walkom is one of the few writers in canada that isn't an old tory.

he's right about pierre. and, he's right about canadians. canada's admiration for castro is less about who castro was or what he did and more about the symbolism of being a pain in the side of the empire. and, our solidarity with the trudeaus is symbolic on that level. it's some good old-fashioned anti-americanism.

you could say something about justin living in a different era, about him not sharing these anti-american instincts. or, at least not yet. i mean, a great society must be a just one, right? lbj may have famously roughed up pearson a little. but, it took a nixon for pierre to really look the other way.

but, insofar as the different era is concerned, i think we're all missing the obvious: justin trudeau had no relationship with fidel castro. and, he snubbed him on the only chance he had to meet him.

i'm not sure correlation implies causality, here, regarding the media smackdown. why would he have gone in the first place?

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/11/30/justin-trudeau-loses-his-nerve-skips-fidel-castros-funeral-walkom.html

"i've been called worse things by better people." - pierre trudeau reacting to reports that richard nixon called him an asshole.

i'm not sure that nixon was ever seen as diplomatic. but, this is likely a fairly quaint precursor to trump, who is certainly not.

nixon and pet were pretty far apart on the spectrum. trump and justin are pretty much the same dynamic, but with the elastic pulled right out of shape...

it was exasperation with nixon that had trudeau flirting with the non-aligned movement.