I’m struggling to think of many positive accomplishments.
They ate Trump’s lunch during the NAFTA renegotiations.
Gosh, that wasn’t the read of any knowledgeable observer I know… unless you mean they just didn’t allow it to be much different from the old one. Which was, in a sense, a win, at least opposed to Trump’s plan to fuck everyone.
Think maybe that is more a statement about you than it is about Trudeau? 30 seconds of googling found these:
Here’s how Canada changed under Justin Trudeau
27 Liberal Promises Kept
Washington monthly:
From the latter:
“Trudeau’s policies appear to have had strong results. Poverty—which was increasing before he took office in 2015—has fallen during his administration, from 14.5 percent to 10.1 percent in 2019 (the most recent year for which data is available). That’s at least partially attributable to the Child Care Benefit, which experts believe decreased childhood poverty by 20 percent in the two years after its enactment. Deep poverty, meanwhile, fell from 7.4 percent to 5.0 percent. The share of Canadians making less than half the median income was rising before Trudeau won. Since his first victory, it has decreased by 15 percent. The share of after-tax income going to the bottom 40 percent of earners, largely stagnant under his predecessor, went up. It remains to be seen how COVID-19 will shape his economic legacy, but Trudeau’s government has mounted an aggressive fiscal response. The pandemic has complicated the government’s efforts to bring in immigrants, but Canada has remained one of the friendliest nations for foreigners. Of all the refugees who resettled around the world in 2020, nearly half went to Canada. It is the third consecutive year that the country has led the world in resettlements.”
Will he go down in history as one of the great Prime Ministers? Probably not. But to suggest he is a bad Prime Minister is, to me, absurd. I have many foreign friends and colleagues that would trade leaders with Canada in a heartbeat…
That’s the Liberal Party website. They may, possibly, not be the most impartial source.
Well, maybe you don’t know many knowledgeable observers, then.
We got a major improvement in an industry worth $50billion a year.
Meanwhile…
The milk industry was a particular bee in Trump’s bonnet, for reasons that remain obscure. We gave him 0.4% more access than we had already agreed on for the TPP, which you might remember Trump torpedoed.
The entire Canadian milk industry is worth about $20billion a year. So Trump got about $80million extra.
As you said, most of the rest of the deal ended up maintaining the status quo.
By recognizing that they could buy off Trump’s ego with a trivially small concession that he was personally obsessed with, they opened the door to a much larger win in the auto sector.
That’s an unequivocal win for Canada.
That’s immaterial. Do you dispute the list? You said that you had trouble thinking of many positive accomplishments by Trudeau. I provided some links to refresh your memory. You’re welcome.
Well, let’s try it this way. Which of his accomplishments do you think have been negative? Or do you think the sum of accomplishments (both positive and negative) since 2015 is zero?
Well, yeah. Most of these are either of negligible impact or can’t even be called accomplishments, like “we have a plan for carbon pricing” or “we have an agreement in principle”. Saying you have a plan is not an accomplishment. C’mon. Some are outright lies - how have they “revitalized Canada’s international profile”? The stupid trucker protest is the most attention we’ve gotten since 2015, by far.
Even the “Accomplishments” are modest. They opened a few veteran’s affairs offices. Great. Governments open and close offices. Characterizing routine government business as an accomplishment is sad. The Harper government used to run lists like this too, and it was sad then and it’s sad now.
But this is getting off topic, I’d point out.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
I predict the NEXT CPC Leader will run on a campaign of “Trudeau has done nothing. We hate him and so should you.”
I’ll be mildly surprised if they run on any discernable message, since they didn’t last time.
If Pollievre gets in as leader, they might run on:
“We’ve got a great big convoy
Rockin’ through the night
Yeah, we got a great big convoy
Ain’t she a beautiful sight?”
Things I think the Liberals (and Trudeau) have down reasonably well with
Pushing CETA over the finish line
NATFA 2.0
Calling the **Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiry and taking some, belated, actions
Managing Trump
Imposing a Carbon taxing framework
Collapsing Alberta oil industry
COVID vaccination acquisition
What they’ve done middling to badly
COVID - complete abdication of a central clearing house of information
Indigenous relations/water - lots of platitudes and little action
Collapsing Alberta oil industry
Money laundering in Canad
China’s influence domestically
Progressively wedging demographics into left/right framing
I think he’d be perfectly happy coming in second with such a message, so long as he holds his own seat. It’s much easier to just hang back and take potshots at the government from the opposition benches, than it is to actually articulate policies and have to implement said policies.
How easy would it be for Poilievre to hold his seat? He is an astute politician, so I suppose he figures Carleton supports him. But I do not know Ottawa well.
His riding is a mostly rural riding with lots of expensive houses on large lots. It’s a near perfect, “Fuck you, I’ve got mine” kind of riding.
He’d have to fuck a goat on live TV to lose this riding, and even then, if it was a female goat, he might still pull it off.
Wouldn’t it be easier to pull off a male goat?
(I’ll see myself out.)
Poilievre strikes me as the type of politician who is easily underestimated. He’s a smart guy.
He’s the Ted Cruz of Canada. Smart enough to know he’s full of shit, but vile enough not to care.
I’m not sure that combination is enough to win a general election. I’m near certain it’s enough to win the leadership of the CPC, though.
That’s actually a very astute comparison. Nicely done.