Behind the scenes of Melanie Jolie’s salvation

Four years ago, I argued, without difficulty, for the Netflix tax break; In 2021, she will have to defend Canada’s interests in the world. For her close collaborators in the turbulent years past, Montrealer Mélanie Joly’s meteoric rise within Trudeau Cabinet is the result of her hard work to prove her worth, both to her colleagues and to the public.

When Justin Trudeau’s plane landed in the Armenian capital on the evening of October 10, 2018, the fate of former Governor-General Michel Jean was already settled. The Prime Minister announced to her, as soon as she got off her Airbus, that she would be replaced at the head of the International Organization of Francophones (OIF) after only one term.

However, the Prime Minister’s participation in the Yerevan International Summit would have faltered had it not been for the diplomatic work of the Francophonie minister who had previously sent him to tie everything up so that Canada could abandon its candidate without creating a scandal. NS^I Jeanne clung to her position as General Secretary of the Francophone Community, though she did not have the international support needed to survive. The OIF operates unanimously, and the Prime Minister cannot waste his political leverage on this missing issue.

“This is where I saw Melanie’s diplomatic talents,” says a liberal source well aware of the incident. She understood everything that was going on, and made the necessary contacts. The file has landed fine. A liberal official asserts: “The prime minister noticed that.”

Dozens of relatives or former collaborators of Melanie Jolie, most of whom now hold positions that do not allow them to testify in public, said, Should How the politician managed to rise in the government to find herself, Tuesday, in the prestigious position of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada.

Tough start on Netflix

However, Melanie Jolie’s beginnings in the cabinet weren’t the brightest. The Oxford graduate, best known for her candidacy for mayor of Montreal, was elected Canadian Heritage Minister at the age of 36, after being elected with Team Trudeau in 2015. His time in that ministry made headlines for the wrong reasons.

His defense of the liberal promise not to impose any new taxes, not even on the multinational network Netflix, did not happen in Quebec. In early October 2017, she gave a series of interviews, including in the popular program Everyone is talking about itTo announce its cultural policy and investment agreement with Netflix. Instead, it earned her ridicule from JA LePage, who found herself overwhelmed with her unconvincing answers to the host’s and guests’ pressing questions.

As I later explained, Mélanie Joly had nothing to do with Netflix’s TPS vacation, a decision that was eventually overturned. Several sources agree that the minister “went to beats to the government,” even if it meant taking a hit. “It was humiliating,” recalls one of his team members. Another said, “It was very difficult.” A former employee sums up: “I became an icon for the language of wood.”

To this day, his former close associates remain bitter about the tragic incident that left Minister Jolie flogging for years. They believe she was the victim of a merger of tax issues and cultural investments. In July 2018, Melanie Jolie was demoted to the position of Minister of Tourism.

A liberal source believes: “She could have dropped everything there.” On the contrary, Secretary Jolie stuck. Several former collaborators attest to the persistence as evidence of his extraordinary “resilience”.

In tourism, the minister decided to use this drop as an advantage. She worked in her election rally. We went all the deputies in the area to see them all, says a former employee. Our strategy was to take it out and go to all the small communities. make him shine. After all, which place in Canada does not need tourism?

“She is excellent in the gathering crowd [les autres élus libéraux] ‘,” sums up Matthew Bouchard, who was then the principal advisor to Prime Minister Trudeau in Quebec^I Julie, your federal tourism dollars jumped. She repeated her winning formula in the economic development file after the 2019 elections.

“It’s good politics. It has evolved a lot, and it is very strategic. At the end of the line, Quebec’s Minister of Economy and Innovation, Pierre Fitzgibbon, has seen Melanie Jolie in action in recent years. And he has nothing but praise for it.” In the Quebec business community, Melanie won respect. […] It listens to the people in a pragmatic way and raises their demands to the Council of Ministers. His appointment to Foreign Affairs is, in his opinion, good news for the province of Quebec.

French file leader

Responsible for the issue of official languages, Secretary Jolie distinguished herself by quickly criticizing the Ontario government’s decision, headed by Doug Ford, to terminate the University of French Ontario project and abolish the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner. A former deputy testified that he “restored his confidence and pushed him”.

A major issue awaited his re-election in 2019, as the Liberal Party changes its approach to French. The language must be defended not only in the case of minorities, but also in Quebec. Mélanie Joly’s mission is to get the idea across to English-speaking liberals and the rest of the country. At the end of the day, they don’t criticize his white book or his bill. “This is domestic diplomacy,” explains Mathieu Bouchard.

As co-chair of the 2021 election campaign, Secretary Jolie has made it her mission to recruit more women. She contacts the Syndicate Pascal Saint Ong and convinces her to start. “Even though I am older than her, she has been like an older sister to me throughout the campaign. In terms of political organization, she is a machine,” says the new minister.

Despite holding one of the most prestigious positions in government, 42-year-old Melanie Jolie has not given up on her plan to start a family. And the Prime Minister knows that. “This is not at all a hindrance to his project, explains introduction Julie Snyder, who accompanies him in the fertilization process. in the laboratory. exactly the contrary ! She may have a better chance of getting pregnant, and her head will be occupied with other things. “

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