Good questions. I’m watching CBC right now and they have been discussing that Chrystia has apparently been disagreeing with Justin about him not taking upcoming fiscal threats (eg tariffs) seriously enough.
My personal feelings about Justin are that, though he is a good person, there is a certain naivety and lack of pragmatism. I’ve always felt that he was, to some extent, a puppet of Gerald Butts and Katie Telford.
My wife was pondering a future Freeland run for PM, and that, and a principled departure, aren’t mutually exclusive.
Sadly, Canada is facing serious issues and Trudeau isn’t serious enough to face them.
Given the likely choice between a Trudeau led government and a government led by that lying little shitweasel Poilievre, I’ll take Trudeau under any circumstances. Perhaps my bias is showing, though.
If anything, I would guess Chrystia Freeland doesn’t want to have to deal with changing Donald Trump’s diaper another time. NAFTA didn’t need renegotiating the last time around, and it certainly doesn’t need it now, except to give the senile bastard a pretext for his annexation of Canada. Given NATO’s pathetic response to Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine, Trump might even get away with it.
I will say this against Justin Trudeau - I would agree that by and large, his government has been about style more than substance. That being said, I would say the biggest failure of the ‘carbon tax’ has been a lack of PR to show the facts about how it is benefiting Canadians, and how it has reduced emissions.
Given current polling, that’s going to be “The Right Honourable Prime Minister Lying Little Shitweasel Poilievre” to you, and I sadly doubt there’s anything anyone can do to prevent that.
My 16 year old daughter is waiting for her permanent drivers license and new health card. Beyond that, meh. In fact, the strike pushed my last big customer that pays by cheque to switch to EFT.
I agree with you except that I prefer to think of the shit weasel as mini-trump.
If we had a previously normal PC party I would vote for them this time. But with the current CPC, there’s no way in hell. I will have to vote for Justin.
I’ve never voted Conservative in my 35+ years of voting. If Erin O’Toole was still around, I would have voted for him in the next election. Andrew Scheer would have been a no from me, but not the same level of revulsion as PP.
I would never have said this at gunpoint at the time, but - I wish we’d had a few years of Erin O’Toole and then gone back to the Liberals… Certainly better than what we’re facing now!
If Michael Chong had been chosen as PC leader, I might actually have voted for them.
I just heard a talking head on CBC describe this situation as “there are some turds you just can’t polish.” Particularly an extra 20 billion in deficit I would imagine:
It is hard to imagine that the third place Liberals would have bounced back without Freeland’s experience, when Trudeau first recruited her. She did a good job with USMCA first time round and was rewarded with plenty of government focus on Ukraine. But she shares the blame for some naive policies. Her resignation letter is a classic. Can Leblanc fill her shoes?
Eschewing costly gimmicks? Dry powder? This one won’t be soon forgotten…
I think this is an interesting conflict between what Trump says he will do (the tariff threats) versus his observed behavior (laziness and disinterest). Freeland is gearing up for war. Trudeau seems to think Trump is just talking shit. For what it’s worth, I think Trudeau is correct. The tariff threats are more valuable as threats than they are as actual policy and Trudeau has already gone ahead and kissed the ring. There is still an inherent risk that Trump will do as he pleases. But if we take Freeland’s gearing up for war approach, we’ll get war and we will not win.
That ignores the fact that Trump imposed a bunch of tariffs in his first term, and is likely to face even less pushback from congress on such matters in his second term.
Trump believes that international trade is a zero sum game. His obsession with trade deficits clearly indicates that he just doesn’t understand how trade works, and given any excuse he’ll impose new rounds of tariffs. Of course Canada won’t win a trade war. Neither will the US. Trade wars only have losers. Canada’s best strategy is to (1) do whatever performative nonsense will make Trump think he’s winning so as to minimize the tariffs, and (2) levy countervailing tariffs targetted against specific industries that will hurt Trump’s buddys, and the districts of Republican leadership. But just doing (1) without preparing for (2) is foolish, and any which way we’re likely to see nontrivial economic damage as fallout. That’s why this pointless GST stunt is poorly timed. We need to be getting ready to support industries targetted by Trump, not splashing a bunch of deficit spending around to bribe taxpayers not to vote for the Conservatives.
Years ago, I actually signed up for the CPC just to vote for him in the leadership race after Harper left. His utter failure in that race is what finally convinced me to walk away from the CPC entirely, after a few elections’ worth of strategic voting.
“The Great State of Canada is stunned as the Finance Minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau,” Trump posted on his site, Truth Social.
“Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!”
Allow me to apologize for our President-elect. Keeping up the “joke” about Canada just being the 51st state is a dick move in a long, long, long line of dick moves.
And I apologize if my disrespect for the president elect comes across as disrespect for the United States, a country whose history and political system I am only just beginning to study in depth.
“Gearing up for war” doesn’t mean you start a war. It means you’re prepared for one, and dumb GST holidays and massive deficit hikes ain’t gonna help prepare for a war.
