Opinion: Marc Garneau, the ‘antipolitical’, deserves better

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After a useless election, we have a useless cabinet that dumps its most useful member.

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In the run-up to the recent federal elections, he was not alone in being fed up to the teeth with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s stream of mistakes, apologies and lack of sequiturs. Like many on my trip, I nevertheless held my nose and voted for the Liberals to keep Marc Garneau as our MP and continue to give the nation a magnificent and unique federal cabinet minister. With Garneau now out of the cabinet, it is not just the voters at NDG-Westmount who have been duped; all Canadians have lost more than they realize.

True to form, Garneau has decided to accept his fate gracefully, expressing his honor for serving in the cabinet.

I can’t be that zen. Removing Garneau from the cabinet showed a flagrant lack of judgment. A cynic might say that his rare skills, intellectual capacity, and ethics made Trudeau uneasy and that he prefers to surround himself with less demanding and more malleable cabinet ministers. Knowing Garneau as I do, I also suspect that he refused to be a lackey in the office of the almighty Prime Minister. As Minister of Transportation and then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Garneau would do the right thing and the best, not what the PMO told him to do.

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Garneau has been a friend for years. I have developed a growing admiration for his cold blood, his sense of justice, his biculturalism, his critical thinking, his energy, and his (literally) vast experiences. After all, Garneau was a captain in the navy, an astronaut who logged 700 hours in space, and the president of the Canadian Space Agency. He has a Ph.D. in engineering and 11 honorary degrees.

But Canada’s loss is bigger than the end of Garneau’s wise contribution to the cabinet. We are all wringing our hands over the sorry state of politics today: how little trust is made of politicians, yet they are doing the most important jobs in the country. When a prime minister removes the most qualified member of the cabinet, his only justification might be that Garneau was sacrificed in the name of gender parity. But why choose the best one to go? Is the price of diversity a sharp drop in competition?

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With this act, Trudeau is part of the current practice of the Canadian political class of self-harm by further alienating the public. Garneau is an anti-politician. He jokes about her lack of glamor and sparkle; But haven’t we had enough politicians with the fake Hollywood charisma? Shouldn’t the political model we Canadians seek be Lester B. Pearson or Angela Merkel and not megalomaniacal carnival criers like Donald Trump? Shouldn’t we look for substance rather than superficiality in our politicians?

Garneau learned in the navy, and with his fellow astronauts, the life-or-death importance of teamwork and sharing the burden for the common good. You also learned that facts matter. Both skills are rare in today’s politicians.

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Temperament aside, Garneau is not a career politician either; He first showed his mettle and only then did he decide to pursue politics. It is professional politicians who are now everywhere; they have no idea what the real world is like.

I may not put it that way, but I am convinced that Garneau sees his primary allegiance not to the Liberal Party, nor to the prime minister, but to the people of Canada. You understand that, as an elected official, you have a sacred fiduciary responsibility to them and to no one else.

Joinery requires seasoned wood, not just flashy veneers. Trudeau became involved in a political showcase of yesteryear when he removed Garneau from his window. By his way of doing politics, Garneau points to the future. Trudeau points in the other direction.

Peter F. Trent is a former Westmount Mayor and author of The Merger Delusion, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.