When I saw this picture of Justin Trudeau preparing to face a town hall in Edmonton the other day, I wondered how it must feel to go where no Prime Minister has gone before.
And I was impressed by his courage, for it takes guts to face a crowd like that in a country with so many toxic old Trudeau haters, who infect this country like syphilis.
And nowhere was that courage more on display than it was in the city of Nanaimo yesterday.
Where he had to deal with a sometimes rowdy crowd.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a spirited defence of his decision to approve the Kinder Morgan pipeline during the final — and at times rowdy — town hall meeting of his cross-country tour today in Nanaimo, B.C.
A crowd where a small minority of protesters behaved in the most disgusting manner.
As Trudeau attempted to defend his ideas about protecting the environment while growing the economy, he was shouted down by a number of activists. Three of them had to be removed by police after the local First Nation chief and Trudeau failed to talk them down.
And showed absolutely no respect for the Prime Minister, or all the other people in the room.
But were treated by Trudeau with more respect than they deserved.
For while I understand that pipeline issues can arouse passions, that is no way to treat a Prime Minister, who is the Prime Minister of Canada, not just the Prime Minister of British Columbia.
Do those ugly rowdies really believe that Stephen Harper would have given them a more sympathetic hearing?
Or any kind of hearing.
So why would they try so hard to elect another Con government? Are they really THAT dumb.
Or that evil?
And the good news?
Most of the people in that room were polite, as one might expect Canadians to behave.
Most appreciated Justin Trudeau's courage, and most seemed to support him as do most Canadians.
Even in British Columbia.
And Trudeau's Liberals are still heading for another majority.
You know, the cool way Justin faced down hostile crowds in one town hall after the other, reminded me of the way his father refused to budge when a bunch of FLQ members pelted him with rocks and bottles at a St-Jean-Baptiste parade in Montreal in 1968.
Like father like son, facing down the haters.
And standing up for our Canadian values.
In my decent Canada.
Wowser. Wowser. Wowser.
What a Prime Minister...
22 comments:
Surely you don't think environmentalist protesters are CONS?
It takes a lot of balls to face Canadians in the way JT has, unfiltered, uncensored and so unHarper. No cherry picked crowd of obedient seals to gush and clap at your monotone, mundane mendacity. Just the cold hard reality that you cant please everyone but at least you gave them a voice and that voice just may bring about the change they so desire.
Speak and be heard by the PM, how refreshing.
JD
Like it or not, Trudeau can't just upset the apple cart all of a sudden and keep every last drop of oil in the ground as of yesterday. At least he recognizes that Canada does at some point need to "phase out" its dependence on fossil fuels and transition to renewables. But eco-radical purists like Bill McKibben, who have the gall to say that Trudeau is a "disaster for the planet" and just want their revolution RIGHT NOW, don't take into account economic and political realities that vary from country to country. 100% renewables would be the ideal. But a pipeline is better than a train blowing up and catching fire. And Canada needs to strike a balance eco-logically and eco-nomically considering its unique position between a rock and a hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea -- in other words, Scylla Putin and Charybdis Trump...
Seems nobody gives Trudeau credit for signing on with the Paris Agreement, especially when Nono the Dotard ripped it up for no other reason than Obama supported it and Macron beat him at the stupid arm-wrestling handshake, which made him have an insecure sad about his tiny hands and fragile masculinity. Where Nono the Dotard slapped tariffs on solar panels to appease his retrograde clean coal base, Europe and probably Canada will take advantage of new technology and market realities that America is in denial about. Sooner or later, nobody's going to buy the coal or the oil, because renewables are cheaper and more efficient, and what's good for the planet can indeed be good for business.
I mean, really, come on. Anyone who calls Trudeau a disaster has to think long and hard about what fresh hell a partnership between Nono the Cat Hoarder and Nono the Dotard would look like. Nono the Cat Hoarder would be drilling in everyone's backyard and sell the whole country off to America and its Russian paymasters if it meant making a quick buck. There'd be earthquakes every other day because the land would be so fracked up. His heir apparent, Nono the Scheer Idiot, would probably do the same, and sprinkle in some warped chapter and verse about Jesus turning water into petroleum and throwing the tree-huggers out of the sacred temple of Rosneft, just to make sure he appeals to the church folk at the same time.
We should all be concerned about the fate of the planet. But that sometimes means taking an imperfect temporary solution instead of jumping ship and letting the void be filled by something far worse.
Can you visualize AS doing this? I can't!
I checked on the St-Jean parade; I did think it was odd that the FLQ, a small network of (rather incompetent) terrorist cells would protest openly.
Indeed, the many people protesting Trudeau's presence at the national day of a nation he didn't recognise were simply indépendantistes, not members of a terror group. Of course nobody should have thrown anything potentially dangerous, which could have hurt other people as well as Trudeau, but I worked for the CSN for years and have often seen strikes and pickets get out of hand. That is why protest groups have marshalls now.
http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/30363/l-emeute-qui-a-transforme-la-saint-jean-baptiste-en-fete-nationale
http://autre150e.ca/la-parade-de-la-saint-jean-vire-a-lemeute/
I know people who attended that protest, didn't throw anything, and who remain very proud in pensionable age to have stood up to Trudeau. If I were a bit older (I was scarcely in my teens, if that) I certainly would have joined in - peacefully.
Please don't accuse protesters of being members of a terrorist group, unless you have proof.
Cat protection is the ONLY positive of the Harper years, and I suspect it was more Laureen's initiative. I loathe Harper, but I'm a proud catlady.
I know almost nothing about McKibben, so have no idea whether he is actually an eco-radical purist or whether you just think that the environmental crisis is overblown. It isn't. Odd that you didn't cite the LEAP manifesto in English Canada or Élan global here in Québec. https://elanglobal.org/ They are far more pertinent here.
I just remember that time that Stephen Harper's goons would not allow that young girl in to some event because.......gasp..........she had a photo on her own facebook page with her and a Liberal. Imagine being so afraid of something like that. We are ALL so lucky that Justin is our Prime Minister.
Just nonos who will split the vote for the cons
That is very unfortunate if you fail to recognise the dire state of our environment.
How could people who would NEVER vote Con split the vote for the Cons? Unless you feel that people who vote, say, NDP or Green are standing in the was of a tweedle-dum, tweedle-dee biparty system as exists chez our benighted neighbours to the south?
I agree. I'm not a Liberal, I'm a socialist, nowadays an ecosocialist, and I've never voted for a bourgeois party in my rather long life (and I've done a hell of a lot more politically than most who have). But Justin Trudeau has always shown a lot of physical and personal courage. When he was just an MP, he didn't hesitate to show up at days showcasing community groups in Villeray, though he knew that many looked askance at what they saw as an establishment party that was out for people in Upper Westmount and Upper Outremont, not Villeray, St-Michel or Parc-Ex. Actually, everyone was very polite, there were no nasty confrontations
Although I'm not remotely a Liberal - much farther left, and by no means a Unionist - (I mean in the English anti-Celtic sense, not as in trade-unionist)I definitely have photos with Liberals, most of them Indigenous.
Edmonton was a good warm up practise for him. He still had to come to where I live, Nanaimo and he held up quite well. Nanaimo is in a league of its own when it comes to politics, just check the city council and it continues to work.
Trudeau handles himself well in these meetings and its good he does them. It clearly demonstrates he is willing to face the electorate in open meetings.
We in B.C. don't want that pipeline and we sure don't want more tankers on our coast. Its way to many. didn't attend the meeting, felt there would be enough younger people to push the point home. Trudeau has to be P.M. for the country and do what is best for the whole country, but a lot of us who live on the coast just don't want those tankers on our coast. Let them take it through Alberta and into the U.S.A.
Yes, I live very far from BC but have friends there who have taken part in the campaign against the pipelines. Here there have also been major protests, even in tiny towns in eastern Québec. There are alternatives.
But I also agree, bravo to Trudeau for doing the meetings. And I'm not a Liberal Party supporter, far from it.
hi lagatta...I never said they were Cons, although they very well could be. What I called them were rude rowdies who were shouting down others in the room and acting like fascists....
hi JD...It takes immense courage in a country poisoned by Trudeau haters to face a crowd that size that isn't even screened by metal detectors. No prime minister in Canadian history has ever received so many death threats, or has been so demonized for so long, or so hated for his support of women and gay rights. His life is in danger, and should anything tragic happen those cowardly toxic Trudeau haters are going to have blood on their hands....
hi Jackie... Not only does Trudeau lack the power to close down the oil sands tomorrow, as some environmental extremists are demanding. Throwing tens of thousands of oil workers out of a job would not only cripple the country's economy before it can fully transition to a greener future. It would cause massive social unrest and almost certainly lead to the break up of this country. Trudeau is trying to keep the country together by working out a compromise. Promising Alberta and Saskatchewan a pipeline while committing them to a carbon tax that will eventually make other forms of energy more viable. I don't think it's going to work, the regional divide is now too great, but as the Prime Minister of Canada he has no choice but to try...
hi Kathleen...no I can't imagine Andrew Scheer holding such a free wheeling town hall. I'm sure if he does do them they will be as tightly controlled as the ones Stephen Harper used to hold....
hi lagatta...I did a paper on the rise of the FLQ when I was at McGill, and you have to remember that while the FLQ had been blowing up things like mail boxes since the early sixties, it didn't become the serious terrorist organization until 1968 and 1969 so it's quite possible there were FLQ members in that crowd. As well as RIN members and just rowdies. But again, throwing rocks and bottles at a Prime Minister is not something we should encourage in Canada or we'll end up living in a fascist country. Peaceful noisy demos are fine, but violence is not...
hi Yvonne...yes, how soon people forget. I thought that Trudeau's town halls were a great democratic exercise, and in the almost ten years Harper was in power we never saw anything like them. Those who forget the the horror of the past are condemned to repeat it...
hi e.a.f...I understand that many people in B.C. don't want more oil flowing down the Kinder Morgan pipeline, and I don't blame them. But the Liberals have imposed so many conditions on that pipeline he has in my opinion killed it without actually pulling the trigger. Also you need to understand that polls show that many in B.C. support that pipeline so it's bot cut and dry. And if Justin doesn't look like he's trying to work out a deal that satisfies everyone, B.C. and Alberta will end up in a war and this country could break up. It's not easy being Prime Minister of a country like Canada, but do any of those protesters in BC think that Scheer would be better? Because if they do they must be deluded...
Trudeau, despite the courage it takes to face down an unruly Albertan crowd, cannot make any significant advances over the Cons until he learns that communicating policy positions to crowds is great but he needs to build a competent communications team for the 21st century media. He lets opportunity after opportunity slip away to the bleeding pens of the White Nationalist Post and G&M. He let Canadians down by not having a strategy to promote his tax relief program. The people he intended to help were left helpless, watching and reading doctors and wealthy corporatists dominate the media, whining about how Trudeau was going after small business people. This happens all the time. Without the courage to face 21st century media, Trudeau's feats of courage mean little. He can't compete with Scheer yelling "class warfare" and the like of Ivison amplifying that phrase in the press and on CBC. Courage in public is one thing but what is needed is a vigorous, hearty and productive messaging/media machine that can rise above the powerful voices of the Conmedia machine.
Blowing up post boxes was not the same thing as deliberate kidnapping and the murder that ensued (many now think it was an accident, but it is still murder when it occurred in the context of a kidnapping), but innocent people were seriously injured and sometimes killed, including one teenager who was the bomber himself; Jean Corbo. http://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movies/corbo-disturbing-potrait-emerges-of-radicalized-flq-teen-in-search-of-identity
Oh I'm sure there were FLQ members in the crowd; I've worked with people who had been FLQ members (in the union movement, of course). But it wasn't an FLQ demo. No, I certainly don't approve of throwing stones or bottles at anyone, whether a prime minister or an itinerant, or anyone in between. But except for a few anarcho-punks (and not all anarchists by any means!) in general social movements are far more self-policed nowadays to prevent 'débordements' (violent excesses).
There was very, very little violence during the carré rouge movement - except on the part of certain police. Most of the
vandalism was simply grafffit, much of it very creative.
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