Who Is Justin Trudeau?

David Solway19 Feb, 2022 4 Min Read
First the bad news: he's still PM.

It is now common knowledge that Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau, a former part-time high school teacher, snowboard instructor, and two-time university dropout—Trudeau studied environmental geography at McGill University and engineering at the Université de Montréal, failing to complete degrees in either facultyis not and never was leadership material.

If one studies the checkered history of Canada’s prime ministers from Sir John A. Macdonald to the present moment, one finds the inevitable gallery of eccentrics, short-lived tenants and corrupt operators among them, but none so feckless and inept, so morally impaired and puerile, in short, so unfit for office as the current occupant of 24 Sussex—that is, when he is not sojourning in his Harrington Lake country residence or governing from the Rideau Cottage steps.

Except truckers.

He has had, of course, his supporters and fawning acolytes charmed by comparative youth and apparent insouciance, at least during the early days of his candidacy. Jonathan Kay’s hagiographic extravagance in an article for The Walrus titled “The Justin Trudeau I Can’t Forget,” and Conrad Black’s praise of Trudeau in the National Post as “flexible in public finance… a very alluring personality, a quick intelligence and an apparently reasonable combination of principle and openness” are cases in point. Perhaps these magisters are now experiencing buyer’s remorse.

Justin Trudeau’s track record as prime minister of Canada is, to put it mildly, far from stellar.

  • He has been implicated in multiple scandals and cited on several ethics violations.
  • He has imposed a needless and prohibitive carbon tax upon a struggling nation and raised the national debt into the economic stratosphere.
  • He is soft on terrorism, having awarded a $10.5 million reparation payment to al-Qaeda terrorist Omar Khadr, a Canadian who had been imprisoned in Guantanamo for killing an American medic in Afghanistan.
  • He sympathized with Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tzarnaev, who killed three people and injured another 170, saying  “there is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded.” We need, rather, “to look at the root causes” of terrorism.
  • He is on record admiring the “basic dictatorship” of Communist China and made no secret of his fondness for Castro, waxing eloquent in his eulogy for the dead dictator and extolling “his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people.” Trudeau concluded his oration by “join[ing] the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.”

Moreover, Trudeau’s clownish antics in blackface, his Peter Sellers imitation on a diplomatic visit to India, even his virtue-signaling rainbow socks at a Gay Pride parade are nothing if not national embarrassments. But all of his policy aberrations and cringeworthy absurdities count for little in the light of his latest adventure in political grotesquery.   

Vox populi, vox Dei.

His seizure of dictatorial powers via the Emergencies Act to disable a peaceful, legitimate and justifiable protest against the vaccine mandates and cross-border quarantine measures by a contingent of the country’s truckers is only the latest manifestation of this failed and oppressive Trudeau-led government.

As National Post columnist Rex Murphy writes, it is “something very close to lunatic.” The Act is by no means unexpected and was bound at some point to happen, a reprise of the elder Trudeau’s invoking of the War Measures Act against a small cadre of Quebec separatists. Like father, like son. It is an expression of a demagogic temperament that cannot tolerate opposition and that has no talent for compromise or dialogue, a sine qua non for prudent and respectable leadership, now conspicuous by its absence.

Indeed, his outrageous slandering of the truckers as racists and haters, his refusal to meet with them, his craven flight from office as the convoy assembled in Ottawa, and his invoking of legislation to seize the financial instruments and assets of both the protesters and of ordinary citizens who contributed to the trucker fund is unprecedented in Canadian history. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has brazenly authorized the RCMP to share with banks “the names of individuals, businesses and crypto wallets associated with the protest convoy.”

The peoples' choice.

As of this writing, the banks now have the power to freeze protesters’ accounts, including, it appears, the accounts of people who over the last two weeks donated in good faith. The retroactive application of fiscal reprisals is an egregious violation of legal norms, as is the sequestration order itself. It is a sign of unmitigated tyranny that compares with the typical excesses of the totalitarian despots Trudeau reveres. It seems to be a truism that small men with power are the scourge of their nations.

This is the man whom Canadians have thrice elected, which speaks for a country that—with the exception of a courageous and steadfast minority—no longer values its freedoms and traditions. Fear and ignorance triumph over patriotism and reason. Some might be inclined to argue that Canadians had little choice given there was no credible opposition and that vote-heavy Toronto, Montreal and Halifax effectively determine the outcomes of elections in this country. Nonetheless, Trudeau was always a popular favorite despite his autocratic nature and a clear tendency to abuse his office. Trudeau is working to remake Canada in his own tarnished image. He can do no other. That is who he is.

David Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. His most recent volume of poetry, The Herb Garden, appeared in spring 2018. His manifesto, Reflections on Music, Poetry & Politics, was released by Shomron Press in spring 2016. He has produced two CDs of original songs: Blood Guitar and Other Tales and Partial to Cain, on which he was accompanied by his pianist wife Janice Fiamengo. His latest book is Notes from a Derelict Culture.

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5 comments on “Who Is Justin Trudeau?”

  1. I'm in the USA and have a TD Bank Account - but probably not for long! I did not donate to the Truckers, but now I'm sorry I didn't! What has happened "up North" is truly amazing and quite disgusting! I was flabbergasted when the man-child was re-elected. Maybe not as much as when the turnip was planted in Our White House, but surprised nonetheless! As far as the USA/Canada "War"? It wouldn't be much of one if it happened since at least half to maybe 75% of Canadians would CHEER our Liberating Forces! It seems like the entire world has gone mad since Jan. 20, 2021 - what could have caused that??

  2. Metro Halifax is roughly half the population of Nova Scotia, and as of around 1989 (the last time I was anywhere in NS) NS ws ca. 800,000, slightly more than ALL of New Brunswick (Canada, not New Jersey). Maybe you mean Hamilton, Ontario--which supposedly is now the same size as Boston, Mass. but without the famous universities. I have vowed to not enter Canada while Trudeau fils (Justin Poutine to some) is PM. It used to be remarked that more Americans visited Canada each year than there were Canadians period.
    Sorry, but Justin Poutine represents the Very Soul of Canada, the very utmose-distilling essence of What It Means to Be A Canadian. This is what a parliamentary system means. Poutine is propped up by the New Democrats--who sound like the Maoist Party of Canada. But under the supposed Westminster System the New Democrats can survive by keeping Trudeau in power; the Liberals are in the same boat--and under the Westminster System when party leaders say jump the MP's respond "how high?".
    In short, Canada is the negation of everything that America stands for.
    I predict a second war between the US and Canada--to follow up on 1812-14. The US is now a lot bigger than Canada (340 million Americans vs. at most 34 million Canadians) and this preceived smug sense of Canadian Moral Superiority over the United States is infuriating and can no longer be tolerated on our side of the longest indefensible border in the entire world. Plus we'll be putting the Canadians out of their misery under Poutine, who could now be PM as long as he lives--since under the State of Emergency Poutine could suspend Parliament, overawe the Provinces, and with the support of the Canadian media and the elites of Canada become Dictator for Life of Canada.
    Such a situation on our northern border could not be tolerated. Thus a second American war with Canada.

  3. It would not have taken a political genius to take the bull by the horns, go talk to the truckers in person, who would have been mighty pleased and flattered, and come out a hero for having worked out a solution agreeable to all, for a problem that is nearly gone anyway. Instead he went to ridiculous lengths to prove that he is a dumb, feckless, easily intimidated teenager, longing to hide behind his mother's skirts -- if she wore any. For the good of Canada, I sure hope they get rid of him.

  4. What kind of idiot would keep their money in Canada at this point? You almost have to get your assets out, whether you agree with the truckers or not, you can't risk morons like these stealing your life's savings.

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