Justin Trudeau’s flying unicorn hits a storm

TO OPPOSE the government of Justin Trudeau has been no fun. Canada’s prime minister has shrugged off controversies that would have hurt a less charismatic politician. Few Canadians seemed to mind when he accepted a helicopter ride from the Aga Khan to holiday on his private island in the Bahamas; most yawned when the government paid C$10.5m ($8.4m) to settle a lawsuit brought by a former inmate of Guantánamo. After a flattering cover story on Mr Trudeau appeared in Rolling Stone in July, Michelle Rempel, an MP from the opposition Conservative Party, vented her frustration: the press treat him and his team as “Prince Charmings who can do no wrong, all while flying through a rainbow on a unicorn”.

But mistakes and mishaps are starting to hurt Mr Trudeau’s Liberal government as it nears the mid-point of its four-year term on October 19th. Among the goofs are a cultural policy that enraged Quebec, the French-speaking province, and a tax-reform proposal that riles doctors, farmers and owners of small businesses. Other problems are outside the Liberals’ control. They include the renegotiation of the North American Free-Trade Agreement (a pact with Mexico and the United States that Donald Trump keeps threatening to rip up), and the cancellation of a planned oil pipeline, which angered the western province of Alberta.