I've now had a chance to watch two of Justin Trudeau's Town Halls. And although I always find it hard in the cold dark days of January to get excited about anything.
I have been extremely impressed by this remarkable democratic exercise.
Justin Trudeau's town halls are a great democratic exercise and example of political courage. The Con media and the toxic Trudeau haters must be screaming with frustration. pic.twitter.com/Te159ehaT8— Simon (@montrealsimon) January 11, 2018
And by the courage of our Prime Minister.
Who isn't afraid to give ordinary Canadians a chance to participate in the political process, and pepper him with questions about anything.
No matter how tough or how critical.
Unlike Stephen Harper who travelled around the country in a heavily guarded bubble where ordinary people only served as props.
But what has particularly impressed me, is the way Trudeau has been dealing with the haters, who have been coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches.
Justin Trudeau's third town hall of his cross-country tour saw repeated interruptions from two persistent hecklers who interrupted questioners and attempted to shout down the prime minister before one of them had to be forcibly removed by police.
For hate in this country is becoming a real problem.
And the way he dealt with this alt-right heckler complaining about the payment to Omar Khadr, was a lesson in Canadian values...
On the other hand the presence of all those kooks, does raise a troubling question.
Should the security at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s town halls across the country be higher?
Because in a country with so many toxic Trudeau haters, this seems a little too casual to me.
“Nobody searched anyone as they were coming through the door here,” one person told Trudeau. “Everybody’s jackets were checked, but nobody was patted down, no metal detectors were passed over anyone.”
For trust me I know how crazy they are. I have received all kinds of death threats in the last two years.
And who can forget how the absurd Trudeau hater at the blog Politics and Its Discontents solicited help from a notorious anti-gay bigot to try to hurt me, for daring to question his judgement? Only to end up with egg all over his face.
And then there was the Con media which also added its measure of hate, sniping away from the sidelines, no doubt because it's incredibly frustrated that ordinary Canadians were getting to ask questions.
And that almost none of them were about the so-called Aga Khan "scandal," which is all the ghastly gang in the Ottawa bubble ever talks about.
With the shabby Con stooge David Akin showing his frustration by actually going after the Trudeau kids at one point.
Only to be called out...
And forced to apologize...
And through it all Trudeau never lost his cool and remained in total command of the situation...
And all I can say is, at a time when Canada is being threatened by a racist bully.
And haters are trying to undermine this country from within.
Thank goodness for a decent leader, and our precious Canadian values...
24 comments:
I can't wait for the town hall meetings out west. Then you'll really see what heckling is.
Oh please he gets tons of soft ball questions, no one challenges him on his neoliberal agenda or the horrible things he does in the name of Feminism.
Your lack of faith makes Simon sad.
Hi anon@11:08...sorry I had to delete your comment but it smelled too much of Con, and that's nasty. Please try to bathe before writing another one...🐷
I doubt that Gyor even knows what " neoliberal" actually means.
Hi anon@10:43....if you're hoping for a lynch mob in Winnipeg and Edmonton, good luck with that one. Maybe next year he'll go to Hee Haw....
Hi Gyor...well as usual we are going to have to agree to disagree. I think he's been getting some pretty good questions, they're a lot more interesting than the ones he gets in the Ottawa bubble, and one of the reasons I support Justin is because he's such a strong feminist...
Hi anon@11:08am...well maybe, I'm always hoping that Gyor is going to see the light, and I'm always disappointed. But I'm definitely not as sad as you are going to be when Trudeau wins another whopping majority. Please send me your address so I can play a tiny violin under your window...😀
Hi T Nicholson...well the funny part is that sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't, depending on whether he is wearing his NDP or his Con hat. I find what Gyor has to say quite interesting because there are quite a few Canadians like him who move back and forth between those two parties. And since I voted for the NDP but now support the Liberals, I'm determined to try to understand my people...🙄
JT has definitely been impressive in these town halls however, it is downright stupid to not beef up security for him in this day and age. JT owes it to his wife and kids and the Canadians who support him to take all necessary precautions to ensure his safety at these events.
One mistake is all it would take for Canada to change forever.
JD
I'm curious about the two loudest, most obnoxious voices from the last debates. I smell a Rebel rat.
Simon I am so proud of OUR Prime Minister and I also am so angry that the Canadian Media have not called out both the Rebel Media and Conservative Party for these blatant attacks on him during these Town Hall meetings. Strange isn't it that my twitter *family* have been able to find the identities of these so called protestors but NOTHING is said in the MSM about who they are and which alt-right groups they are associated with.
Justin doesn't have the same "fuddle-duddle" in-your-face tendency that his father did, so I doubt we'll see a Salmon Arm Salute from him this time around. But all heckling does is to make idiots (like those two anons) look like idiots. Just like when Obama went to red states, and the tea party deplorables were shouting him down and standing around with misspelled signs that compared him to Hitler (and with a poorly-drawn communist party symbol fashioned in the shape of a swastika at that).
Expect more bigoted stupidity from the worst tar-sands swamp dwellers in Albertastan -- "lock him up" chants, Photoshopped pictures of him wearing an exploding turban or a ballet dress, etc. The only thing different from all the "Rope & Hang" posters and monkey caricatures is the obvious racism. But homophobia clearly seems to be the angle that the con throwbacks have been going with in Trudeau's case (Islamophobia a close second), practically since he ran for MP. It didn't work then and it won't work now.
The cons need to make up their minds, even though they don't appear to have much of a mind to make up or in their case put lipstick on a pig. Trudeau is Schrodinger's prime minister: they can't figure out if he's an all-powerful iron-fisted despot, or an "embarrassing" weak-sauce Care Bear and 1980s new wave teen idol, when what they claim to want is an all-powerful iron-fisted despot (but the con version, namely Trump). The only embarrassment (besides Trump, who is an embarrassment to whatever species he belongs to, and to the whole world, but I digress) is the con hecklers, who are effective multitaskers only in that every single one of them has an uncanny knack for putting their foot in their mouth and then shooting themselves in the foot. "Sad!"
I couldn't understand much of what the heckling girl was saying. Was she just making a speech? Does anyone know whether the speech he offered in response answered her questions, if she had any?
Actually they know exactly what he is.
He’s the Liberal Party’s dancing bear. Trot him out for the crowds and put on a show. The real work is done by the men calling the tune....and that ain’t Justin.
hi JD...I agree, I was shocked to hear that people who attend these town halls don't go through metal detectors, like even kids at a rock show do. The levels of hate in this country are extremely high, and to think that something awful couldn't happen here is a dangerous fantasy. As you say, one mistake is all it would take for Canada to change forever...
hi Jim... I too am curious about those hecklers, especially the woman in Hamilton. It does have the stench of Rebel about it, or the stench of the Con's new Rebel campaign manager Hamish Marshall. Since the Cons are anxious to revive the Omar Khadr payment as an issue, I favour the latter...
hi Yvonne...I feel the same way and share your frustration. I'd like the MSM to investigate whether those hecklers are coming from the same dark and grubby Con place. But they don't want to believe that the alt-right is slowly taking over the Cons, so why should we be surprised?
hi John...from what I understood her rant was about M-103 a non-binding motion condemning Islamophobia in Canada. And about the Khadr case, that the alt-right in this country hate for the same reason. i.e. naked bigotry.
She had no real questions, just a general hate mongering rant, so Trudeau's general response was in my opinion what the situation required...
hey Simon I see what you mean about that freaky blogger who tried to go after you. Now he's comparing Justin Trudeau to Neville Chamberlain !!!! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha !!!!
Hi anon....yes, I saw it, although I didn't read it, it was too weird. His hatred for Justin Trudeau is so extreme it's disturbing, and is only exceeded by his hatred for me. I feel sorry for him but he needs to seek help immediately...
The problem is that it is difficult here to express criticism of Trudeau2 without getting associated with the reactionary bigots and homophobes who would rather see Harper or the Catholic Taliban in power.
Trudeau is good on lgbt+ rights and many aspects of feminism (though why on earth is there a Sophie Trudeau?) and at least recognising the horrific cultural and at times physical genocide of Indigenous peoples here. Not so good on fighting pipelines, and utterly horrid in terms of recognising the rights of the Québécois people.
Much as I disliked Mulcair, I can't fathom why anyone who sees her or himself as a social democrat could prefer the capitalist Liberal Party to the NDP.
I'm not saying that to diss you Simon, as I like you and respect you very much. But we do have to fight the ruling class.
Yes, there is more security at shows and lectures nowadays. I'm sure that the crowds are peppered with plainclothes police, but a metal detector could at least screen for concealed weapons. It would be horrible for Canada for ANY PM or MP to be murdered, even one I dislike as thoroughly as Harper.
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