Justin Trudeau’s first three years in office: Could his ways benefit The UK?

Posted By: Voice of London 4 November 2018

Justin Trudeau became the Prime Minister of Canada on November 4, 2015, exactly three years ago today. In that time he has accomplished a lot and made various changes; both within the Canadian government and on a nationwide scale.

To commemorate the third anniversary of his time in office, here are the top three Trudeau-isms that would have a positive impact on the UK if borrowed by our government:

A gender-equal cabinet

  • In a world where politics is dominated by the men, Trudeau famously made sure his cabinet screams equality, because, in his words at the time, “it’s 2015!”
  • The cabinet is exactly 50 percent male and 50 percent female
  • At the Women in the World Summit in New York, Trudeau explained the background to his plan for gender equality in the cabinet: “Before it could be 2015, it had to be 2014, and 2013 and 2012, which were years in which I went out, and my team went out, and convinced great, successful women — community leaders or global leaders — to step up and run for politics in a very divisive time. It was really difficult.”
  • His “Ask Her to Run” campaign aimed to empower women to run for office as studies at the time showed that men were more willing to do so than women.

Nation-wide legalisation of cannabis

  • On October 17th 2018, Canada became the second country (behind Uruguay) to fully legalise the recreational use of cannabis nation-wide.
  • The medical use of cannabis in Canada had already been legal since as early as 2001 to treat conditions such as epileptic seizures, anorexia, and chronic pain.
  • Studies show that legalising cannabis recreationally can result in a drop in crime rate and alcohol related deaths, while also creating an enormous amount of tax revenue.
  • See also: Would you like a joint?

Carbon tax

  • A new carbon tax (similar to Jamie Oliver’s sugar tax) being implemented by Trudeau aims to help save the environment from man-made climate change by cutting down on carbon emissions.
  • The tax is an effort to discourage people from using vehicles and machines that produce of high levels of carbon dioxide emissions, a fiscal nudge to cut down the nation’s carbon footprint.
  • The Liberal party, of which Trudeau is the leader, has claimed it will be returning 90 percent of the taxes collected by this scheme directly back to Canadians.

https://twitter.com/greensjeremy/status/1056429679513665536

Now that Theresa May is also on her way to her third anniversary as prime minister (sworn in July 13, 2016), could she benefit from taking a leaf out of Justin Trudeau’s book?

Words: Georgia Hansen | Subbing: Memuna Konteh

Featured image: Paul Weaver on Unsplash

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