SHORTS: "The Handshake"

What does it take to be leader of the free world?

It has been almost a year since my handshake with Jagmeet Singh. Even though Mr. Singh was a famous person, this handshake did not occur under the inquisitive gaze of the television camera or during the din and excitement of a political rally. The handshake took place in a brick warehouse in downtown Edmonton, built in 1911 for the cold storage of liquor and cigars. By the time 2025 came along, the warehouse was no longer used for cold storage but rather for studio space and hip restaurants and so on. The handshake with Mr. Singh was unexpected because I was not an important person compared to the other important people that had gathered in the room on the third floor of that renovated brick warehouse. All the same, Mr. Singh deigned to shake my hand. I was nervous, not because it was Mr. Singh, who was famous, but because I had a lot of other things on my mind, most of them work related. It wasn’t my job to do handshakes with people of the stature of Mr. Singh. I was not really prepared to do a handshake, if truth be known. My lack of preparedness was immediately apparent. As soon as the handshake was over, Mr. Singh frowned. “Let’s do that again,” he said. On the spot, I received a free, impromptu lesson in handshakes. How could I have reached the age of forty-nine, which is how old I was when I first shook hands with Mr. Singh, and not have known how to shake hands properly? Looking back now, I am appalled at my younger self. I should have known how to do a good handshake at least by the age of twenty-five, which is how old I was when I graduated from university. Instead, I left the academy and set out into this vast world with little more practical knowledge than a common anteater. There are all sorts of people of the stature of Mr. Singh, and even higher stature, who have been learning to do good handshakes from a relatively early age. I am jealous of them. Justin Trudeau, a rough contemporary of Mr. Singh, delivers a famously brilliant handshake. It has even been observed that when Mr. Trudeau shook the hand of Donald Trump in 2017, he got the better of the president. It was reported that he “managed to neutralise the Trumpshake with a clever combination of timing, balance and control.” It is to be hoped that Mr. Trudeau still enjoys the feeling of triumph he earned that day. He is no longer the prime minister of Canada, yet Donald Trump is, once again, the leader of the “free world.” (Even though it has been proven that he is not the world’s best at handshakes.) Who feels the most secure in their own skin—Singh, Trudeau or Trump—I cannot say.

NOTES

The Substack Octopus is incabating the project, “Who’s Afraid of Edmonton?” and will remain in incubation mode for a little while longer.

Sources

“Donald Trump’s strange handshake style and how Justin Trudeau beat it – video” David Fanner, The Guardian, February 14, 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/feb/14/donald-trumps-strange-handshake-style-and-how-justin-trudeau-beat-it-video-explainer

Image

“Who is Jagmeet Singh, Canada’s NDP leader?” Madeline Halpert & Nadine Yousif, BBC News, April 27 2025 (original photo in colour)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjdp25ynn7o