Justin Trudeau and the play of celebrity in the 2015 Canadian federal election campaign

ABSTRACT

This article examines the 2015 Canadian federal election in which the Liberal Party took office under the leadership of Justin Trudeau. Celebrity was a dominant theme during the campaign, applied by the Conservative Party to discredit Trudeau by playing on his youthful good looks and ‘new masculinity’. The Conservative campaign drew attention to Trudeau and its own aggressive tactics and entered into a spiral of negativity that the Liberals would capitalise on with optimistic and progressive themes. We argue that the effects of celebrity politics on elections must be studied within the context of national–cultural attitudes towards celebrity, media characterisation of candidates and political parties prior to the election campaign, previous campaigns, the duration of the official campaign as well as the existence of the ‘permanent campaign’ on the part of governments, and the dynamics of the celebrity theme as the campaign progresses. In the context of Canada, particular state–culture dynamics are at work that legitimate the celebrity politician.

KEYWORDS:

• Celebrity
• political campaign
• Trudeau
• Canada
• politics
• advertising

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Alex Marland (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Steve Marmura (St. Francis Xavier University), and the anonymous reviewers for their help with this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mireille Lalancette

Mireille Lalancette is currently professor in political communication at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada. She has published about the construction of the mediatised image of politicians, gender, and representation, and has studied the use and impact of social media by citizens, grassroots organisations, and Canadian political actors. Researcher for the Groupe de recherche en communication politique, she is the author, with Marie-Josée Drolet and Marie-Ève Caty, of the ABC de l’argumentation pour les professionnels de la santé ou toute autre personne qui souhaite convaincre (Presses de l’Université du Québec). She is also the editor of What’s #Trending In Canadian Politics? Understanding Transformations in Power, Media, and the Public Sphere (UBC Press, forthcoming in 2019) with Vincent Raynauld and Erin Crandall. Her work has been published in Canadian and international research publications in both French and English.

Patricia Cormack

Patricia Cormack is Professor of Sociology at St. Francis Xavier University, Canada. She researches celebrity, state, and power in the context of Canada. With James F. Cosgrave, she has published Desiring Canada: CBC Contests, Hockey Violence, and other Stately Pleasures (University of Toronto Press). This book discusses the Canadian state in terms of the uses of pleasure towards building national identity and producing statism in its citizens. With Cosgrave she has also researched the state celebrity within the context of Canada, as well as state celebrity scandal.