While Americans were rendering their verdict on Donald Trump’s politics on Tuesday, Justin Trudeau was on CNN, talking about the “elephant and moose” relationship between Canada and the United States. Canada is still “massively outweighed” in that metaphor, Trudeau told CNN interviewer Poppy Harlow, but “will stand securely in our own strength and our own approach.”Trudeau has been talking about Canada as a moose — not a mouse, as his father once described the country — ever since last summer; around the same time that Trump-Trudeau relations started to get tense. Although both leaders have declared they’ve moved past their disagreement, the legacy of that flame-out was evident in Trudeau’s cautious non-answers to his American interviewer. Where once this Prime Minister might have been tempted to sharply underline his differences with Trump’s brand of populist politics, Trudeau wouldn’t take the bait this time — no pointed comments about the midterms, no backhand swipes at how Trump has been stoking up fear of immigration in recent days. “Americans will make the choice that they need to make,” Trudeau said, noting that Canada’s long history with Quebec-referendum politics taught our citizens to appreciate the value of outsiders keeping their own opinions to themselves. Still, in a week that marks three years since Trudeau was sworn into office and two years since Trump won his election, it’s hard not to notice how the two leaders stand sharply divided on how to handle the populist sentiments surging around the globe. Here in Canada, Trudeau’s government was rolling out a series of anti-poverty measures on Tuesday with some fanfare — the idea being that populism has root causes that government can help fix. Legislation has been introduced in the Commons to make an “official poverty line” in Canada, and Social Development Minister Jea ...
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