Idle hands

Jamil Jivani saves CUSMA

Jamil Jivani and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. From Jivani’s X account

I’m leery of commenting on Jamil Jivani’s trip to Washington because it’s become another one of the totems people use to identify their team allegiance. Well, who am I kidding: Part of the appeal of commenting on Jamil Jivani’s trip to Washington is that it’s become another one of the totems people use to identify their team allegiance.

I’m going to begin by discussing this trip in the abstract — is this the sort of thing that, generally, should happen? — before discussing Jivani’s public account of what actually happened.

On Substack Notes, which is supposed to be the polite social network, somebody posted about Jivani saying Donald Trump told him he “loves” Canadians. Some of the responses:

Yikes. Similarly, Jivani’s more enthusiastic claims about his trip are being taken as proof of triumph by people who hope he can help their side of whatever debate they think we’re all having.

We don’t have a lot of debates any more. People simply smear themselves with their champion’s colours. We saw this with Mark Carney’s Davos speech, with Kamala Harris’s Brat Summer of 2024, with COVID vaccine mandates: while it might eventually become possible to discuss the merits of these things in some kind of nuanced way, while they were happening they were so many gang colours, and to hell with you if you were slow picking the right side.

I came in for a bit of this On Substack Notes after I sat myself down to decide what I thought of Jivani going to Washington. I decided that, as a strong rule of thumb, people should be free to do stuff. For those who aren’t on Notes, here’s what I wrote:

I actually wasn’t merely cracking wise here. Point (2) is the important one. Let me belabour it, because to me it’s really important. A lot of people who seem to think they’re intelligent also think that Canada is, or should be, the sort of place where you need the prime minister’s permission to travel or have a meeting. It is not that sort of place. It should never become that sort of place. Partly because those very same people would absolutely not want to depend on the approval of the prime minister for their own travel and meetings if the PM’s name were Poilievre. Partly because no prime minister has time to patrol this sort of thing. Mostly because we live in a democracy, next to a country we would prefer remain a democracy, and getting elected to Parliament does not erase Jamil Jivani’s rights as a citizen, which are yours and mine.