As I've mentioned before, the tired, hapless hacks in our MSM underestimated Justin Trudeau from the time he decided to run for office.
For them and their Con masters Justin just wasn't ready.
And even though he rebuilt the shattered Liberal Party, won a crushing majority, and is at the present time the most popular Prime Minister in Canadian history, they're still singing the same tune.
Even if they have to change the words slightly, as our deathly Marie Antoinette Margaret Wente did yesterday.
By declaring from the lofty height of her cardboard throne, that what Justin Trudeau needs to understand is that rhetoric is easy but governing isn't.
Justin Trudeau is a master of the moral high ground. “Canada is back,” he proclaimed, promising that we will once again be a light unto the nations. Our foreign policy will reflect our values. Our environmental policy will square the circle of sustainability and economic growth.
Every new government promises to be more principled and high-minded than the previous one. They were sleazy and corrupt. We are ethical and pure. They did the expedient thing. We will do the right thing.
By first suggesting that all governments are the same, and it's no good to even hope for something better, because change is just an illusion. And all are born to end up wallowing in the trough of depression and depravity, like Wente and her friends in the Con media.
When in fact that serial plagiarist has no right to even use the word ethical, and the examples she uses to condemn Trudeau are both seriously flawed.
That’s why the Saudi arms deal is so inconvenient. It shows that the government is swimming naked. It makes the new guys look just like the old guys – all too eager to do business with a regime that is not exactly a paragon of human rights.
For while the Saudi deal is a poisoned present from the Harper regime...
And the Liberals i.e. Stéphane Dion have handled it badly.
There is no evidence that our armoured cars can fly, and are being used to bomb innocent civilians in Yemen. It is a religious war and both the Sunni and the Shia are equally brutal.
And as Heather Mallick bravely writes, Justin Trudeau has every right to stand up for the 3000 workers and their families who would lose their jobs if that deal was cancelled.
Yes, the reasons not to sell are many and good. What pains me is the disregard for thousands of workers in rustbelt southern Ontario who will lose their jobs if such contracts don’t go through. Many journalists deploring the deal haven’t yet encountered permanent unemployment but it will happen to them too.
I am always attentive to the humiliation and despair of the person who has lost work, who forces himself to open that front door and tell the family that it’s gone, likely for good. You’ll never hear from her or him again. The jobless live in a kind of social dungeon. I think about those quiet people a lot.
It's not just his right, it's his duty to stand up for the jobs they and their families need. And the money we need to pay for the society we like to live in.
Canadians, rightly, want many things but they can’t be had without nonstop constant effort from all levels of government to achieve full employment. Workers earn money, spend it and pay tax, and tax money is spent. Whether the money comes from the Pure $ account or the Dirty $ account, it is needed.
And those who would inflict mass misery on their own people for the sake of their precious principles couldn't be more hypocritical or disgusting...
And as for the pipeline question Wente also uses to bash Trudeau, this is complete nonsense.
Mr. Trudeau’s task will be to explain why more pipelines now can help us ditch fossil fuels and save the planet later. As with the Saudi arms deal, the moral arguments will loom large, even though they’re pretty much beside the point. In fact, any pipelines we add to those that now crisscross the Earth will be utterly irrelevant to global warming (although not to our economy).
Justin Trudeau has not committed to building any pipelines, he is committed to a process. If that process determines that the pipelines are dangerous for Canadians, or bad for the planet then they will not be built.
And the reason Trudeau cannot come out and declare that the pipelines should or should not be built is that it could raise passions in Alberta and Quebec to a boiling point, threaten the national unity of this country.
And the first duty of a Canadian Prime Minister is to hold the country together.
But then the Con media and the pathetic band of Trudeau haters don't care about that. They only want to destroy Justin, and suck the marrow out of his bones, and smear it all over their bodies, to try to stop the rot from spreading.
So I can only imagine how they rushed to read this story.
And how disappointed they must have been. For this must be truly galling.
Forget the incredible yoga strength, the charming feminist talk, or that glorious hair. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is more than a pretty face.
When a reporter sarcastically suggested that the prime minister explain quantum computing, Trudeau took up the challenge without missing a beat.
Galling to see how they underestimated him. Again.
If there’s one lesson to be learned here — aside from the one in quantum computing — it’s to never assume there’s a limit to Justin Trudeau’s talent.
And they must have screamed in agony to see how popular he remains in Canada and all over the world.
For they are truly desperate...
This is some truly fine reporting, North Korean-style. https://t.co/T7vTR0p3BQ— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) April 16, 2016
For obvious reasons.
And all I can say is they better prepare themselves for more bitter disappointment.
For they will be punished and shunned for attacking such a popular leader in such an foul manner. And underestimating his so fatally.
And I have a feeling that Justin Trudeau will be around for a long time.
Long after his enemies have drowned in their own bile...
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Job losses from cancelling the Saudi contract would likely total up to 10,000 when all suppliers in Canada are included.
ReplyDeleteWhile I wish this contract had never been negotiated I agree with PM Trudeau's position on this. Unfortunately, Mr. Dion is totally inept in his role.
Loved that quantum computing clip. Makes me proud to be fellow McGill graduate.
ReplyDeleteTS
Really not a bad column with Wente's name on it. I wonder where she copied if from?
ReplyDeleteAnd a nice jab at the LEAP manifesto, worthy of the best climate denier.
Leap Manifesto represents a leap back to a world of local, organic, pesticide-free farming powered by renewable energy sources, though presumably without the blight, the crop failures, the pitiable yields, the rural serfdom and the malnourished children that went with it.
Obviously the last three or four centuries of scientific progress have missed her.
“Margaret, that bright thing over there is called an electric light. No it's not magic.”
Having read the Leap manifesto, I can say I find it to be an annoying and very pretentious piece of prose. On the other hand, I don't see that I can disagree with anything it says.
That's what it is with socialism, it has many acceptable facts and looks.sounds good. But it only looks at one side of the coin. It reminds me of the days when they, The socialist/NDPers were pushing for housewives to be paid some hundreds a month. My wife and I both worked and raised our family. My Bro-in-law and my sister were NDPers but only he worked. I asked if he really believed that a housewife should be paid whatever. When he said yes, I said that he should pay her then, not ask my wife and I to do so. We faced the same chores and costs that they did but had to do that and work all day too. It sounded like a nice mom's apple pie idea until you looked at the benefit versus the cost. Perhaps others are not willing to pay that cost.
DeleteSorry but the key point about the Leap Manifesto is human survival not socialism. Have you read it?
DeleteMargaret Wente and Andrew Coyne just cant help themselves can they? Coyne tries to deflect from his hero "Kim Jung Harper" and Wente is now "Wente lite, less fat but with all the bullshit".
ReplyDeleteWhat they fail to realize is that the populace that voted Liberal are a far more intelligent lot and far more in the know than their ReformaCon base will ever be. They suck up the drivel like bovine at the water trough and believe whatever these hacks spew without doing a little research that would easily dispel the bullshit. The ReformaCons and their MSM know this and exploit it at every opportunity.
I'm guessing that 20% of the 30% ReformaCon base are actually good, hard working people, the farmers, the tradespeople and the labourers who work long hours and simply don't have the time to educate themselves on how the ReformaCons have been feeding them a steady diet of untruths and out-of-context crap all these years.
Hopefully that will change someday and they will start taking a grain of salt with all the utter nonsense they're being fed.
JD
I think the only reason Canada got the Saudi contract , was harper handed them a large chunk of the former CDN wheat board business, .. the Saudi's will get their money back in spades in future years...
ReplyDeleteargh!
ReplyDeletei dont think i can be understanding things right. help simon, please...
there is a contract made by someone whom we didn't (and don't) trust (someone whom we deplored and despised on more than moral grounds) with someone like the saudis (i dont have the time for an essay and my words choke me when i think about the appropriate epithets for them peoples, so i'll just assume common knowledge regarding the saudi internal use of power, control on knowledge, women and resources and its external behaviour in terms of funding terrorist organizations).
yes, dishonouring this contract is no better than dishonouring any contract. divorce is never easy and yes, it can be costly.
yet, moral grounds strike me, UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES as not only NOT beside the point. They are imperative to hold as a central Canadian value in deciding the right from wrong in this. JT's actions are successful because they do not follow a prescribed regimen of the right moves, right things to say, at the right time... his actions are driven by a philosophy that holds certain values and it seems to me that everything that he has been aiming for goes in the face of defending this contract.
am i wrong to think that an unemployed person has a chance to find a job, while it is not so for a dead person? am i wrong to think that life here has the same value as life there? am i wrong that there are things that we can do and should do because we can?
moral ground is not an optional place for a powerful country. especially one who makes it its middle name. i loath the fact that my country is involved with filth (which, ultimately takes away all its power to affect it in any meaningful way) and unless there are gaps in my understanding of things, i think that defending a deal like that on the grounds that 4000 people here will loose their jobs, well, ... i must be not understanding things right
right?
That's easy for you to say but you're dealing with the real lives of thousands of Canadian workers. The Saudis are scum but if we didn't trade with every country that violates human rights we'd be living in caves.
Deletethank you,
Deleteno, it's not easy to say at all
but i insist that by the time you are "dealing with real lives of thousands of Canadian workers", you have more hope than when you are dealing with thousands of deaths. anywhere.
the other question i have (and no answers) - has anyone bothered considering the jobs that inevitably, like the proverbial door, open after others close?
political process is a matter of negotiation. negotiation is dialectic: back and forth. if this deal is the lesser of the evil, then the only answer that will be sufficiently satisfactory for me, is the one that offers a reasonably dangerous, undesirable and most decidedly 'cause and effect' counter-option to Canada's deal with Saudi Arabia as the lesser of the evil, i am not buying this.
for the record, this is the first time i disagree with simon. i love you simon but moral grounds (or lack of thereof) brought down whole empires. yeah, they're important. but i believe in JT and i believe in our country, so i'm sure that there is some-other 'worse' than honouring a deal with a fucked up country.
anyone can help with info?
I absolutely agree with Luce. The 4000 to 10000 jobs lost, but their jobs are more important than the lives of others!!!!!!! But that is not the only reason it got approved. One must consider the bottom line of just another Corporation with no moral compass to follow? I do not see any moral compass amongst the Liberal government for this decision either. And for Dion to not see enough human rights abuses by the Saudi's to stop the deal is absolute ignorance and self serving!!!!!! Yes I did vote Liberal but no one mentioned Trudeau's jeeps would be sent to the Saudi"s when they were carrassing me for a vote!!!!! That deal was certainly not "transparent nor Sunny Ways". Ask the Newfies about the difference to election promise theories and actual facts when the budget falls!!!!! To quote Dwayne Ball "a hike in the HST......Not on my watch"!!!!! Ha ha ha. Who lies more......a preacher or a politician? As for journalists these days...... I do not think they exists anymore.
ReplyDeleteWente is yesterday,
ReplyDeleteHving preferred an NDP win, I am content with Trudeau and the federal Liberals, for now. it may not last. we don't known where things will be in 7 years, but for now, things are going well and the Cons and their media friends will just have to suck it up and learn to live with it. The voters of Canada have spoken. Now let them go do something useful.
Coyne: "This is some truly fine reporting, North Korean-style."
ReplyDeleteSo what, pray tell, were Harper's 24/Seven videos???
http://operationmaple.ca/the-stephen-harper-non-answer-generator-part-6
102. "The 24/Seven videos summarize the activities of government for interested Canadians. As Mr. Teneycke [Conservative campaign spokesman] said: 'We’re better than news, because we’re truthful. '"
Although the Conservatives have never disclosed how much their 24/Seven project cost to produce, the Prime Minister's Office has said between three and four staff members from the Privy Council Office were assigned to the project, meaning their salaries were paid for in full by the Canadian taxpayer.
Mark Bourrie writes in Kill The Messengers: Stephen Harper's Assault on Your Right to Know (2015): "Pundits said the television show, aired on the prime minister’s website and on YouTube, was meant to soften his image. It might have been edited to make Harper look more human, but the program itself was part of the plan by Harper to replace the mainstream media with words and images that are under the complete control of the prime minister and his staff."
You forgot to mention J.J. McCullough here, who is bragging about poking so called facts about Justin Trudeau's BS. Just hoping you can tell me if he faked anything:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jjmccullough.com/index.php/2016/04/16/the-north-koreanificiation-of-canadian-political-reporting/