I’m working on a few leads for offbeat summer stories, so I unplugged a bit after the big federal election. But it’s been hard to miss some of the commentary about the Carney government’s difficult first steps. I’ve heard some of the same stuff around Ottawa: The “new” government is having serious trouble staffing up, the first scrums from cabinet veterans were embarrassing, the policy signals are mixed, and so on. None of this spells disaster, but it contrasts with the “steady hand on the tiller” brand that Mark Carney offered in the campaign.

Perhaps most striking were Susan Delacourt’s Star column on Wednesday, and Chantal Hébert’s appearance on Radio-Canada radio’s morning Tout un matin show on Tuesday.

Chantal (my translation from French): “There’s one word that comes back from every conversation I’ve had about the way the Prime Minister’s Office is working, and that’s ‘chaos.’”

Delacourt: Carney “isn’t getting much of a honeymoon… there’s no question that this particular shuffle has given the prime minister’s team a morale issue to handle right off the bat.”

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The dinnertime politics shows have been full of discussions about housing minister Gregor Robertson — how can housing be more affordable without costing less? — and the week-long recovery from finance minister François-Philippe Champagne’s hapless remarks about budget timing. But what strikes me about Chantal and Susan is that both report they’re hearing these things from Liberals, and that neither would ordinarily lie in wait for the first Carney gaffe.

I think the Carney government is legitimately off to a shaky start. As I started to puzzle through it, I immediately started thinking about Justin Trudeau’s ass.

Perhaps I should explain.

One of the surprises, as I re-read the archival record 18 months ago for my short book about Justin Trudeau’s 2024 political difficulties, was how extensive the worldwide coverage was for a 2017 photo of Trudeau’s butt. The precipitating event was this Instagram post by @Dopequeenpheebs:

This led to more international coverage of, uh, Canadian politics than we are used to seeing. From outlets that didn’t usually cover Canadian politics.

This was followed by moderately revisionist think pieces, including this from Australia (must resist the urge to call it Down Under):

My point, and I do have one, is that there will always be chatter about something.

In early 2017, Trudeau was still fairly popular in Canada. The Liberals were routinely polling 10 or 15 points ahead of the Conservatives, who hadn’t yet found a permanent replacement for Stephen Harper. Trudeau’s early missteps — coverage of the Aga Khan vacation affair had just begun to break, and provoked the first temporary decline in the Liberals’ popularity — had not reached the international celebrity press. So the joyful contemplation of the prime ministerial hindquarters was only an extreme example of generally positive coverage, not just for Trudeau, but for a sense that this had become Trudeau’s Canada.