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But try though Mulcair might, and try though we in the Parliamentary Press Gallery will, it will be difficult to make Agagate, or heligate, stick for long, outside the Ottawa bubble. It’s of a piece with Stephen Harper’s zooming down a deserted runway in the Northwest Territories on an ATV in 2010, in apparent contravention of Transport Canada rules. Harper’s critics brayed. No one else cared.

No doubt through gritted teeth, Trudeau has wanly repeated he’ll answer federal ethics commissioner Mary Dawson’s questions. He takes this matter very seriously — and so forth. The PM will likely, before long, express remorse for not having been more careful about filling out the requisite paperwork before accepting his old friend’s offer of a vacation (though the Conflict of Interest Act does provide some leeway for MPs to accept gifts from friends.) And that will be that.

Even if there were more to this than meets the eye, however, it would likely drop off front pages within a week, at the outside. The reason is that Trudeau has a bigger problem, in the form of the soon-to-be presidency of Donald Trump, barreling towards him like the locomotive in Alex Colville’s famous painting, Horse and Train. Specifically, the PM’s problem is one of language, and tone.

Before Christmas, you will recall, Trudeau was coming under withering fire for cash-to-access fundraising events offered to Liberal supporters at $1,500 a head. That was cutting into Liberal support, albeit not too deeply, yet. The apparent first response has been the town-hall tour, which hit Fredericton, N.B., Tuesday morning. Billed as an opportunity for ordinary Canadians to ask questions of their prime minister, it has been that.