It is tempting to say that Justin Trudeau, Canada's new prime minister, was destined to lead his country. The son of Pierre Trudeau — the charismatic prime minister who served from 1968 to 1979, and then from 1980 to 1984 — he spent the first 12 years of his life in the prime minister's residence, acquiring an unconscious appreciation of how politics works and the tools for success. That assumption sells both Trudeau and the Canadian electorate short, however. Trudeau's Liberal Party victory in last week's parliamentary election was never a given. Trudeau worked hard to exploit a sense that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ruling Conservative Party did not reflect national sentiment nor the times. The challenge now is for Trudeau to govern as responsibly as did Harper.
Harper's defeat was a stunner. He united conservatives to win three consecutive elections since 2006. Those victories reflected his government's successes. Canada weathered the 2007-2009 global financial crisis with nary a scratch — no big financial failures, no bailouts and only a blip in economic performance. In true conservative fashion, budgets were balanced, bureaucracies cut and taxes reduced — all without cutting Canada's respected and revered welfare state.
While a steady hand was important to Canada's resilience, equally significant was the country's natural resource wealth, which cushioned the blows from the crisis and positioned Canada to exploit the recovery that was to follow. The significance of management was evident, however, when the global economy slowed again this year: The Ottawa government was still able to balance the budget ahead of schedule.