Article content continued

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Freeland helped precipitate the Riyadh problem with one of Canada’s patented finger-waving statements, chastising it for a substandard human rights record. This is such a commonplace practice with Ottawa that Freeland was caught off guard when the Saudis, now under the direction of Mohammad bin Salman — at 33 their own ambitious young princeling — took serious offence. The blowback, including a freeze on investments and a lecture for the Liberals on their impudence, was enough to rattle diplomats and inspire the effort to quietly settle the affair.

Canadians love it when the rest of the world takes notice of us, especially if it’s with a tinge of envy. But it doesn’t go over so well when the attention is less positive, and Trudeau has racked up an unimpressive record of fumbles that has evidently begun to outweigh the admiration of the selfie crowd. Embarrassments in China, Vietnam, India; grandstanding in New York and Paris; the ill-received treatment of Donald Trump at a Group of Seven summit, after which the thin-skinned president tweeted about Canada’s “meek and mild” PM being “very dishonest & weak.” Not that Trump doesn’t richly deserve any opposition he gets, but Trudeau has noticeably let Freeland bear most of the U.S. flak of late.

With an election just a year away, Trudeau’s image is a major concern for the government. The Liberals won in 2015 mainly on the strength of his popularity, which in turn drew greatly on his looks and likability. His personal standing with voters thus becomes even more crucial as Liberals head into the 2019 campaign with a domestic agenda tattered by serious holes — no reconciliation headway, no electoral revamp, no pipeline, no balanced budget — and a record on the international front with little to brag about.