Trudeau says image-making is part of governing

Justin Trudeau poses for a selfie with Pride Parade-goers in Vancouver, B.C., on Aug. 2, 2015. (Aphinity / Twitter)

OTTAWA -- Justin Trudeau says it's his job to beam words and images around the country and the world, but the exercise isn't just about broadcasting -- it's about tuning in his receiver.

The Liberal prime minister has garnered global attention, and not a little partisan grousing at home, with his sky-high public profile and media courtship since winning office in the Oct. 19 election.

In a wide-ranging, round-table interview with The Canadian Press this week, Trudeau said he'll continue to wade into the public and media fray, making the case that what some see as simple self-promotion is really about good democratic governance.

"I need people to stay involved and stay engaged and stay positive about what we're doing," said the man already derisively dubbed "Prime Minister Selfie."

Those thousands of photos, he suggested, represent a two-way contract -- giving citizens license to demand better of government and Trudeau license to expect better of them.

"The idea of checking in every four years to say whether you like the person in government or whether you want to change them is not what engaged citizenship is in the 21st century," he said. "So the more I can stay attentive to people and close to them, the better I will be at serving them."

Trudeau said the great danger of his job is "disconnecting, getting stuck behind walls and motorcades and in the bubble," a fate he he says he'll resist despite some impassive skepticism on one hand and sky-high public expectations on the other.

"I counter that by knowing that I'm allowed to have high expectations of Canadians."

The 43-year-old's saccharine optimism can be confounding for a press corps calibrated to measure industrial-strength cynicism.

The previous Conservative government was, if anything, more acutely image conscious than the Liberals, openly postulating that Stephen Harper was best served in carefully measured drams, like an 18-year-old whisky or after-dinner bitters.

So when the already ubiquitous Trudeau popped up last week in the pages of Vogue, the American bible of high fashion (from an interview and fashion shoot conducted on his first full day in office, no less!), there was a loud, harrumphing chorus from what one pundit is calling "Grump Nation."

Trudeau shrugs it off as the perspective of those who consider Parliament's daily question period high entertainment. Most don't.

"People get their news through a variety of sources. And for a lot of people, certainly in the United States, reading that Vogue article will have been the only thing they see about Canada or Canadian politics all year," he said.

"So how we get people thinking differently about Canada -- about what we're doing, how we contrast our inclusiveness and openness on the issue of refugees, for example, with some of the narratives we see in the States right now -- is really important."

In other words, there is calculation in Trudeau's behaviour. But he maintains it is not motivated by self-interested partisanship.

There is also danger in pursuing such a high profile.

The prime minister's 75-minute CP interview late Thursday afternoon capped a day that included a two-plus-hour meeting with indigenous leaders, a press scrum on Parliament Hill and an hour-long town hall meeting with a live audience sponsored by Maclean's magazine. Thursday he was in Vancouver doing it all over again.

For all its storied politeness, Canada is also characterized by tall poppy syndrome, in which the heads are lopped off those who grow too tall. There's no national myth equivalent to "American exceptionalism" for those huddled north of the 49th parallel.

Harper's carefully cultivated, beige everyman persona was a much safer political bet than Trudeau's high-wire act.

And Trudeau, the son of Canada's 15th prime minister, is acutely aware of the price of life in the spotlight.

The Ottawa bureau of the Canadian Press Ottawa bureau is decorated with prints of iconic CP news photos shot over the decades: sprinter Ben Johnson's ill-fated Olympic 100-metre finish; Wayne Gretzky's final NHL game on Canadian ice; Brian Mulroney stabbing an accusatory finger at John Turner; Jean Chretien unwittingly wearing a blue UN peacekeeper's helmet backwards.

A surprising number of the photos feature Pierre Trudeau, whose antics over 16 years in office made the careers of many news photographers.

As the clock in CP's Ottawa boardroom slipped past the allotted hour that Trudeau's handlers had agreed to for the interview, the prime minister's eyes fell on a trio of photos hanging below the clock.

The middle photo features Pierre Trudeau in his rakish "Mandrake the Magician" outfit, slinking through a sea of Calgary Stampeder cowboy hats at the 1970 Grey Cup in Toronto.

"What year did my dad wear that hat? And how many years will it take me before I have to wear such a hat to attract attention?" Trudeau mused aloud in French.

Trudeau suggested the demand for "selfie" photos from the public will wane, but if his father's experience holds, people will still be stopping him on the street to say hello for years to come.

"I never needed that kind of attention," added the son of a prime minister.

"All my life, people would approach me with a negative image because they didn't like my father. Or with a positive image because they liked my father. That had nothing to do with me. I had to learn to keep these impressions separate from my own opinion of myself. I had to know not to listen to those who didn't like me for no reason -- and not listen to those who liked me for no reason."

Trudeau says that upbringing serves him well.

"So asking me how I will feel when there are fewer selfies? It won't change a thing for me. Because for me this work is about serving Canadians, knowing how to run the country well. It is not a popularity contest."