Why Liz Truss — Britain’s incoming, hardline PM — has a ‘sweet spot’ for Canada

Long before Liz Truss was elected to lead the Conservative party and serve as Britain's next prime minister, she was a 12-year-old girl in a pink sweater with shoulder-length brown hair and big, swooping bangs.

And she lived in Canada - an experience that made a profound impression on the future politician and could now see her government forging closer ties today between London and Ottawa.

Truss's Canadian love story starts in 1987, the year that the Loonie' coin entered circulation, the year that Prozac first hit the market, the year that Starbucks opened its first cafe in Vancouver and the year that the U.K.'s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, was re-elected to a third governing term.

In September of that year, Mary Elizabeth Truss took her seat in Bill Chambers' Grade 6/7 split class at Parkcrest School, in Burnaby, B.C., near Simon Fraser University, where John Truss, her father, was working for the year as a visiting associate professor of mathematics.

One of the most exciting things about Mr. Chambers' class that year was the new girl with the English accent.

I remember being excited about somebody new. I remember her accent and I remember that she was very smart," Brenda Montagano, one of her Grade 7 classmates, told the Star.

You know how you have your class clown and you've got the kids that care more about school than others? She struck me as someone who certainly cared about school, and she did well at school."

If Truss left an impression on her Canadian classmates, something about that year left an indelible impression on the future politician minister, too.

In a 2018 Instagram post to mark Canada Day, Truss published her class photo and cryptically wrote: I spent a year in Canada that changed my outlook on life."

Now, 35 years on from the 1987-88 school year, there are expectations that a Truss-led government will take a hard line on several thorny trade irritants that linger after the U.K.'s Brexit divorce from the European Union while seeking to renew and strengthen alliances elsewhere in the world.

Truss has a sweet spot for Canada," acknowledged a Canadian official, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely about the Canada-U.K. relationship.

Truss is seen as valuing Canada as a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, along with the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. She will also know from her time as foreign secretary, managing the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that Ottawa can help transmit messages and iron out the wrinkles between London and other European capitals, the official said.

Truss the top student, the graduate of Oxford University (the 29th British prime minister to have attended the illustrious school), the economist recruited as an A-lister" into the Tory caucus in a bid to diversify its ranks, will arrive at her 10 Downing St. desk to find it cluttered in priority dossiers.

The rising cost-of-living, the flagging economy and a perceived increase in violent crime will be among her most pressing domestic files, said Prof. Catherine Ellis, who specializes in modern British history at Toronto Metropolitan University.

The war in Ukraine, which Truss has been managing almost since she was appointed foreign secretary, shows no signs of letting up.

But most important, after winning over British Conservative Party members, will be to win over a skeptical British public before the next general election, which must be held by January 2025, Ellis said in response to written questions.

She cited a recent YouGov poll in which 52 per cent of voters said they thought Truss would be a poor or terrible prime minister, while just 12 per cent said she will be good or great.

Truss inspired little trust that she would be able to make the right decisions" on any of the major issues facing the country and was viewed as being out of touch" with everyday Britons.

Respondents also predicted Truss would be worse than six of the past seven British leaders, while only about the same" as her predecessor, Boris Johnson, who resigned after his cabinet and parliamentary caucus mutinied.

No British prime minister in modern times, possibly ever, has come into the role with such a low level of popularity," Ellis wrote.

Truss has a broad range of governing experience.

Since being first elected in 2010, she has had responsibilities for: childcare and education; environment, food and rural affairs; justice; the treasury; international trade; women and equality; and foreign affairs.

You don't get to negotiate all this as a politician without a talent for adaptation and, in Truss's case, an unquenchable optimism," wrote British political commentator Paul Goodman in an analysis last month for the ConservativeHome website.

Goodman noted that Truss got into party politics as a Liberal Democrat before switching to the Tories. Once opposed to Britain's departure from the European Union, she became one of its most ardent backers.

It's fair to say that for a committed ideologue she has proved herself remarkably flexible."

All too flexible for some.

Truss's lefty mother, Priscilla, used to take the future Tory leader to campaigns for nuclear disarmament where they shouted anti-Thatcher slogans when the family lived in Paisley, Scotland, in the 1980s.

And Truss's father, according to reports citing colleagues at Leeds University, is distraught" at the policies she has backed in the leadership campaign.

Asked this summer if her parents would vote for their daughter's party despite their political differences, Truss was strikingly honest.

Well, I think my mum will," she said. I'm not sure about my dad."

British Conservatives are anxiously waiting to see what she will do with the reins of power in hand.

Nile Gardiner, a former aide to Margaret Thatcher, predicted that a Truss-led government could be the most radical British Conservative administration," since the Iron Lady's reign, which lasted from 1979 to 1990.

A conservative, principled politician, she projects a strategic vision of a powerful West that is a bastion of freedom and self-determination," he wrote, suggesting she was feared, even hated by the enemies of the free world in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran."

Truss is indeed said to have pushed for the British government to take a harder line on Chinese human rights abuses - a position will be tested as threats of military confrontation involving Taiwan continue.

At the Kremlin, Russians are still shaking their heads over Truss's pre-war visit to Moscow, which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described in less-than-diplomatic terms as a meeting between the deaf and the mute.

Several days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Vladimir Putin ordered the country's nuclear forces onto heightened alert - a move attributed to Truss's unacceptable" remarks about the war.

If Putin was not stopped in Ukraine, Truss mused, the Baltic states, Poland and Moldova would be the next countries vulnerable to Russian might, in which case it could end up in a conflict with NATO," she told Sky News.

More a rhetorical flourish from a hawkish foreign minister than a radical threat, but the fallout likely offered a lesson about the mercurial nature of her Russian counterpart.

The Ukraine conflict has also served as a reunion of sorts between Truss and Canada.

The Brit has forged an important partnership, and even friendship, with Global Affairs Minister Melanie Joly. The two were appointed to their posts within a couple of months of one another and have become geopolitical confidantes, despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

In recent months, Joly has made frequent appearances in Truss's frenetic Instagram feed (here, here, here, here and here) , which documents her travels of the world in an attempt to rally global sanctions and responses to the invasion of Ukraine.

But for a woman who has changed perspectives, positions and political parties, it's still rather vague what occurred during that year in Burnaby that so greatly influenced the future prime minister's outlook on life.

Recollections grow hazy over the decades, after all. Memories fade.

In a 2015 math lecture at the Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery, her father recalled visiting Calgary for the first time in 1987 and meeting fellow math professor, Norbert Sauer.

He was always extremely friendly and, of course, concentrated on the important matters, such as the location of the Cochrane Ice Cream Shop ..."

Reached by email, Sauer said Truss was a contemporary and distant acquaintance. They had met a few times, had colleagues in common, and been mathematically aware of each other," but little more than that.

We may or we may not have shared an ice cream," Sauer said, adding, I had no idea that John has a daughter or even less of an idea that Liz Truss is John's daughter."

In a 2019 Daily Mail interview, Truss remembers reacting with disgust when, at the age of 12, she boarded the airplane and was handed a Junior Air Hostess" badge while her brothers received Junior Pilot" badges.

It was at about the same time that she started to recognize the weaknesses of the British education system.

In Leeds, where Truss lived before and after her year in Canada, she found the school curriculum was less stringent and less demanding, whereas in Burnaby, she was motivated, challenged and rewarded.

It would be really good to be top of the class over there," she told The Times of London in 2012. I don't think you could say that in Leeds.

Truss, who has pledged to serve as an Education Prime Minister," also appeared at an event with Canadian teachers in 2012 to speak about the need for Britain to learn from those countries that are leading the way in maths education."

And several years ago, she decried the fact that Britain has had two female prime ministers, but a woman has never served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) or Governor of the Bank of England.

I have a saying," she reportedly said in an interview with London's Evening Standard, and it's that Destiny's Child got it right when they praised all the honeys making money.' From an early age, we need more girls to study math and economics and show women that they cannot just compete with men but be better."

If Brenda Montagano, Truss's Grade 7 classmate, had to hazard a guess, that sort of confidence and drive could well have been fostered in Mr. Chambers' Parkcrest Elementary classroom.

If people were to ask me who impacted you now back then, he would be at the top of my list," she said of the teacher. Everybody just felt successful in his room, whether you were the brightest or the athlete or you just struggled."

Chambers, who is now 71, retired and living in Chilliwack, B.C., said he had only the fuzziest memories of this little girl who spoke with this cool British accent."

When the Star contacted him for an interview, he knew it was to discuss a former student who was a politician. He had no idea for what post she had been campaigning.

I googled her. The first thing that came up was that it looks like she's going to be the next prime minister, and I just about dropped my damn iPhone," Chambers said.

He said his classes back then were heavy on physical education - he founded a skipping team at Parkcrest - as well as science and mathematics.

If it comes to political science kind of stuff, (Truss) didn't get any of that from me. I avoided that like the plague and I still do shy away from politics," Chambers said. I was the math and science guy. We did all kinds of cool math and science stuff."

That included leading his Grade 7 students through the Grade 8 mathematics curriculum -challenging those who could - and Truss could - to forge ahead.

Whether it was Chambers' advanced instruction that changed Truss's outlook on life, skipping rope, plunging into the many-hues of the Canadian cultural mosaic that were represented in her class - or perhaps something totally separate from school - it hardly really matters for Chambers, the rightly proud and a-bit-surprised former educator with an unfortunately fuzzy memory.

What's important is seeing your kids succeed.

When you look at a class of 30 kids, you often wonder where is it going to go, and where are these kids going to go," he said. Your fingers are crossed and basically you do everything you can to prep them to become young teenagers and young adults."

Allan Woods is a Montreal-based staff reporter for the Star. He covers global and national affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @WoodsAllan