudeau’s ambitious, humane but time-sensitive promise.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion boldly assured iPolitics’ Elizabeth Thompson (isn’t it nice to see ministers without muzzles or speaking points?) that Canada will return to its old policy of being an honest broker in the Middle East.

That’s a stark contrast with the toxic partisan politics the Harper government played in the Palestinian/Israeli standoff, and in the region generally. But how long will it take to repair relations with the Palestinians and Iranians which were all but destroyed by Harper? And how will the Likud Party coalition currently governing Israel respond to Dion’s recognition of other players in the Middle East?

A long and narrow road lies ahead for Dion, a man who once seemed destined for political oblivion but has managed to reinvent himself as a major player in a majority government.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna will be going to the Paris climate meetings, along with the prime minister, other federal party leaders and any premiers not tied up in elections. The idea behind this grand delegation is to announce to the world we are no longer the country that walked away from Kyoto and failed for ten years to regulate our energy industry.

That’s all to the good; Canadians don’t want to add to the national collection of Fossil Awards earned by Harper’s environment ministers. Neither do they want Canada to agree to climate change goals too ambitious to be realized — or too puny to be meaningful. McKenna will be heading into whitewater just weeks into her job — and the redoubtable Elizabeth May will be there to mark the government’s report card.

Finally, there are the veterans. Nobody fought against the injustices of the Harper government more forcefully or bravely. They stood up in the streets and in court to stop Harper from stealing their services.

Now it will be up to Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr — who knows a thing or two about the reality many of these veterans face — to make good on Trudeau’s promise to re-open those nine Veterans Affairs centres shuttered in a venal attempt to “balance” the budget.

The VAC centres looked after urgent needs, and it will be a matter of urgency to re-open them. And will the Liberals proceed with or drop the court case in British Columbia pitting Ottawa against military veterans who believe they are owed a duty of care that transcends the niggardly terms of the New Veterans Charter?

As daunting a business as keeping promises undoubtedly is, we have to cut the new crowd some slack. Even God needed six days to create the world, and the Trudeau team hasn’t even been in government for that long.

But Trudeau has promised three things that could make all the difference to the people who worked so hard for so long to defeat Harper. First, he has pledged to make the business of the country transparent again — in Parliament, in the press and in the public service.

Second, he promised that he will operate at the highest ethical standard — recognition of the fact that, without integrity, a leader has nothing. Finally — and this may be the most important commitment of all — he has put his personal honour on the line with the vow that he won’t let the Canadian people down.

Some of the promises might fall behind schedule. Others might even be broken. And the opposition and the media will be there to measure every centimetre that opens up between the new prime minister’s words and his actions.

But if Trudeau reignites democracy, gets the national conversation going again, knits us back together and restores our image abroad — and if he does all that without breaking faith with the people who gave him the chance to do it, who like him and trust him and may one day even love him — well, much could be forgiven.

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His nine books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. His new book on the Harper majority government, Party of One, is a number one best-seller and has been shortlisted for the Governor-General’s Literary Award for English-language non-fiction.

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