Trudeau is very effectively showing how a well-coordinated set of corrupt and suborned institutions, especially academia and media, can, by singing from the same hymn book and queen bee-ishly shaming the opposition, pass off an absolute disaster as some kind of legitimately effective Prime Minister. For a while.
Unfortunately, people are mostly still at the stage of thinking that lesson applies only to Justin Trudeau.
As has been noted many times before - Trump, Lutnick, Bessent, Hoekstra et al are running a shakedown operation worldwide.
To his credit Carney has decided that the bully already got the lunch money once and has politely directed Trump to fuck off when more is demanded.
There's no "negotiation" and getting pissed about third rate whiskey imports only emphasizes how childish these people are and, given that any "deal" could potentially be ignored shortly after any signing, I don't think there's any value in expending a bunch of emotional energy.
Let the folks with the job to get the best outcome do it without annoying whinging from the opposition. PP said he was on Team Canada but right now he, and Scheer, seem to only be on Team PP.
As for Trudeau, if he does really value this country, really does need to STFU. We certainly were not a better country when he finished his terms than we were when we started.
On CUSMA it never seems to come up that per capita Canada imports 7x from the US what the US imports from Canada. As a country we have a trade surplus but per capita a huge deficit. There are 10x as many of them and they are richer. Of course they buy more from us than we from them. It is impossible our 40 million could buy more than their 400 million. But at 7x per capita we are giving it the old college try. To paint us as taking advantage is ridiculous.
We have less people to produce things as well, so you’d need to apply this logic to both sides of the equation, which would land you right where we started.
The bigger argument to me is that the Americans are largely importing resources from us while we purchase finished goods from them. I would imagine the jobs created on trade balance is wildly in their favour.
Your logic would imply that countries will inevitably run a trade surplus with larger countries and a deficit with smaller ones. This turns out not to be the case.
It is the case for us however and is quite often the case. Resources are a big factor in our instance. I doubt anyone else buys as much per capita from the US as Canada. Even nationally we are in the top two or three of their best customers. We are not the problem.
Trump's "assassin" was just another false flag operation caused entirely by his plummeting poll numbers. Considering his attitude towards the press, there was no reason for him to be there...although the Elison news network has turned the US into almost a full propaganda state.
Trudeau will be judged by history to be the worst PM ever. He should shut the hell up. He can go live his life, and do whatever he wants but the value of his political opinions is zero. I do laugh at people who are upset that he's running around having a good time. What the hell else is he going to do?
Ludnick and Hoekstra are just complete assholes...typical of the American billionaire class. Should the US save itself, I'm sure they'll come out fine....they'll still be assholes.
To me, it feels like we are doing this to ourselves.
At every step of the way, our collective reactions to Trump's provocations have been outsized and cartoonish -- our leaders have sought at every step to MAXIMIZE the impact of whatever it is he just said.
I agree he says outlandish things, but seriously - how is this 'news' to anyone at this point?
Do I need to point to the credulous news articles in legacy media on how to form a neighbourhood militia ...."if the Americans invade"...?
What distresses me is that we've reached the point at which most Canadians have been hyped up to the point where they ARE likely to tell those pollsters "Yeah, screw the Americans - let's end CUSMA and let the chips fall where they may".
It's just a complete misreading of reality.
America consumes almost 80% of what we export.
Canada is tooled to serve the American market.
That's NOT politics - it is geography.
...and signing a new trade relationship with Indonesia (one of the FOUR which has actually been formally signed), which promises to increase our exports to that fine country by a whopping $123 million PER YEAR ....is worth approximately as much as what we ship to America in three hours on a average day.
Where exactly does Carney think he will find a new market to replace the $400 Billion+ we export annually to the USA....?
I weep for our nation. We've lost the power of rational thought at the federal level.
I certainly agree that there was much to be recommended to the recent past, in terms of the trade and investment dynamic amongst the three parties to NAFTA.
However, I disagree with the view that it is just the "outlandish things" said by Trump that has driven Canadian revulsion and fear.
The threat he made to annex us should be taken seriously. What's more, Canadians' worries about that threat, and the very real economic damage that has already been done, particularly to the Canadian manufacturing and services sector, are surely understandable.
I for one believe that our fate, together with that of the United States and Mexico, is tied to this common space we occupy, and shaped by the historical forces and cultural links that have made us.
Nonetheless, it is difficult to muster up enthusiasm for interactions in the face of the ugly rhetoric and damaging actions taken by the United States' "commander-in-chief", and aped by his Cabinet of servile yes-men and yes-women.
We should own our failures, but I strongly assert that we are in this mess because of them.
Regarding your positive comments regarding younger ages for both screening for breast cancer and early onset, that's wonderful - but - getting in for treatment is a growing concern. I've been diagnosed with throat cancer. First presented last September, I'm still waiting for treatment, and a surgical biopsy of the primary site. I worry that diagnosing earlier is not going to help much if we can't get the corresponding treatment required earlier as well.
I'm also very concerned that with Premier Smith's drive to allow those with the financial means to self-book for diagnosis, and in some cases, surgery, that the wait times will only grow for those of struggling in the public system. As the wait times grow, so do the tumours.
Interesting to me anyway that the President has only had 3 attempts on his life. Judging by the speed of the assailant and how - judging by his manifesto - he was able to find weaknesses in the security process - the President was lucky in this instance. Like the war of terror - the secret service has to be right ten thousand times - the terrorist only once. Of course, with the secrecy fetish of the Canadian government and especially of its police agencies, we’ll never know how many times people have planned to kill sitting MPs or ministers and been foiled by police agencies.
After the last bullet was fired at orange jesus, when the cry was, "This is not who we are!", a reporter wryly pointes out that 1/3 of US presidents have been shot at.
Indeed. Political violence is and always has been a major feature of American politics.
They started their country with what was in many ways their first civil war. There were a significant number of Americans who opposed the revolt against the crown and they didn’t leave because they decided to seek the beach life of Upper Canada.
It’s just a more violent country both in civil and political life. It’s not Somalia or anything crazy, but it has always been more violent than Canada.
One way I try to look at problems is to suppose “if we were starting from scratch, how would we like things to look when we are finished?”.
For example, if we were creating our healthcare system from scratch, what would we include, what would be excluded, how would we fund it, would we allow foreign competition, and what would it look like when we are done?
Similarly with trade: what are we hoping to achieve, and how will we go about getting there? What does success look like?
Thirty-five per cent of Canada’s economy is in some way protected from outside competition. Isn’t competition supposed to be good?
If we wanted to take the Americans off stride, shouldn’t we unilaterally expunge supply management, protections for banking, telcos, and airlines, and lower our tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade to zero, right off the hopper?
Should we not set the example for other small, trading Nations?
I see that the Line has a new favourite word, “existential” being so, I don’t know, 2025.
Now that our occasionally conservative friends have embraced the Prime Minister’s new favourite drinking word- rupture/ruptured- surely sustained national unity is just around the corner.
I'll be far more convinced about the "rupture narrative" if the current US/Canada conditions actually outlast Donald Trump.
The way I see it now, there are a lot of individuals, businesses, and governments on both sides of the border who are just waiting him out, with strong financial and psychological incentives to forget the whole affair and return to the dominant relationship of the past 100 years the moment a Democrat, or even a more moderate Republican, takes over.
I look at Mark Carney when he talks about this as the new normal, and I don't think he believes what he is saying. It's just a little too convenient for his branding.
Your columns and podcasts are my source for straight talk, real truth and zero bullshit. I was honoured to support your fundraising drive ....that you for consistently great journalism.
I personally object to the implicit convention that former Prime Ministers, Presidents, or other political leaders should be quieter about politics after they leave their offices. That convention diminishes our institutional memory and our collective ability to learn from mistakes, if the people most involved in the biggest political decisions are not sharing as much insight as they could be.
Part of the reason that Prime Ministers, Premiers, and other party leaders in this country will cling for dear life onto holding their offices - even past their obvious expiry dates - is that being in these apex offices are considered once-in-a-lifetime experiences that cannot be replicated. But there is not a good reason, in principle, that it should be impossible for a Prime Minister to seamlessly pivot between holding the highest office, becoming a non-status political actor, and then becoming a dominant political actor once again, in some sort of flexible and non-fixed career trajectory. Our politicians should be more like normal human beings, not less!
So Stefan. If Prime Minister Harper had made similar comments about the failed and destructive policies of the past 10 years. (which he has not) What would be your take on that??
Harper remained politically involved for a time by becoming the director of the Conservative Fund Canada from 2016 to 2020. He also recently got politically involved - and appropriately praised - for appearing alongside Jean Chretien to stir up Canadian patriotism in the face of difficulties in the U.S. relationship.
That is all fine by me, and it would be fine for him to go further (despite him arguably being the worst ever Prime Minister, and therefore not being credible to make accusations with the exact wording you give as an example).
Sure he did. Its in the blood. But he kept his mouth shut as far as most non -politicos know.
Arguably worst PM??
You have got to be joking. We had a more or less balanced budget, increasing investment and frugal planning for the future (oas changes for one) debt to gdp stable following Paul Martins foresight. Lets not mention that Alberta and Saskatchewan actually felt that they were part of confederation instead of being adversaries. After Cretien and Martin's hard work he continued the saga. He and Canada were respected on th world stage. "Get out of Ukraine (2014) to Putin!! He brought us through the gfc and he was proud of our country and our history. Perfect- absolutely not. Charismatic -ditto. Dour and competent definately. I'll take dour and competent over pretty and petulant every day.
Round two of Trudeau was much worse than round one and we are still dealing with round one's mess. The NEP still resonates. Trudeau two brought it back in a diffeent form and guess what? Alberta and Saskatchewan once again have an active successionist movement. That was gone under Cretien and Harper.
The Liberals have decided that procedural games by corrupt and suborned courts and "neutral" electoral institutions can keep a lid on secession without all that troublesome "listen to the peons" stuff.
At this rate, it's plausible that more Albertans when next given the chance will vote Liberal than vote to separate: https://338canada.com/polls.htm?demo=AB
Of course! That's why they are throwing up procedural obstacles to a referendum - because they are so confident they would win and put talk of separatism to bed.
Things were so good under Harper that Canadians got *bored* and elected a good looking moron just to spice things up.
Sure you can nitpick problems with any administration, but there was so much more hope for the future pre-2015 and I wasn't even a Conservative voter back then. I fell for the "we can be just like this only nicer and with legal weed" nonsense. I learned my lesson very quickly and thoroughly, but a lot of people didn't.
Your assessment seems very much at odds with reality. Harper and Trudeau both had their popular support peak during their majority parliament years. At the start of the 2015 election campaign it was the NDP who were tied with the Conservatives for being first-place in the polls, after the Conservatives had slowly but steadily declined in the polls during the 2011-2015 period. Dissatisfaction with Harper was baked in sooner than affinity for Trudeau; had Trudeau floundered during the campaign, we would have likely seen a Mulcair government backed by the third-party Liberals.
Dissatisfaction with Harper was due to his dour tone and the perception that he wasn't "nice". The scandals you like to repeat are mostly inside-baseball events that are poorly remembered and would be barely reported if Trudeau or Carney did them. Harper's biggest substantive failure was on house prices.
Dissatisfaction with Trudeau, delayed though it was, was due to the objective circumstances of people's lives visibly deteriorating in ways that could no longer be ignored, and that were directly connected to policy choices. Come live in a city that got overwhelmed with low-quality immigrants over a three year period and see how much the Fair Elections Act offends you in comparison. When it came to house prices, the Trudeau people also very much said "hold my beer".
Polls about people's perceptions regarding best/worst past PM are meaningless. Many people can't name any prior to maybe two administrations ago and you'd have to be a history buff to name any prior to WWII other than MacDonald and maybe Laurier.
Harper was the most ignorant Prime Minister in Canadian history when it came to criticism of any of his legislation. The more he was criticized on any Bill, the more and more insufferable he became in tapping into new precedents for anti-democratic abuses and otherwise having non-verbal legislative meltdowns. I substantiate with examples in this essay comparing his scandals with those with Trudeau: https://stefanklietsch.substack.com/p/comparing-and-contrasting-the-scandals
Much of the more obnoxious Harper legislation was quickly repealed by the Trudeau government without controversy (and without protest from Poilievre, despite his enthusiastic sycophantic support for all Harper policies). The Liberal government in fact stopped most Harper policies from taking their full toll on our quality of life, because Harper's precedents were fundamentally not normalized by Canadians - with certain exceptions, like how we are still stuck with the 31-year Canada-China that allows Chinese state-companies to sue for our tax dollars in kangaroo tribunals whenever Canada passes legislation affecting their expected profits.
I am not sure how you would prove that Canada was more reputable under Harper than under Trudeau. There was plenty of negative international media coverage regarding his non-cooperation on climate policies and around the muzzling of government scientists. At any rate, both the Harper and the Trudeau governments failed to make Canada popular enough to win seats on the UN Security Council.
(Alberta's secessionist movement is exaggerated in its strength by Conservatives who want to cynically pressure other Canadians to adopt their policies despite losing elections. Saskatchewan's supposed secessionist movement would be even less of a real organized thing, and I say that having spoken to an actual Saskatchewan separatist.)
My initial post said nothing about Harper or Trudeau; I only responded to one of The Dispatch's takes. Dave brought in the allegation of partisan double-standards in response to my post, and I responded to his pivot.
They absolutely should be publicly quiet when they leave office. It is their narcissism and selfish attention seeking that we are seeing when they do what Mr. Trudeau is doing. It’s not surprising, but it’s undermining our leaders and our country.
And them learning to be quiet will not dilute our institutional memory not one iota.
Mr. Carney knows how to contact any former official if we thinks they have anything of value he might use. He’s not sitting there wishing that would call him so he can avoid reaching out. It is nothing more than vanity that drives Mr. Trudeau to insist “oh my replacement hasn’t called I know but everyone needs to listen to MEEEE!!!”
Seriously.
It’s undermining and it’s pathetic.
Mr. Carney knows where to find him if he needs him.
By all means I welcome Mr. Trudeau to remind people of his existence in the most vapid and wrongheaded ways possible. Especially now that the media don't have much incentive to run cover for him anymore.
It's not just political elites who need to maximize political information, but also the rest of Canadians. When former Prime Ministers shut up as as much as possible, Canadians do not have as much access to retrospective information about the realities of the office; in other words, we inevitably are getting a distorted picture of reality when we have more access to whatever bullshit an incumbent PM puts out than we do to whatever more forthcoming opinions a former PM might have. (Former PMs would still be self-serving in trying to maximize their reputation, but are less incentivized by immediate electoral cycles when giving their version of events.)
No one in the public is more informed by Mr. Trudeau current attention seeking.
And again it’s a pathetic level of narcissism for him to imagine that only HE and HE ALONE can give Canadians the right perspective and facts. Sadly there is, NO ONE else. HE must bear the burden of the limelight. Ridiculous.
Trudeau is very effectively showing how a well-coordinated set of corrupt and suborned institutions, especially academia and media, can, by singing from the same hymn book and queen bee-ishly shaming the opposition, pass off an absolute disaster as some kind of legitimately effective Prime Minister. For a while.
Unfortunately, people are mostly still at the stage of thinking that lesson applies only to Justin Trudeau.
Where did you get the idea that academia and media are praising any specific Prime Minister as an "effective" one, let alone Trudeau specifically?
As has been noted many times before - Trump, Lutnick, Bessent, Hoekstra et al are running a shakedown operation worldwide.
To his credit Carney has decided that the bully already got the lunch money once and has politely directed Trump to fuck off when more is demanded.
There's no "negotiation" and getting pissed about third rate whiskey imports only emphasizes how childish these people are and, given that any "deal" could potentially be ignored shortly after any signing, I don't think there's any value in expending a bunch of emotional energy.
Let the folks with the job to get the best outcome do it without annoying whinging from the opposition. PP said he was on Team Canada but right now he, and Scheer, seem to only be on Team PP.
As for Trudeau, if he does really value this country, really does need to STFU. We certainly were not a better country when he finished his terms than we were when we started.
Thanks.
On CUSMA it never seems to come up that per capita Canada imports 7x from the US what the US imports from Canada. As a country we have a trade surplus but per capita a huge deficit. There are 10x as many of them and they are richer. Of course they buy more from us than we from them. It is impossible our 40 million could buy more than their 400 million. But at 7x per capita we are giving it the old college try. To paint us as taking advantage is ridiculous.
We have less people to produce things as well, so you’d need to apply this logic to both sides of the equation, which would land you right where we started.
The bigger argument to me is that the Americans are largely importing resources from us while we purchase finished goods from them. I would imagine the jobs created on trade balance is wildly in their favour.
Of course. My point exactly. We are not as Trump would have it “ripping them off”.
Your logic would imply that countries will inevitably run a trade surplus with larger countries and a deficit with smaller ones. This turns out not to be the case.
It is the case for us however and is quite often the case. Resources are a big factor in our instance. I doubt anyone else buys as much per capita from the US as Canada. Even nationally we are in the top two or three of their best customers. We are not the problem.
Trump's "assassin" was just another false flag operation caused entirely by his plummeting poll numbers. Considering his attitude towards the press, there was no reason for him to be there...although the Elison news network has turned the US into almost a full propaganda state.
Trudeau will be judged by history to be the worst PM ever. He should shut the hell up. He can go live his life, and do whatever he wants but the value of his political opinions is zero. I do laugh at people who are upset that he's running around having a good time. What the hell else is he going to do?
Ludnick and Hoekstra are just complete assholes...typical of the American billionaire class. Should the US save itself, I'm sure they'll come out fine....they'll still be assholes.
It is kind of remarkable that in a country with 400 million guns, nobody seems to be able to shoot straight.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
He shot straight at the Secret Service officer at the ballroom's entrance. And hit him/her.
The officer's ballistic vest saved him/her.
Gee, given your assessment that “the rupture” is 100% Trump’s fault, and your unswerving assertion that Carney is just doing the best he can, man…
Isn’t it WEIRD that Mexico is somehow forging ahead towards a deal?
I mean, they have all the same variables. Same Trump, same Trumpy administration, etc.
What could possibly be the difference?
It couldn’t possibly be that Carney is hyper aware that his stratospheric polling numbers are mostly based on this crisis existing, …could it?
I see this week that the Liberals have commissioned polls seeking to understand if Canadians even WANT him to get a deal anymore.
…if Carney blows up the CUSMA negotiations (as is seeming increasingly likely) he will be committing Canada to a path of economic suicide.
SUPER convenient for him that he can (and WILL) blame this on Trump too, but this ‘feels’ very much like planned failure.
I fear for our children, who will have to find a way to navigate Carney’s Net Zero Authoritarian Utopia.
It is our great misfortune that you're not in charge, since you seem to have mastered this file.
(yes, that was sarcasm).
I love good sarcasm.
It was better in the old days, when one could use withering sarcasm, and simply walk away, knowing the point had been well made.
It's a little sad that modern life almost demands that we *note* our own sarcasm, to avoid people having ridiculous reactions to what we've written.
It cheapens it somewhat.
Farm on, cubicle brother (or sister)...
It’s called “divide and conquer”, and the Americans are playing it for all they are worth.
To me, it feels like we are doing this to ourselves.
At every step of the way, our collective reactions to Trump's provocations have been outsized and cartoonish -- our leaders have sought at every step to MAXIMIZE the impact of whatever it is he just said.
I agree he says outlandish things, but seriously - how is this 'news' to anyone at this point?
Do I need to point to the credulous news articles in legacy media on how to form a neighbourhood militia ...."if the Americans invade"...?
What distresses me is that we've reached the point at which most Canadians have been hyped up to the point where they ARE likely to tell those pollsters "Yeah, screw the Americans - let's end CUSMA and let the chips fall where they may".
It's just a complete misreading of reality.
America consumes almost 80% of what we export.
Canada is tooled to serve the American market.
That's NOT politics - it is geography.
...and signing a new trade relationship with Indonesia (one of the FOUR which has actually been formally signed), which promises to increase our exports to that fine country by a whopping $123 million PER YEAR ....is worth approximately as much as what we ship to America in three hours on a average day.
Where exactly does Carney think he will find a new market to replace the $400 Billion+ we export annually to the USA....?
I weep for our nation. We've lost the power of rational thought at the federal level.
I certainly agree that there was much to be recommended to the recent past, in terms of the trade and investment dynamic amongst the three parties to NAFTA.
However, I disagree with the view that it is just the "outlandish things" said by Trump that has driven Canadian revulsion and fear.
The threat he made to annex us should be taken seriously. What's more, Canadians' worries about that threat, and the very real economic damage that has already been done, particularly to the Canadian manufacturing and services sector, are surely understandable.
I for one believe that our fate, together with that of the United States and Mexico, is tied to this common space we occupy, and shaped by the historical forces and cultural links that have made us.
Nonetheless, it is difficult to muster up enthusiasm for interactions in the face of the ugly rhetoric and damaging actions taken by the United States' "commander-in-chief", and aped by his Cabinet of servile yes-men and yes-women.
We should own our failures, but I strongly assert that we are in this mess because of them.
Carney is quite the Pied Piper, is what I'm saying.
Enjoy your managed decline.
Regarding your positive comments regarding younger ages for both screening for breast cancer and early onset, that's wonderful - but - getting in for treatment is a growing concern. I've been diagnosed with throat cancer. First presented last September, I'm still waiting for treatment, and a surgical biopsy of the primary site. I worry that diagnosing earlier is not going to help much if we can't get the corresponding treatment required earlier as well.
I'm also very concerned that with Premier Smith's drive to allow those with the financial means to self-book for diagnosis, and in some cases, surgery, that the wait times will only grow for those of struggling in the public system. As the wait times grow, so do the tumours.
Interesting to me anyway that the President has only had 3 attempts on his life. Judging by the speed of the assailant and how - judging by his manifesto - he was able to find weaknesses in the security process - the President was lucky in this instance. Like the war of terror - the secret service has to be right ten thousand times - the terrorist only once. Of course, with the secrecy fetish of the Canadian government and especially of its police agencies, we’ll never know how many times people have planned to kill sitting MPs or ministers and been foiled by police agencies.
After the last bullet was fired at orange jesus, when the cry was, "This is not who we are!", a reporter wryly pointes out that 1/3 of US presidents have been shot at.
10% have been killed.
Indeed. Political violence is and always has been a major feature of American politics.
They started their country with what was in many ways their first civil war. There were a significant number of Americans who opposed the revolt against the crown and they didn’t leave because they decided to seek the beach life of Upper Canada.
It’s just a more violent country both in civil and political life. It’s not Somalia or anything crazy, but it has always been more violent than Canada.
One way I try to look at problems is to suppose “if we were starting from scratch, how would we like things to look when we are finished?”.
For example, if we were creating our healthcare system from scratch, what would we include, what would be excluded, how would we fund it, would we allow foreign competition, and what would it look like when we are done?
Similarly with trade: what are we hoping to achieve, and how will we go about getting there? What does success look like?
Thirty-five per cent of Canada’s economy is in some way protected from outside competition. Isn’t competition supposed to be good?
If we wanted to take the Americans off stride, shouldn’t we unilaterally expunge supply management, protections for banking, telcos, and airlines, and lower our tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade to zero, right off the hopper?
Should we not set the example for other small, trading Nations?
I see that the Line has a new favourite word, “existential” being so, I don’t know, 2025.
Now that our occasionally conservative friends have embraced the Prime Minister’s new favourite drinking word- rupture/ruptured- surely sustained national unity is just around the corner.
I'll be far more convinced about the "rupture narrative" if the current US/Canada conditions actually outlast Donald Trump.
The way I see it now, there are a lot of individuals, businesses, and governments on both sides of the border who are just waiting him out, with strong financial and psychological incentives to forget the whole affair and return to the dominant relationship of the past 100 years the moment a Democrat, or even a more moderate Republican, takes over.
I look at Mark Carney when he talks about this as the new normal, and I don't think he believes what he is saying. It's just a little too convenient for his branding.
The U.S. economy is more-or-less independent of the stupidity of its leaders.
The Canadian economy has no such grace. We are stuck with the failure, fecklessness and futility of that which was decided by a few floor crossers.
That's the beauty of free markets. If you have them, they operate no matter how dumb the government is. There's a lesson there I think.
Agreed.
Markets sort out the chaos, if and when they are allowed to sort out the chaos.
Great observation.
Fuck that! A Canadian Sovereign Fund? Fuck that too! I need a new pair of rubber boots there’s so much bullshit around!!!
I'm going to take a cash advance from my credit cards to play the stock market, and call that my own sovereign wealth fund.
Except it's everyone else's credit card and they are using it to invest in their friends' companies. What a fucking joke.
The Canadian dairy industry will have the last word on Canada's trade policy.
I fully accept that Carney will scuttle free trade with the US rather than piss off dairy.
For me, if another assassination attempt happens, it might well be Trump's Reichstag Fire moment.
It will happen two weeks before midterms.
Well Im starting to look forward to reading all the comments almost as much as the columnsand podcasts. 😉
Your columns and podcasts are my source for straight talk, real truth and zero bullshit. I was honoured to support your fundraising drive ....that you for consistently great journalism.
I’ll pledge $1500 if you promise to stop swearing.
I personally object to the implicit convention that former Prime Ministers, Presidents, or other political leaders should be quieter about politics after they leave their offices. That convention diminishes our institutional memory and our collective ability to learn from mistakes, if the people most involved in the biggest political decisions are not sharing as much insight as they could be.
Part of the reason that Prime Ministers, Premiers, and other party leaders in this country will cling for dear life onto holding their offices - even past their obvious expiry dates - is that being in these apex offices are considered once-in-a-lifetime experiences that cannot be replicated. But there is not a good reason, in principle, that it should be impossible for a Prime Minister to seamlessly pivot between holding the highest office, becoming a non-status political actor, and then becoming a dominant political actor once again, in some sort of flexible and non-fixed career trajectory. Our politicians should be more like normal human beings, not less!
So Stefan. If Prime Minister Harper had made similar comments about the failed and destructive policies of the past 10 years. (which he has not) What would be your take on that??
Harper remained politically involved for a time by becoming the director of the Conservative Fund Canada from 2016 to 2020. He also recently got politically involved - and appropriately praised - for appearing alongside Jean Chretien to stir up Canadian patriotism in the face of difficulties in the U.S. relationship.
That is all fine by me, and it would be fine for him to go further (despite him arguably being the worst ever Prime Minister, and therefore not being credible to make accusations with the exact wording you give as an example).
Sure he did. Its in the blood. But he kept his mouth shut as far as most non -politicos know.
Arguably worst PM??
You have got to be joking. We had a more or less balanced budget, increasing investment and frugal planning for the future (oas changes for one) debt to gdp stable following Paul Martins foresight. Lets not mention that Alberta and Saskatchewan actually felt that they were part of confederation instead of being adversaries. After Cretien and Martin's hard work he continued the saga. He and Canada were respected on th world stage. "Get out of Ukraine (2014) to Putin!! He brought us through the gfc and he was proud of our country and our history. Perfect- absolutely not. Charismatic -ditto. Dour and competent definately. I'll take dour and competent over pretty and petulant every day.
Round two of Trudeau was much worse than round one and we are still dealing with round one's mess. The NEP still resonates. Trudeau two brought it back in a diffeent form and guess what? Alberta and Saskatchewan once again have an active successionist movement. That was gone under Cretien and Harper.
The Liberals have decided that procedural games by corrupt and suborned courts and "neutral" electoral institutions can keep a lid on secession without all that troublesome "listen to the peons" stuff.
Or they are just paying attention to the actual opinions of Albertans themselves, 56% of whom are "strongly" decided against separatism: https://abacusdata.ca/alberta-independence-remains-a-minority-view-most-believe-premier-smith-would-vote-to-separate/
At this rate, it's plausible that more Albertans when next given the chance will vote Liberal than vote to separate: https://338canada.com/polls.htm?demo=AB
Of course! That's why they are throwing up procedural obstacles to a referendum - because they are so confident they would win and put talk of separatism to bed.
Things were so good under Harper that Canadians got *bored* and elected a good looking moron just to spice things up.
Sure you can nitpick problems with any administration, but there was so much more hope for the future pre-2015 and I wasn't even a Conservative voter back then. I fell for the "we can be just like this only nicer and with legal weed" nonsense. I learned my lesson very quickly and thoroughly, but a lot of people didn't.
Your assessment seems very much at odds with reality. Harper and Trudeau both had their popular support peak during their majority parliament years. At the start of the 2015 election campaign it was the NDP who were tied with the Conservatives for being first-place in the polls, after the Conservatives had slowly but steadily declined in the polls during the 2011-2015 period. Dissatisfaction with Harper was baked in sooner than affinity for Trudeau; had Trudeau floundered during the campaign, we would have likely seen a Mulcair government backed by the third-party Liberals.
I am not sure how you read "boredom" into the never-ending acrimony between Harper and the media that resulted in him at the time being the most popular choice for worst Prime Minister: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/trudeaumania-prevails-26-per-cent-name-harper-worst-pm-in-poll/article4567793/ (Yes, I am aware of the anti-Trudeau sentiment in more recent polls, which hints at a general recency bias and in any case does not change the reality that Harper was at the time perceived to be divisive.)
Dissatisfaction with Harper was due to his dour tone and the perception that he wasn't "nice". The scandals you like to repeat are mostly inside-baseball events that are poorly remembered and would be barely reported if Trudeau or Carney did them. Harper's biggest substantive failure was on house prices.
Dissatisfaction with Trudeau, delayed though it was, was due to the objective circumstances of people's lives visibly deteriorating in ways that could no longer be ignored, and that were directly connected to policy choices. Come live in a city that got overwhelmed with low-quality immigrants over a three year period and see how much the Fair Elections Act offends you in comparison. When it came to house prices, the Trudeau people also very much said "hold my beer".
Polls about people's perceptions regarding best/worst past PM are meaningless. Many people can't name any prior to maybe two administrations ago and you'd have to be a history buff to name any prior to WWII other than MacDonald and maybe Laurier.
Harper was the most ignorant Prime Minister in Canadian history when it came to criticism of any of his legislation. The more he was criticized on any Bill, the more and more insufferable he became in tapping into new precedents for anti-democratic abuses and otherwise having non-verbal legislative meltdowns. I substantiate with examples in this essay comparing his scandals with those with Trudeau: https://stefanklietsch.substack.com/p/comparing-and-contrasting-the-scandals
Much of the more obnoxious Harper legislation was quickly repealed by the Trudeau government without controversy (and without protest from Poilievre, despite his enthusiastic sycophantic support for all Harper policies). The Liberal government in fact stopped most Harper policies from taking their full toll on our quality of life, because Harper's precedents were fundamentally not normalized by Canadians - with certain exceptions, like how we are still stuck with the 31-year Canada-China that allows Chinese state-companies to sue for our tax dollars in kangaroo tribunals whenever Canada passes legislation affecting their expected profits.
I am not sure how you would prove that Canada was more reputable under Harper than under Trudeau. There was plenty of negative international media coverage regarding his non-cooperation on climate policies and around the muzzling of government scientists. At any rate, both the Harper and the Trudeau governments failed to make Canada popular enough to win seats on the UN Security Council.
(Alberta's secessionist movement is exaggerated in its strength by Conservatives who want to cynically pressure other Canadians to adopt their policies despite losing elections. Saskatchewan's supposed secessionist movement would be even less of a real organized thing, and I say that having spoken to an actual Saskatchewan separatist.)
Wow. Strong batch of Kool-Aid today.
https://halifax.citynews.ca/2015/10/18/former-pmo-lawyer-says-tories-have-lost-moral-authority-to-govern/
Whew!!! Now that we have Harper out of the way: what was the column about again??
My initial post said nothing about Harper or Trudeau; I only responded to one of The Dispatch's takes. Dave brought in the allegation of partisan double-standards in response to my post, and I responded to his pivot.
Prime Minister Harper had his own failed and destructive policies. He is still very much a political actor.
They absolutely should be publicly quiet when they leave office. It is their narcissism and selfish attention seeking that we are seeing when they do what Mr. Trudeau is doing. It’s not surprising, but it’s undermining our leaders and our country.
And them learning to be quiet will not dilute our institutional memory not one iota.
Mr. Carney knows how to contact any former official if we thinks they have anything of value he might use. He’s not sitting there wishing that would call him so he can avoid reaching out. It is nothing more than vanity that drives Mr. Trudeau to insist “oh my replacement hasn’t called I know but everyone needs to listen to MEEEE!!!”
Seriously.
It’s undermining and it’s pathetic.
Mr. Carney knows where to find him if he needs him.
Mr. Trudeau needs to learn his new place.
By all means I welcome Mr. Trudeau to remind people of his existence in the most vapid and wrongheaded ways possible. Especially now that the media don't have much incentive to run cover for him anymore.
It's not just political elites who need to maximize political information, but also the rest of Canadians. When former Prime Ministers shut up as as much as possible, Canadians do not have as much access to retrospective information about the realities of the office; in other words, we inevitably are getting a distorted picture of reality when we have more access to whatever bullshit an incumbent PM puts out than we do to whatever more forthcoming opinions a former PM might have. (Former PMs would still be self-serving in trying to maximize their reputation, but are less incentivized by immediate electoral cycles when giving their version of events.)
No one in the public is more informed by Mr. Trudeau current attention seeking.
And again it’s a pathetic level of narcissism for him to imagine that only HE and HE ALONE can give Canadians the right perspective and facts. Sadly there is, NO ONE else. HE must bear the burden of the limelight. Ridiculous.