As phony populism goes, the 2015 election campaign that ultimately made Justin Trudeau prime minister of Canada really was one for the record books. “[I am] ready,” Trudeau declared, “to do what my opponents won’t: ask our wealthiest to pay more tax, so our middle class can pay less.” This line, or some version of it, was repeated so often that millions of Canadians quite sincerely believed they were voting in an activist, left-wing government that intended to squeeze the rich.

That was bunk, of course: even a cursory look at the fine print quickly revealed that Trudeau’s proposed tax hike on incomes over $222,000 was both very small and offset by a tax cut that mostly benefited the only slightly less well-off. As political messaging, however, it was both resonant and effective — so much so that he has continued to invoke the same basic framing for years, bringing it up in Parliament on, counting conservatively, over a hundred occasions. For the international press in particular, Trudeau’s posturing was pure catnip, and readers on at least two continents were duly served headlines about the radical ambition of the new administration taking office north of the forty-ninth parallel.

In the cloying months of Trudeaumania that followed, there was virtually no counternarrative to be found anywhere in the mainstream media. Omitted from the story almost entirely was a series of remarks delivered to business audiences that suggested the Trudeau project was actually something quite different — and one much more in keeping with the grand old Canadian tradition of elite noblesse oblige. A passage from 2013 was particularly emblematic: