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Justin Trudeau seems nice. Nice smile, nice wave, nice words, nice way of not posing for pictures beside the Ford bullies on the eve of the election.

It says nothing nice about the state of our politics that anyone should have to care. The strength of Trudeau’s leadership ought to be measured not by his character but by whether he makes the question of character less critical for Canadian democracy.

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Trudeau himself might not be very nice for very long. That’s not a dig — that’s history. Given half the chance, any one of us could be found cackling in a corner, rocking back and forth on our heels, clutching a crown.

We could be Tsaritsa Annas, forcing our enemies to marry ugly strangers, wear court jester costumes as matrimonial garb, and spend their wedding nights in palaces constructed entirely of ice. We could be Pharaoh Khufus, pimping out our own daughters so we could get more cash so we could buy more slaves so we could build more pyramids. We could be Emperor Caligulas, dispatching our navy to the Aegean to wage war on our arch nemesis, Neptune, god of the sea, before scheming to appoint our favourite horse to the senate.