Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau caused quite a commotion, setting the social media world on fire and creating a national buzz filled with tales of high intrigue, nefarious schemes and undercover conspiracies.
And what was the root cause of all this speculation and fuss?
It had nothing to do with managing the country’s affairs or the climate crisis that’s threatening to destroy the planet or the fact the world is teetering ever so precariously on the brink of another major war that would surely cost untold death and destruction.
Nope. It was none of these, or any other major issue, that deserves our devout attention. Instead, we were fixated on the prime minister’s new beard that all of a sudden showed up on the man’s face in a photograph that was released around the dawn of the new year. It was a growth that prompted many conspiracy theorists to ponder, “what’s Trudeau hiding” or “what’s he up to?”
Some of the most profound thinkers even ventured to explain the prime minister must dye his hair because his beard has streaks of grey running through it.
It must surely be a slow news day when the prime minister’s beard becomes fodder for debate amongst friends, causes arguments to erupt, makes national headlines, leads newscasts and generates inches of copy in newspapers. Yikes.
Yes, folks. This is the world in which we live.
I know I’m not the prime minister, but I have to be perfectly honest and come clean with all of you lest I be accused of being biased — I’ve had a beard for the past 40 years. Now that’s a headline.
That’s right. I started growing my beard when I was 18 and I haven’t shaved it since. In fact, my wife and I have been married for 32 years and she has never seen me with a cleanly-shaven face. Not sure what that says about my face, but she has threatened to leave me if I ever remove the beard. But I digress. This isn’t about my beard and, in truth, it shouldn’t be about Trudeau’s either.
In all honestly, it should be about the many serious issues that threaten our very existence like the fact that U.S. President Donald Trump continues to play a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the powers in the Middle East. The decision to take out a powerful Iranian general weeks ago pushed the world closer to the eruption of global war than it has been in many years, yet we’ve burned up precious hours talking about Trudeau’s salt and pepper-coloured beard.
It should also be about the catastrophic wildfires that have scorched 18 million acres of land in Australia, razed more than 2,000 home and businesses, displaced thousands of residents, wiped out millions of animals and killed nearly 30 people. These unprecedented fires have been burning for months and, by all accounts, will continue to rage out of control for many more months, fuelled by record-breaking temperatures caused by global warming, yet we became fixated on Trudeau’s facial hair.
And it should be about the 176 innocent souls who perished on Jan. 8 when their plane crashed at the Tehran, Iran airport. Among the deceased were dozens and dozens of Canadians, all of them immigrants, who died when the plane was shot from the sky by a surface-to-air missile launched as a result of the U.S.-Iranian military stand-off, yet through all of this tragedy Trudeau’s beard continued to receive attention.
I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about over Trudeau’s beard. Like it or not, he is not the first Canadian prime minister to sport facial hair. In fact, based on images found on the internet that look like official portraits, several leaders in our nation’s history have had beards, most notably Alexander Mackenzie and Sir Mackenzie Bowell had thick facial growths.
And while Sir Robert Borden didn’t have a full beard he did have quite the impressive moustache that would be the pride and possibly even the envy of most men. Louis St. Laurent also sported a minor a cookie duster, albeit not in the same league as Borden’s outstanding ’stache.
Let’s be real here, folks. While I’ve obviously been poking fun at our obsession over Trudeau’s beard, it’s time to get our priorities straight. When I consider the attention Trudeau’s beard garnered over the past couple of weeks, I’m reminded of that old saying, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” only we’re fixated on facial hair while the world burns.
It’s time to get over it and move on. If there’s some sort of nefarious conspiracy behind Trudeau’s beard I’m sure we’ll learn about it in due time, but I suspect the prime minister’s decision to grow a beard — which is actually a pretty common thing for Canadian men to do in the wintertime — was more about wanting to change his proverbial image than taking our minds off of the business of the day as if he had something to hide, as many have suggested.
It’s a distraction, to be sure, but a distraction of who’s making?
We live in serious times with many issues like war, climate change, global warming, hunger, poverty, disease, and fresh water shortages that deserve undivided attention. These are the issues on which we should be focused, not a few sprigs of silver and black hair on the face of our prime minister, and that’s the view from here.
Vernon Oickle writes The View From Here column, which appears weekly in the South Shore Breaker. He can be reached at [email protected]
