15 Canadian things America should trade for to form a pop culture super team
10. Any American politician for Justin Trudeau
I know that Justin Trudeau isn’t a perfect politician. I’m sure that any tried and true Canadian has just as many political opinions as one of their American neighbors, though there’s a decent chance that they will be far more polite about expressing them. And we all know that politicians are people just like the rest of us, which unfortunately means that they are just as flawed and messy as any other human.
Trudeau himself has produced some minor snafus, such as the recent Canada Day speech where he forgot the province of Alberta. To be fair, he quickly apologized and acknowledge his embarrassment at the mistake. More seriously, he’s under investigation for a trip he took to the private island of Aga Khan IV, an imam of a branch of Islam. Because of the trip, Trudeau may have violated the Canadian Conflict of Interest Act.
Yet, while we don’t want to undermine any Canadian’s concerns about these issues, it’s hard to feel too stricken given the state of things south of the Canada-U.S. border. As far as we know, no one is Canada has been collaborating on election fraud or palling around with suspicious Russian officials. Trudeau, meanwhile, publicly identifies as a feminist and has made inroads to addressing Canada’s mistreatment of indigenous people.
And couldn’t we use a little more Canadian-style civility in our own political system? Again, I know that Canadian politics, in general, isn’t perfect. Still, regardless of what your own beliefs are, it’s hard to look at, say, the U.S. Congress and feel like we’re doing everything totally right.