What do you do when your party is 17 points back in the polls and the Opposition Party has promised within days to call for a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons?
If you are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, you go on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Trudeau, who was in New York to attend a United Nations General Assembly, made the mid-town Manhattan trip to The Ed Sullivan Theater to plead his case — not to Colbert’s American viewers, but to Canadians watching at home (on CBS and Global).
Hey — it’s not like he can go on a Canadian late night talk show.
Beyond some jokes about Canadian bacon and the two Ryans (Reynolds and Gosling), Colbert — perhaps the most liberal voice in late night who mocks Donald Trump every chance he gets — asked the PM about the rise of the right in Canada.
“Your opponent,” said Colbert, referring to Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, “has been called Canada’s Trump — and I’m sorry about that.”
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Why, he wondered, “has some form of far right xenophobia grown in a country as polite as Canada?”
Replied Trudeau: “We’re not some magical place of unicorns and rainbows all the time.”
He quickly got in his party’s talking points (newly introduced child and dental care plans; a “price on pollution”). He also acknowledged that “people are hurting” in Canada and having a hard time paying for things such as groceries and rent. And he was frank about simply being Prime Minister for a long time (three election wins in a row) and the conventional thinking that many Canadian voters simply want change.
Coincidentally, Trudeau was on with Colbert for three segments. They even showed a cutesy clip at the end of his dad, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1968-79; 1980-85), taking his kids to an Ottawa screening of “Return of the Jedi” in 1983. Ten-year-old Justin loved it. Fifty-two-year-old Justin, however, had to concede that “The Empire Strikes Back” was the better “Star Wars” movie.
You could almost hear Poilievre’s supporters spitting apple chunks at this broadside from the south.
It sounded as if there were plenty of Canadians in the Ed Sullivan Theatre Monday night. Some may have enjoyed a ride in one of the prime ministers SUVs.
It was also hard to imagine the Liberals landing anyone else inside their party who could get a booking on any US network talk show. Trudeau, who has nothing to lose at this point, is playing whatever cards are left for him to play.
And why not? It is the oldest rule in showbiz: most Canadians don’t think you have made it until you have made it in America.
