I have often found that many highly educated folks tend to have a lot of book learning and very little common sense when it comes to real life.
Trudeau is a perfect example. He seems unable to read the room. He seems unable to not lie when he is in trouble. Trudeau seems unable to stop trying to be the centre of attention where ever he goes. (India comes to mind).
He is a flawed individual. This doesn’t mean he is stupid, but it does mean that his virtue signaling, pompous personality, and seemingly never-ending stream of lies and totally annoying word salads make him look incredibly stupid.
I agree. When they were first elected I watched the 20-30Somethings speak & behave like they read about it & wrote essays about it, but had no firsthand experience on any of the major files. Pure theory poorly applied to major issues. It was like watching your kids bumble about🤦♀️ & dreading that they had the damned cheque book.
"He seems unable to not lie when he is in trouble. "
Can you please substantiate that claim? Don't get me wrong, I can think of instances where the Prime Minister lied. He lied before becoming Prime Minister by promising an end to our existing electoral system, and he lied when he denied The Globe and Mail's story about pressuring his Attorney General on SNC Lavalin. But those episodes are not enough to demonstrate that he lies regularly or lies by default.
I would love to accommodate you regarding lies that Trudeau has told, but I just wouldn’t have the time.
Google: list of lies from Trudeau and you will get about 2,440,000 results (0.54 seconds). I use a VPN connect to Dallas, so not everyone may get the same amount. (and I only went through the first 2 pages.
BR Edmunds took the time to write a book about Trudeaus lies called “Trudeau’s lies matter” – 95 pages.
I was not hoping Carole for a torrent of information as opposed to a concise list of examples in your own words that you believe to be lies. Nonetheless, thanks for sharing, I did look over your links. Some of them though are not discussing actual lies as much "equivocations" or "asking for trust", which I have not questioned Trudeau being guilty of. The De Souza article assumes without demonstrating that false claims about the Prime Minister's trips were lies. There is a chance that Trudeau ordered a lie about the claims for advice for the Emergencies Act, but it could also be the case that the individual Minister lied, or it could be that there was a simple misunderstanding leading to a false claim.
The threshold of evidence required for accusing someone of lying is high, given the competing alternatives of the claims being at one time correct, the claims being sincerely mistaken, or the claims being made in ignorance.
"My favourite lie is the one where he tells the Emergency Act Commission that he never called the truckers names."
I do not believe that you have accurately represented that exchange. Trudeau called the occupation participants a "fringe minority" with "extremist views", which whether accurate or not is not really name-calling. At any rate, it is possible for a Prime Minister to forget what language they used in a particular time and place when being questioned in live-time. This is not like the firm denials that Trudeau gave to The Globe and Mail about their story, where he had every opportunity to gather relevant facts and chose to distort them regardless.
I’m not sure that the intelligence you ascribe to Trudeau might not more correctly be termed cunning based on force feeding his ideologies, assuming he has any that he would truly defend, to the unquestioning in a manner designed to keep him in power. Take away the power and the adulation of his acolytes and you end up with a self centred preening nincompoop.
a: having or indicating a high or satisfactory degree of intelligence and mental capacity
b: revealing or reflecting good judgment or sound thought
Cambridge Dictionary: showing intelligence, or the ability to understand and learn well
Given the definitions, I would consider him to be sly, chimerical, manipulative, secretive, unethical, narcissistic, demagogic and hypocritical megalomaniac. Sure he was smart enough to hire some smart friends and advisors, but I await examples of superior intelligence. Ever since he was elected based on Harper-fatigue, family name, good looks and sunny outlook his party has received a smaller percent of the popular vote. He is good at creating wedges and pandering to his base, but that isn't so much a sign of intelligence as it is to his lust for power.
Arguably, his management style has resulted in a crop of ineffective ministers which makes for a uncertain, risk intolerant bureaucracy and sclerotic civil service. He has taken issues that could have united Canadians (most believe in climate change, control of illegal guns, abortion rights, LGBT rights, immigration etc.) and managed to alienate the majority of voters.
Good points Dan although I would agreeto some extent with your bracketed observations I think that while most folks views would align where the complications come into play is in determining just how much government actions come into play. We’ve seen and are seeing far too many ideological approaches being imposed upon us by activist thugs.
I agree. The reason he's won three elections in a row isn't because of intelligence and cunning, rather it is because he unfurled his political sails with the prevailing winds of a progressive doctrine that has become an invasive weed in almost all institutions, public and private. He was elected because he aped the thoughts and feelings of an already-duped electorate. The centrist approach is to challenge these prevailing winds, which is a much harder task, but also based in reality which is where our politics SHOULD reside.
I'm not saying you're wrong but you could be describing at least one other Canadian political leader. Actually, the more I think about it, you could fill a city bus with such Canadian leaders right now.
Now, having said that, I do recall a few years ago that Conrad Black pointed out that a) he had personal acquaintanceship with JT; and b) for all JT's failings and policy missteps (Conrad's analysis of same, of course), the face painter (again, according to Conrad) was not dumb but was quite smart.
According to Lord Conrad. But, Lord Conrad went on to write, he did have very great policy / political differences with the face painter.
Trudeau has unquestionably been a successful politician, and he’s got a great deal of political talent. I’m unpersuaded that he isn’t an intellectual lightweight. That’s not to say that he’s stupid, but that he tends to have a relatively shallow understanding of issues and policies combined with a hubris that prevents him from changing his mind. His government has an 8 year track record of being blindsided by relatively forseeable consequences they didn’t anticipate, and dogged pursuit of policies and approaches that aren’t working.
One example is the Trudeau government’s approach to debts and deficits: the pitch was that relatively small deficits of $30 billion a year were no problem, so long as it wasn’t significantly changing the debt:GDP ratio. Interest rates were low, so why not spend money now to make investments in the future? And that’s where the thinking stopped. This approach was interpreted as “we can spend more money.” The size of government has bloated while managing to actually decrease in capacity. Spending went up without much of a discernable impact anywhere. They didn’t hold the peg on debt:GDP (I’m not going to hold the COVID response against them) and the “investments” they touted were really just program spending with dubious long term gain. And finally, most of the debt isn’t held in long term securities. It tends to roll over pretty frequently, meaning the projections of how much debt the government could afford to carry was being extrapolated from a period with historically low interest rates that shouldn’t be expected to hold.
Trudeau identified a top line fact: Canada had fiscal capacity to spend more in 2015. He exploited that to tremendous political advantage with a public that was sick of austerity in a booming economy. Trudeau didn’t understand the conditions that underpinned that fact, think about contigencies in case those conditions changed, and wasn’t judicious in ensuring that more spending was delivering long term value. But he won 3 elections and has been prime minister since 2015…
Interesting take on what seems obvious given any thought at all; i.e., the human condition but I think you are much too kind. His refusal (inability?) to give an intelligent answer to so many questions posed in public where he so often just repeats some party line is telling I believe. There's a certain vacuousness that surely you've witnessed. He wins elections, not with his intelligence but with the machine behind him, the previous weakness of conservative leadership and the help of the NDP. Wonder what tribe I'm in?
A well written and well thought out piece Matt. I, like you, do not think JT is stupid, though he is far from brilliiant or even bright (perhaps coniving adn manipulative are better descriptors) but he marches to a different drummer than most of ous. He has consumed the Coolaid of woke thought and virtue signaling over real action. As Titania McGrath indicates - putting a rainbow on your soical media site makes you a better person automatically.
So, let's take the human being thing a step or two in a slightly different direction. I am lower middle class and that givves me a perspective on government, money, life style and so forth but it also makes it hard for me to imagine the life of a trust fund kid with virtually unlimited resources. I also have a hard time understanding how a drug user continues knowing full well that the drugs will take the life in all likelyhood. I have to really work at trying to understand the struggles of the adicted while I quickly get the struggles of a person my age and circumstance who has had the power shut off in the house for lack of funds. Follow along and how could a trust fund kid understand the struggles of a family living in a rental in Toronto that is having a hard tiem putting food on the plate? I suggest that he doesn't put the work in and those around him simply encourage him in his beliefs that carbon tax and EVs are great adn that virtue signaling is what it is all about.
JT's reality and the reality of those around him is not the reality of the worker in Canada and without doing the work they will never understand us out here in the country outside the Ottawa bubble.
"It’s ridiculous. But it’s us. It’s humans. Through and through."
Well, partly. But the recognition that we can't be so invested in our opinions that we're unable to evaluate them critically, and modify them when it's beneficial to do so, is also us. The part of us that's rational understands that criticism of some conviction we hold isn't the same thing as criticism of us personally. If the critic didn't think we were capable of understanding the criticism, he wouldn't bother bringing the matter to our attention. The point of advancing a case for something (as this article does) and debating ideas is to learn from each other, a desirable outcome that's far less likely if we construe as personal insult or an assault on our identity any suggestion that our analysis of some issue could use a re-think.
In my opinion, the issue with Trudeau is less his intelligence than his lack of sufficient self-insight. He is also, transparently, a bully--a tendency which, if you had it to begin with, would only be intensified by years of wielding dictatorial authority over high school students powerless to oppose you, followed by years of lording it over equally impotent MPs. By accident of birth, Trudeau probably had a good conceit of himself from earliest childhood; and nothing that's happened in his life since would be incompatible with a conviction, if by any chance he had one, that he was born to rule. The fact that he has indeed become the titular head of the country would hardly disconfirm his confidence in his own judgment, and would tend to lessen any likelihood of real openness to input from lesser mortals.
All this is understandable and plausible. But there's another 'human tendency' at play in Trudeau's case, one that, politically at least, manifests itself most noticeably on the left, and that's the impulse to impose narratives on people. Our expressions of opinion commonly take narrative form--and what are the culture wars if not contests to see which side gets to impose its narratives on public events, defining their meaning? You might think you've driving your truck to Ottawa to protest government policies against which you have legitimate grievances; but, no, in the eyes of our Prime Minister you're a MAGA-style racist and an un-Canadian. This is the ultimate in bullying, depriving people of the right to determine for themselves the meaning of their own actions, and arrogating to oneself a responsibility that clearly belongs to each individual. Trudeau's unwillingness or inability to let people speak for themselves in this fundamental way, his certainty that he knows better than they do what their motives are--in particular those of anyone so misled as not to share his opinions--is what truly repels and frightens me about him. It may not be a defect of intelligence, but it's a serious defect all the same.
Words of wisdom (in my humble opinion) from the philosopher Susan Haack:
"The genuine inquirer wants to get to the truth of the matter that concerns him, whether or not that truth comports with what he believed at the outset of his investigation, and whether or not his acknowledgement of that truth is likely to get him tenure, or to make him rich, famous, or popular. So he is motivated to seek out and assess the worth of evidence and arguments thoroughly and impartially. This doesn't just mean that he will be hard-working; it is a matter, rather, of willingness to re-think, to re-appraise, to spend as long as it takes on the detail that might be fatal, to give as much thought to the last one percent as to the rest. The genuine inquirer will be ready to acknowledge, to himself as well as others, where his evidence and arguments seem shakiest, and his articulation of problem or solution vaguest. He will be willing to go with the evidence even to unpopular conclusions, and to welcome someone else’s having found the truth he was seeking. And, far from having a motive to obfuscate, he will try to see and explain things as clearly as he can."
Trudeau acknowledge "where his evidence and arguments seem shakiest?' That'll be the day! When it comes to obfuscation and evasion he is a master; but these skills seem to me neither admirable nor honorable, and they're inimical to truth pursuits. If, on the other hand, the goal isn't truth but reducing others to the status of minor role players in narratives you control, then they're probably useful. This would explain Trudeau's hostility to Rebel News, for example, and to other sources (Jordan Peterson? Tucker Carlson? Pierre Poilievre and all similar 'far right' voices, naturally!) deemed threatening to such control.
Though Canadians have been familiar with Poilievre for twenty years, look for a serious attempt to recast him as a Trump clone, and--the latest--as somehow ineligible to complain about high grocery prices, on the ground that an 'advisor' of Poilievre's also has some kind of advisory relationship with (gasp! Wait for it:) Loblaws (full disclosure: my RRIF holds a few shares of Loblaws stock). As 'guilt by association' arguments go, this one is a stretch even by spin machine standards; but logic and truth aren't the relevant criteria here, just compatibility with the narrative. Imposing and maintaining control of The Narrative is the first consideration for all would-be authoritarians.
Trudeau's treatment of his ministers alone (JWR, Philpott et al) would suggest he is a malignant narcissist - cunning, charismatic and dangerous.
His blackface defence (or lack thereof), his "peoplekind" comment, "thanks for your donation", "like drink-box, water-bottle sorta things" and so many more examples do not show a serious person of high intelligence.
And this is why I enjoy reading and hearing your work. It’s a nicely balanced piece that discusses things in the context of regular human behaviour and how we get our knickers in a twist over the smallest things. Please keep it up!
I've been contemptuous of Trudeau when I pegged him as a $3-bill phony over his overwrought, hammy behaviour, including his ghost-written eulogy at Pierre Trudeau's funeral. What kind of a jackass uses his father's funeral as a stepping stone to a political introduction to the masses? Justin, apparently. Mark Antony tried something similar at the funeral of Julius Caesar, and it didn't end well for Antony either, although it took several years for him to disappear.,
I agree. When he draped himself over his father's casket, I had to laugh at his 'drama queen' behaviour. The WE charity scandal turned me fully against him. (also SNC Lavalin) I was so happy that the elementary school liberal brainwashing machine was shut down. That would not have happened if PP didn't dig his heels in. Now PP just has to behave in a more statesmanlike manner.
And who can forget his slow, drama-laden walk down towards the Eternal Flame, holding a rose which he then proceeded to hand to some anonymous little girl standing along the edge of the walk with her parents - passing the torch to a new generation, or whatever. News types had no idea what that was all about at the time.
Without the ability to self-reflect, one cannot be helped to change, nor change oneself. It would appear the only path Trudeau has, and always turns to, is division and distraction of the electorate.
Past actions are the best predictors of future actions.
Stefan, we welcome your views and feedback, but factchecking all other commenters in real-time is how flame wars get started, and I stamp those out. Share your views. Make your case. Others will say things you don't agree with.
Matt, wouldn't it help the profitability of The Line if there were a little more excitement going on to draw attention to your pieces, so long as it is non-clickbait within the realm of civil discourse?
Incidentally, I believe that the "talk past your opponents, but don't try talking to them directly" approach encapsulates *so much* of what is wrong with Canadian politics...
Stefan, you have so many opinions and perhaps there's an interesting and cogent direction in them somewhere. Submit an article to The Line editor on some topic you'd like to debate and see where that goes if it's accepted. Like Matt says, "share your views, make your case".
I appreciate that respectful comment, but there's definitely no "article" to be written in anything I said above. Matt's weird and anti-social rule doesn't need an essay response, nor can simple and straightforward questions that allegedly certain people are sensitive to be elaborated into full columns.
All i can say is JT is a lost cause. If anyone here cares bout the Liberal Party, you should be pushing every rock possible to try to convince your party to dump him.
Justin Trudeau has tremendous skill for retail politics and has perfected a public facade that regardless of how deep the mess is, he has is able to reclaim the moral high ground. In other words, never apologize for anything and constantly remind everyone that his heart is in the right place.
To a certain extent, this morally superior facade has been aided and abetted by the MSM. The Blackface incident, in the middle of an election campaign for God’s sake, should have sunk the 2019 Liberal election campaign. Within two days the journalists covering the Trudeau campaign were on to new stories. There are numerous similar instances but everyone knows them as well as me.
Perhaps at this point in his political career, Trudeau isn’t able or willing to see that Canadians have moved on from his social justice crusades. Pocket book challenges have focused minds on having a decent standard of living and setting goals that could come true if politicians would get serious about the economy and public finances. The end is nigh…
Because Montreal never suffered the curse of Harold Ballard. It's hockey's "curse of the bambino". It will be overcome some day.....I'm not expecting much in my lifetime, having been 5 when they last had a parade. So in that way, it's easy to love the Leafs over the Habs; a team that by owning the Q for decades had Cups served to them on a silver platter :)
Jagmeet Singh will celebrate 5 years as an MP on Feb 25. On the next opposition day Conservatives could introduce a motion to permit a full pension to all Party leaders who have been an MP for, not 6 years, but only 5 years . Pass it quickly. Vote down the Budget. Election in Spring. Bye Trudeau. Bye Jagmeet.
You give the man too much credit. More than just a phoney, he has a built in distaste for vast regions of the country he leads. He does know how to win elections however by targeted campaigning. Does this demonstrate his intelligence? I think otherwise.
I have often found that many highly educated folks tend to have a lot of book learning and very little common sense when it comes to real life.
Trudeau is a perfect example. He seems unable to read the room. He seems unable to not lie when he is in trouble. Trudeau seems unable to stop trying to be the centre of attention where ever he goes. (India comes to mind).
He is a flawed individual. This doesn’t mean he is stupid, but it does mean that his virtue signaling, pompous personality, and seemingly never-ending stream of lies and totally annoying word salads make him look incredibly stupid.
Anyway, that is my opinion of the man.
Carole, I respectfully assert that the phrase, "common sense" is an oxymoron.
Put differently, common sense ain't common. And, given that the Prime face painter is nobility, no one should expect "common" sense.
Brilliantly stated.
You are quite correct, NS' my error. And, unlike the Prime face painter, I acknowledge my errors.
I agree. When they were first elected I watched the 20-30Somethings speak & behave like they read about it & wrote essays about it, but had no firsthand experience on any of the major files. Pure theory poorly applied to major issues. It was like watching your kids bumble about🤦♀️ & dreading that they had the damned cheque book.
"He seems unable to not lie when he is in trouble. "
Can you please substantiate that claim? Don't get me wrong, I can think of instances where the Prime Minister lied. He lied before becoming Prime Minister by promising an end to our existing electoral system, and he lied when he denied The Globe and Mail's story about pressuring his Attorney General on SNC Lavalin. But those episodes are not enough to demonstrate that he lies regularly or lies by default.
Hi Stefan:
I would love to accommodate you regarding lies that Trudeau has told, but I just wouldn’t have the time.
Google: list of lies from Trudeau and you will get about 2,440,000 results (0.54 seconds). I use a VPN connect to Dallas, so not everyone may get the same amount. (and I only went through the first 2 pages.
BR Edmunds took the time to write a book about Trudeaus lies called “Trudeau’s lies matter” – 95 pages.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-the-meaning-of-justin-trudeaus-petty-falsehoods
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-robson-justin-trudeaus-factory-of-little-lies
https://ravingcanuck.com/2018/04/13/the-unauthorized-list-of-trudeau-untruths-outright-lies-evasions-non-answers-and-other-equivocations/
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/macdougall-trudeau-is-asking-for-trust-when-theres-little-left
https://torontosun.com/news/national/lilley-unleashed-the-trudeau-govt-caught-lying-again-about-the-emergencies-act
My favourite lie is the one where he tells the Emergency Act Commission that he never called the truckers names.
I was not hoping Carole for a torrent of information as opposed to a concise list of examples in your own words that you believe to be lies. Nonetheless, thanks for sharing, I did look over your links. Some of them though are not discussing actual lies as much "equivocations" or "asking for trust", which I have not questioned Trudeau being guilty of. The De Souza article assumes without demonstrating that false claims about the Prime Minister's trips were lies. There is a chance that Trudeau ordered a lie about the claims for advice for the Emergencies Act, but it could also be the case that the individual Minister lied, or it could be that there was a simple misunderstanding leading to a false claim.
The threshold of evidence required for accusing someone of lying is high, given the competing alternatives of the claims being at one time correct, the claims being sincerely mistaken, or the claims being made in ignorance.
"My favourite lie is the one where he tells the Emergency Act Commission that he never called the truckers names."
I do not believe that you have accurately represented that exchange. Trudeau called the occupation participants a "fringe minority" with "extremist views", which whether accurate or not is not really name-calling. At any rate, it is possible for a Prime Minister to forget what language they used in a particular time and place when being questioned in live-time. This is not like the firm denials that Trudeau gave to The Globe and Mail about their story, where he had every opportunity to gather relevant facts and chose to distort them regardless.
Stephan..........still trying to pick that turd up by the clean end.....
Perhaps...but those lies are highly significant and they destroyed his credibility.
I’m not sure that the intelligence you ascribe to Trudeau might not more correctly be termed cunning based on force feeding his ideologies, assuming he has any that he would truly defend, to the unquestioning in a manner designed to keep him in power. Take away the power and the adulation of his acolytes and you end up with a self centred preening nincompoop.
I agree.
According to MW Dictionary
a: having or indicating a high or satisfactory degree of intelligence and mental capacity
b: revealing or reflecting good judgment or sound thought
Cambridge Dictionary: showing intelligence, or the ability to understand and learn well
Given the definitions, I would consider him to be sly, chimerical, manipulative, secretive, unethical, narcissistic, demagogic and hypocritical megalomaniac. Sure he was smart enough to hire some smart friends and advisors, but I await examples of superior intelligence. Ever since he was elected based on Harper-fatigue, family name, good looks and sunny outlook his party has received a smaller percent of the popular vote. He is good at creating wedges and pandering to his base, but that isn't so much a sign of intelligence as it is to his lust for power.
Arguably, his management style has resulted in a crop of ineffective ministers which makes for a uncertain, risk intolerant bureaucracy and sclerotic civil service. He has taken issues that could have united Canadians (most believe in climate change, control of illegal guns, abortion rights, LGBT rights, immigration etc.) and managed to alienate the majority of voters.
Good points Dan although I would agreeto some extent with your bracketed observations I think that while most folks views would align where the complications come into play is in determining just how much government actions come into play. We’ve seen and are seeing far too many ideological approaches being imposed upon us by activist thugs.
I agree. The reason he's won three elections in a row isn't because of intelligence and cunning, rather it is because he unfurled his political sails with the prevailing winds of a progressive doctrine that has become an invasive weed in almost all institutions, public and private. He was elected because he aped the thoughts and feelings of an already-duped electorate. The centrist approach is to challenge these prevailing winds, which is a much harder task, but also based in reality which is where our politics SHOULD reside.
I'm not saying you're wrong but you could be describing at least one other Canadian political leader. Actually, the more I think about it, you could fill a city bus with such Canadian leaders right now.
Peter, you may be correct in that he is cunning.
Now, having said that, I do recall a few years ago that Conrad Black pointed out that a) he had personal acquaintanceship with JT; and b) for all JT's failings and policy missteps (Conrad's analysis of same, of course), the face painter (again, according to Conrad) was not dumb but was quite smart.
According to Lord Conrad. But, Lord Conrad went on to write, he did have very great policy / political differences with the face painter.
Trudeau has unquestionably been a successful politician, and he’s got a great deal of political talent. I’m unpersuaded that he isn’t an intellectual lightweight. That’s not to say that he’s stupid, but that he tends to have a relatively shallow understanding of issues and policies combined with a hubris that prevents him from changing his mind. His government has an 8 year track record of being blindsided by relatively forseeable consequences they didn’t anticipate, and dogged pursuit of policies and approaches that aren’t working.
One example is the Trudeau government’s approach to debts and deficits: the pitch was that relatively small deficits of $30 billion a year were no problem, so long as it wasn’t significantly changing the debt:GDP ratio. Interest rates were low, so why not spend money now to make investments in the future? And that’s where the thinking stopped. This approach was interpreted as “we can spend more money.” The size of government has bloated while managing to actually decrease in capacity. Spending went up without much of a discernable impact anywhere. They didn’t hold the peg on debt:GDP (I’m not going to hold the COVID response against them) and the “investments” they touted were really just program spending with dubious long term gain. And finally, most of the debt isn’t held in long term securities. It tends to roll over pretty frequently, meaning the projections of how much debt the government could afford to carry was being extrapolated from a period with historically low interest rates that shouldn’t be expected to hold.
Trudeau identified a top line fact: Canada had fiscal capacity to spend more in 2015. He exploited that to tremendous political advantage with a public that was sick of austerity in a booming economy. Trudeau didn’t understand the conditions that underpinned that fact, think about contigencies in case those conditions changed, and wasn’t judicious in ensuring that more spending was delivering long term value. But he won 3 elections and has been prime minister since 2015…
Interesting take on what seems obvious given any thought at all; i.e., the human condition but I think you are much too kind. His refusal (inability?) to give an intelligent answer to so many questions posed in public where he so often just repeats some party line is telling I believe. There's a certain vacuousness that surely you've witnessed. He wins elections, not with his intelligence but with the machine behind him, the previous weakness of conservative leadership and the help of the NDP. Wonder what tribe I'm in?
A well written and well thought out piece Matt. I, like you, do not think JT is stupid, though he is far from brilliiant or even bright (perhaps coniving adn manipulative are better descriptors) but he marches to a different drummer than most of ous. He has consumed the Coolaid of woke thought and virtue signaling over real action. As Titania McGrath indicates - putting a rainbow on your soical media site makes you a better person automatically.
So, let's take the human being thing a step or two in a slightly different direction. I am lower middle class and that givves me a perspective on government, money, life style and so forth but it also makes it hard for me to imagine the life of a trust fund kid with virtually unlimited resources. I also have a hard time understanding how a drug user continues knowing full well that the drugs will take the life in all likelyhood. I have to really work at trying to understand the struggles of the adicted while I quickly get the struggles of a person my age and circumstance who has had the power shut off in the house for lack of funds. Follow along and how could a trust fund kid understand the struggles of a family living in a rental in Toronto that is having a hard tiem putting food on the plate? I suggest that he doesn't put the work in and those around him simply encourage him in his beliefs that carbon tax and EVs are great adn that virtue signaling is what it is all about.
JT's reality and the reality of those around him is not the reality of the worker in Canada and without doing the work they will never understand us out here in the country outside the Ottawa bubble.
Just some notions
"It’s ridiculous. But it’s us. It’s humans. Through and through."
Well, partly. But the recognition that we can't be so invested in our opinions that we're unable to evaluate them critically, and modify them when it's beneficial to do so, is also us. The part of us that's rational understands that criticism of some conviction we hold isn't the same thing as criticism of us personally. If the critic didn't think we were capable of understanding the criticism, he wouldn't bother bringing the matter to our attention. The point of advancing a case for something (as this article does) and debating ideas is to learn from each other, a desirable outcome that's far less likely if we construe as personal insult or an assault on our identity any suggestion that our analysis of some issue could use a re-think.
In my opinion, the issue with Trudeau is less his intelligence than his lack of sufficient self-insight. He is also, transparently, a bully--a tendency which, if you had it to begin with, would only be intensified by years of wielding dictatorial authority over high school students powerless to oppose you, followed by years of lording it over equally impotent MPs. By accident of birth, Trudeau probably had a good conceit of himself from earliest childhood; and nothing that's happened in his life since would be incompatible with a conviction, if by any chance he had one, that he was born to rule. The fact that he has indeed become the titular head of the country would hardly disconfirm his confidence in his own judgment, and would tend to lessen any likelihood of real openness to input from lesser mortals.
All this is understandable and plausible. But there's another 'human tendency' at play in Trudeau's case, one that, politically at least, manifests itself most noticeably on the left, and that's the impulse to impose narratives on people. Our expressions of opinion commonly take narrative form--and what are the culture wars if not contests to see which side gets to impose its narratives on public events, defining their meaning? You might think you've driving your truck to Ottawa to protest government policies against which you have legitimate grievances; but, no, in the eyes of our Prime Minister you're a MAGA-style racist and an un-Canadian. This is the ultimate in bullying, depriving people of the right to determine for themselves the meaning of their own actions, and arrogating to oneself a responsibility that clearly belongs to each individual. Trudeau's unwillingness or inability to let people speak for themselves in this fundamental way, his certainty that he knows better than they do what their motives are--in particular those of anyone so misled as not to share his opinions--is what truly repels and frightens me about him. It may not be a defect of intelligence, but it's a serious defect all the same.
Words of wisdom (in my humble opinion) from the philosopher Susan Haack:
"The genuine inquirer wants to get to the truth of the matter that concerns him, whether or not that truth comports with what he believed at the outset of his investigation, and whether or not his acknowledgement of that truth is likely to get him tenure, or to make him rich, famous, or popular. So he is motivated to seek out and assess the worth of evidence and arguments thoroughly and impartially. This doesn't just mean that he will be hard-working; it is a matter, rather, of willingness to re-think, to re-appraise, to spend as long as it takes on the detail that might be fatal, to give as much thought to the last one percent as to the rest. The genuine inquirer will be ready to acknowledge, to himself as well as others, where his evidence and arguments seem shakiest, and his articulation of problem or solution vaguest. He will be willing to go with the evidence even to unpopular conclusions, and to welcome someone else’s having found the truth he was seeking. And, far from having a motive to obfuscate, he will try to see and explain things as clearly as he can."
Trudeau acknowledge "where his evidence and arguments seem shakiest?' That'll be the day! When it comes to obfuscation and evasion he is a master; but these skills seem to me neither admirable nor honorable, and they're inimical to truth pursuits. If, on the other hand, the goal isn't truth but reducing others to the status of minor role players in narratives you control, then they're probably useful. This would explain Trudeau's hostility to Rebel News, for example, and to other sources (Jordan Peterson? Tucker Carlson? Pierre Poilievre and all similar 'far right' voices, naturally!) deemed threatening to such control.
Though Canadians have been familiar with Poilievre for twenty years, look for a serious attempt to recast him as a Trump clone, and--the latest--as somehow ineligible to complain about high grocery prices, on the ground that an 'advisor' of Poilievre's also has some kind of advisory relationship with (gasp! Wait for it:) Loblaws (full disclosure: my RRIF holds a few shares of Loblaws stock). As 'guilt by association' arguments go, this one is a stretch even by spin machine standards; but logic and truth aren't the relevant criteria here, just compatibility with the narrative. Imposing and maintaining control of The Narrative is the first consideration for all would-be authoritarians.
This should be its own Substack post. 👍
Great comments. Thanks.
Trudeau's treatment of his ministers alone (JWR, Philpott et al) would suggest he is a malignant narcissist - cunning, charismatic and dangerous.
His blackface defence (or lack thereof), his "peoplekind" comment, "thanks for your donation", "like drink-box, water-bottle sorta things" and so many more examples do not show a serious person of high intelligence.
And this is why I enjoy reading and hearing your work. It’s a nicely balanced piece that discusses things in the context of regular human behaviour and how we get our knickers in a twist over the smallest things. Please keep it up!
Ok Stefan. 1.Which emits more pollution when burned, oil or natural gas.
2. Where is oil used, predominantly, as a home heating fuel, Maritimes or Prairies?
3. Which heating source, and region, got the Carbon tax “carve out”?
4. Which region votes mainly LPC.
And please take Matts’ advice.
Cheers from Brampton
I've been contemptuous of Trudeau when I pegged him as a $3-bill phony over his overwrought, hammy behaviour, including his ghost-written eulogy at Pierre Trudeau's funeral. What kind of a jackass uses his father's funeral as a stepping stone to a political introduction to the masses? Justin, apparently. Mark Antony tried something similar at the funeral of Julius Caesar, and it didn't end well for Antony either, although it took several years for him to disappear.,
I agree. When he draped himself over his father's casket, I had to laugh at his 'drama queen' behaviour. The WE charity scandal turned me fully against him. (also SNC Lavalin) I was so happy that the elementary school liberal brainwashing machine was shut down. That would not have happened if PP didn't dig his heels in. Now PP just has to behave in a more statesmanlike manner.
And who can forget his slow, drama-laden walk down towards the Eternal Flame, holding a rose which he then proceeded to hand to some anonymous little girl standing along the edge of the walk with her parents - passing the torch to a new generation, or whatever. News types had no idea what that was all about at the time.
Without the ability to self-reflect, one cannot be helped to change, nor change oneself. It would appear the only path Trudeau has, and always turns to, is division and distraction of the electorate.
Past actions are the best predictors of future actions.
Trudeau turns to "division" as a tactic? How so?
Stefan, we welcome your views and feedback, but factchecking all other commenters in real-time is how flame wars get started, and I stamp those out. Share your views. Make your case. Others will say things you don't agree with.
Matt, wouldn't it help the profitability of The Line if there were a little more excitement going on to draw attention to your pieces, so long as it is non-clickbait within the realm of civil discourse?
I appreciate your willingness to offer advice, but I'm confident in how we choose to run the comment board.
Incidentally, I believe that the "talk past your opponents, but don't try talking to them directly" approach encapsulates *so much* of what is wrong with Canadian politics...
And you are welcome to that view. But, while we're discussing incidentals, it's our comment board, and our rules.
Stefan, you have so many opinions and perhaps there's an interesting and cogent direction in them somewhere. Submit an article to The Line editor on some topic you'd like to debate and see where that goes if it's accepted. Like Matt says, "share your views, make your case".
I appreciate that respectful comment, but there's definitely no "article" to be written in anything I said above. Matt's weird and anti-social rule doesn't need an essay response, nor can simple and straightforward questions that allegedly certain people are sensitive to be elaborated into full columns.
All i can say is JT is a lost cause. If anyone here cares bout the Liberal Party, you should be pushing every rock possible to try to convince your party to dump him.
Justin Trudeau has tremendous skill for retail politics and has perfected a public facade that regardless of how deep the mess is, he has is able to reclaim the moral high ground. In other words, never apologize for anything and constantly remind everyone that his heart is in the right place.
To a certain extent, this morally superior facade has been aided and abetted by the MSM. The Blackface incident, in the middle of an election campaign for God’s sake, should have sunk the 2019 Liberal election campaign. Within two days the journalists covering the Trudeau campaign were on to new stories. There are numerous similar instances but everyone knows them as well as me.
Perhaps at this point in his political career, Trudeau isn’t able or willing to see that Canadians have moved on from his social justice crusades. Pocket book challenges have focused minds on having a decent standard of living and setting goals that could come true if politicians would get serious about the economy and public finances. The end is nigh…
Thanks for the great column. I enjoyed reading it, with one small exception. How can you possibly cheer for the Leafs over Les Canadiens??
Birth obligation.
You have my deepest sympathies.
Because Montreal never suffered the curse of Harold Ballard. It's hockey's "curse of the bambino". It will be overcome some day.....I'm not expecting much in my lifetime, having been 5 when they last had a parade. So in that way, it's easy to love the Leafs over the Habs; a team that by owning the Q for decades had Cups served to them on a silver platter :)
Jagmeet Singh will celebrate 5 years as an MP on Feb 25. On the next opposition day Conservatives could introduce a motion to permit a full pension to all Party leaders who have been an MP for, not 6 years, but only 5 years . Pass it quickly. Vote down the Budget. Election in Spring. Bye Trudeau. Bye Jagmeet.
You give the man too much credit. More than just a phoney, he has a built in distaste for vast regions of the country he leads. He does know how to win elections however by targeted campaigning. Does this demonstrate his intelligence? I think otherwise.