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That said, Trudeau and his advisers would be smart to pay attention to the public reaction to this story, and not just from the redder-than-red Liberal trolls who flood onto social media, hackles raised and teeth bared, at the first criticism of their champion. Justin Trudeau’s party won 39.5 per cent of the popular vote Oct. 19. That means six of every 10 eligible voters chose another party with another leader. The 184 Liberal seats, a commanding majority, are partly the result of a winner-take-all, first-past-the-post electoral system, which Trudeau has promised to abolish, this term. His 184 seats are overwhelmingly urban.

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There’s a great big chunk of country out there, in other words, that is not gleefully embracing the Liberal restoration, or its smug-sounding slogan that “Canada is back,” as though it ever went away. For those voters, and indeed even for many disaffected conservatives and Red Tories who did vote for the Grits, it will not be obvious that Liberalism is synonymous with Canada, or that the world has been transformed by Trudeau’s good intentions.

Non-true believers and swing voters inclined to give the new government a chance, out of simple fair-mindedness, will be looking for signals he means what he said about Conservatives being “not our enemies, but our neighbours.” The PM’s offhand remark to the BBC last week, that his critics were “slightly bewildered,” as he “left them in the dust,” may be true. That doesn’t make it wise to say so. From a leader holding a dominant hand, it comes off as arrogant, which is the Liberal party’s ancient kryptonite. Trudeau will need at least grudging cooperation from non-partisans and fence-sitters when the time comes, for example, to reform the electoral system. He needs his critics now to help with refugee resettlement. Kicking sand in their faces won’t win them over.

It’s inevitable, given the high-profile round of travel in which the new PM, his staff and ministers were almost immediately swept up, that they should be a little gob-smacked and star-struck by the experience. Back in Canada, it’s early December, it’s dark, it’s cold, and working stiffs still get up in the morning and drag themselves to jobs they don’t love, and that don’t allow the luxury of hired help. Something to remember.