After receiving the backroom blessing of Democratic Party powerbrokers, Kamala Harris quickly closed the presidential polling gap — though without granting a single interview. “Unburdened by what has been,” to quote the new Democratic nominee, many voters enthusiastically support her candidacy simply because she is not Donald Trump. But what she stands for should be of intense interest, not only to American voters, but to America’s allies and rivals around the world. For Canadians, the many parallels between Harris and Justin Trudeau are uncanny.

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Joe Oliver: The uncanny parallels between Trudeau and Harris Back to video

In both cases, personal brands were created out of whole cloth with the shameless collaboration of mainstream media. Justin Trudeau was launched as leader of the Liberal Party after a remarkably undistinguished career whose apex was as opposition critic for secondary education and sport. Democrats want everyone to forget that last month Harris was a clear political liability, with 54 per cent of Americans viewing her unfavourably. Like Trudeau, Harris has been anointed in the hope she will win, rather than for what she has accomplished, and with barely a thought about how she will govern.

“Sunny ways my friends, sunny ways” evokes a distant memory of crushed expectations and broken promises. Harris pledges the “politics of joy” yet is the standard-bearer of (decidedly un-joyful) “Trump derangement syndrome.” And she is distancing herself from Joe Biden’s weak (and joyless) track record on the border, inflation, crime and foreign policy. Paradoxically, her perceived ineffectiveness as vice-president may help her pull it off: having had little influence in his administration she may evade blame for its results, even though she was an enthusiastic advocate. She is also wisely backtracking on her own radical positions, like de-funding the police, reduced penalties for shoplifting and banning fracking, which is an important ballot question in must-win Pennsylvania.

Justin Trudeau is the farthest-left prime minister in Canadian history. If her San Francisco past is prologue, Kamala Harris is a contender for that honour in the U.S. In spite of a centrist acceptance speech, she is likely to adopt many of the same dysfunctional progressive policies that have already played out in Canada: bigger government, profligate spending, targeted giveaways, tax hikes, support for favoured unions, intrusive regulation, softness on crime, identity politics, further limits on free speech and climate alarmism.

Although light on policy pronouncements so far, Harris has promised a first-ever federal ban on “price gouging” in the grocery and food industries, which the Washington Post characterized as a populist gimmick likely to lead to food shortages. She supports rent controls, which reduce the supply of rental housing, and a $25,000 gift to first-time homebuyers that can only raise the price of housing. She also favours a 44.6-per cent capital gains tax, the highest in American history, and a weird 25-per cent tax on unrealized capital gains of the ultra-rich that three-quarters of Americans oppose.

In her acceptance speech, Kamala Harris declared that growing the middle class will be a defining goal of her presidency. Justin Trudeau speaks frequently of “standing up for middle class Canadians and those working hard to join it,” although personal prosperity, as measured by GDP per capita, is near 2017 levels.

Immigration is a problem for both Trudeau and Harris. Canada’s population grew by more than a million people in less than a year, due to permanent and temporary immigration (which a UN report calls a “breeding ground for contemporary slavery”). The result is a housing crisis, exacerbated inflation and increased demand for social services. Sixty per cent of Canadians, a record high this century, now believe we are accepting too many immigrants. Undocumented immigration is also a very big issue in the American election, over eight million migrants having crossed the border illegally since Biden became president and Harris was assigned to deal with the issue.

On the Middle East, Trudeau was quick to abandon moral clarity and equivocate between a democratic ally and the genocidal terrorists trying to destroy it. He pledged not to sell arms to Israel, urged a ceasefire and called military action in southern Gaza “completely unacceptable” — even if not going in would assure Hamas’ survival as a fighting force. Harris was in full-throated agreement with Biden’s policy of urging the Jewish state not to respond after each attack, whether the Oct. 7 massacre, the 300 Iranian drones and rockets (“Take the win,” Biden advised Israel’s government), the Houthi rockets aimed at Tel Aviv or the more than 19,000 Hezbollah rockets raining down on northern Israel. Granted, America has been a critical source of military equipment, but its very public leaning on Israel stiffens Hamas resistance to a ceasefire.

Crime is a growing focus in both countries. In Canada, violent crime is up by 33 per cent since 2015, arguably a result of Liberal catch-and-release policies. In the U.S., 63 per cent of respondents, a new high, tell Gallup the crime problem is extremely/very serious — which many people attribute to de-fund the police initiatives in Democratic cities.

Climate alarmism and hostility to the energy industry are Trudeau’s principal obsessions. As for Harris, she cast the tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate on the deceptively-named “Inflation Reduction Act,” which was in fact the biggest climate bill in U.S. history. On the cultural front, Harris once enthused that “Everyone needs to be woke,” while Canada under Trudeau has been called the wokest country in the world. The two leaders are soulmates on DEI, affirmative action, critical race theory and equality of results over equality of opportunity.

Despite the many similarities between them, Trudeau’s abysmal nine-year track record does not necessarily foretell Harris’ political future. But it does give pause.

Joe Oliver was minister of natural resources and then of finance in the Harper government.