It’s a pretty good rule of thumb that bribes to voters work, which is why Canadian governments occasionally decide — as the federal Liberals did last week — to randomly start firing cheques out the door to enhance their popularity. I just want to put on the record my certainty that this bribe — framed by the prime minister as a “thank you,” an act of benign gratitude — will not succeed at making the Trudeau-led government more popular. My expectation is, in fact, that Trudeau’s days are now diminishing, and that he is pretty likely to step aside sometime in January when the failure of this transparent, cynical manoeuvre becomes apparent. Setting out to pay people to like you carries the obvious risk that they’ll take the money and keep right on hating you.