No ‘walk in the snow’ moment for PM
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/12/2023 (643 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
“You know, everyone talking about, ‘Oh, maybe it’s the walk in the snow this coming week’ … it’s like, Jesus Christ! Come on.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
The Prime Minister of Canada was being interviewed this week by a person who I must tell you in the interests of full disclosure, is one of my lifelong friends.
His name is Terry DiMonte. Terry is a Radio Hall of Fame Superstar who lit up the airwaves in Manitoba in the 1980s on the most powerful FM radio station in North America, 92CITI-FM, born at Polo Park on April Fools in 1978. That was the year Terry started his career in Churchill. CITI FM was only six years old, just a child when Terry DiMonte joined the radio station that had featured Brother Jake Edwards and the ageless Howard Mandshein. While Terry was a rising radio superstar on CITI FM, I was in a different radio booth less than 30 yards away anchoring news and commentary every morning with Ron Able on the legendary pop station, CKY58 a.k.a. KY58.
Ethan Cairns / Canadian Press Files
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set on leading his party to victory in 2025.
Both Terry DiMonte and I were raised in Montreal. Neither of us knew much about Manitoba before coming to work. I landed at Polo Park in 1983 and Terry joined our team one year later. Both of us fell in love with the people of the prairie. It never mattered to either of us that our peers down east in Montreal and Toronto would occasionally mock us for plying our trade in a medium-sized media market. The size of Manitoba’s population never mattered to us. What did mattered was the size of their hearts. While neither of us was a cardiologist and didn’t pretend to be on the radio, we both agreed that we had never met bigger hearts than the ones we fell in love with right here. While we were both brought up in the church known as the Montreal Forum, it wasn’t heavy lifting for us to make the Winnipeg Jets the team we rooted for the most even if the visitors to the Winnipeg arena were the Habs. We called ourselves Winnipeggers and Manitobans.
Just in case you’re wondering what the quote at the top of this column has do with my Dec. 23 Christmas Card to Free Press readers, it’s this. The quote from Canada’s Prime Minister is an MRI of his genuine mindset, answering the most tedious question in Canadian commentary. When is he going to take his walk in the snow, a phrase coined by the PM’s dad. Pierre Elliot Trudeau took his walk in the snow when he was 64. His son was born on Christmas and so Justin Trudeau come Monday will still be 12 years younger than his dad was when he made the decision to leave politics. My pal Terry got to know the PM, long before he got into politics.
It doesn’t matter to me whether you like or dislike the PM or his politics. It’s impossible not to love Terry DiMonte, the person who was having his annual end of year conversation with his pal, the PM. While the pundits will continue to speculate about when the PM is leaving, the truth was told to my pal Terry. The PM has no plan to leave because he has every intention of leading his party to victory in 2025. He doesn’t give a flying fig about polls. He never sees himself as a loser and has no plan to take that walk in the snow. He will only leave if Manitobans and their fellow Canadians make that decision at the ballot box. That’s called democracy, something Terry and I took for granted when we shared radio space in the ‘80s at Polo Park. I’m sad to report that neither of us takes democracy for granted during the Christmas of 2023.
I am not Santa and so I won’t be coming down your chimney on Monday. But I want you to know that in 2024, I will continue to share the gifts given to me by Santa 40 years ago, here in Manitoba. He gave me the gift of confidence to tell you the truth without jargon, weasel words or spin. Santa gave me the gift of trust.
I have trusted Manitobans with my career and my life for 40 years. You can reliably bet the farm that I will always love you. Merry Christmas to you, your family, and friends.
Thank you for being my best friend.
Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster.
charles@charlesadler.com