Justin during his 2018 India trip
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a tragedy, the actions Russia has taken create a very real threat that conflict could escalate in Eastern Europe and result in all out war. This ushers in the possibility that Canada will be forced to fight for our own or our allies sovereignty. Whether we end upĀ serving in the possible war directly as military service members or indirectly as factory workers building up munitions and supplies or have to sacrifice by paying higher prices at the pump or eating rationed goods in the event the Ukrainian conflict escalate every Canadian citizen will be affected by it in some way shape or form, this is the scary reality facing us as a nation right now.
Another frightening reality we face as a nation is that our abysmal leader Justin Trudeau maybe our Prime Minister in war-time and on top of this may use the opportunity of the crisis in Ukraine to justify more government power as he's done with COVID, furthermore there's the possibility he may attempt to delay election should the conflict continue until then. I mean we are in fact talking about the same leader who invoked the emergency act at the sight of minion bouncy castles in Ottawa. Saying this let's take the time to review how we got here how Trudeau has acted in the face of crisis so far and the possible domestic threat we face along with the foreign one.
The federal election that initially put Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party of Canada in parliment with a majority government happened in 2015. 2015 was a much different time, the economy especially in Canada had pretty well fully recovered from the 2009 financial crisis. The Canadian economy specifically was doing quite well because it was one of the first to recover from the collapse and that speedy recovery caused it to be in better overall economic health by election year. In 2014 the RBC(Royal Bank of Canada) predicted a 2.6% GDP growth and the Bank of Canada forecasted a more modest growth of 2.3 to 2.4 percent, regardless both of these predictions where significantly higher than the 1.7% growth experienced in the previous two years.1 Actual GDP growth for 2014 was above both these predictions and came in at 2.87%.2 This set-up the Canadian economy to have a clean bill of health going into 2015. Which was a significant achievement given other countries like Greece where defaulting on their loans in the same year.3 So because the gears of the Canadian economic machine where chugging away without issue voters economic concerns went to the backburner of peoples minds in 2015.
2015 was also pre-Trump who was a catalyst for political divisivness consequently there was less tribalism between voters, many Conservative held seats fell to the Liberals in this election4 also people where willing to switch voting for the NDP to the Liberals.5 The election was also pre-COVID and most recently pre-Russian invasion. Ah, it was such a simpler time.
The only major catastrophe taking place in the world at the time was the Syrian Civil War however the west had become callous to conflict in the Middle East by this point, since it being thrust into the public consciousness in the early 2000's as a result of the September 11th attacks and resulting wars. So with no immediate crisis and a healthy economy there was room for social and humanitarian issues to be more prevelant during the election cycle. Couple this with the fact that the current prime Minister Stephen Harper who had served in office for almost a decade at this point had a more traditional stance on social causes meaning voters knew if they voted for Harper they'd likely recieve the status quo in regards to these topics. In fact Harper's more socially conservative stance could even been moulded into being perceived as threat for progressive causes. Harper had in fact re-opened the already passed gay marriage bill under his administration.6
Justin on the other hand promised radical change, running on a similar strategy as Obama did in his 2012 campaign he formed a coalition of minority and "oppressed" voters. He pandered to natives by promising reconciliation, he pandered to gays by attending pride events, he pandered to immigrants by promising to accept Syrian refugees as well as easing laws to speed up immigrant family reunification, he pandered to the youth by promising more student grants and higher threshold conditions for repayment of student debt.7 8 9 10 All and all if you where a minority or a victim of real or perceived oppression this valiant, energetic, youthful knight was riding into parliment on his steed with shiny armour and a beautiful head of hair to fight for you.
Justin at a Vancouver Pride event in 2015
Outside of his minority base people who bought into his projected humanitarian image would have voted for him or Canadians who agreed with pot legalization would have likely cast their ballots in support for the Liberals. With the country absent of crisis and the economy healthy issues like the legalization of marijuana could have easily swayed votes since other fundamental topics where on the back burner.
So with Canadians raring for change and having no immediate crisis that may have caused them to question Justin's lack of experience and the recovered economy shielding him from his neglect for monetary policy Canadians cast their ballots and the "sea of red" washed over the nation election night ushering the Liberals into power.
Justin's first term in office left a trail of broken promises.
"It (the Trudeau Government) champions the idea of rights, while simultaneously opposing the Indigenous right to veto impositions on land and water, profiting from territorial exploitation"
The native population he promised reconciliation to failed to see much action in terms of policy for their community. Maclean's reported on the Trudeau governments performance on this campaign promise in 2017 saying this about aboriginal rights in relation to parliment. "It (the Trudeau Government) champions the idea of rights, while simultaneously opposing the Indigenous right to veto impositions on land and water, profiting from territorial exploitation" (bracketed portion added)11 the article also reffered to the Liberals as "tricksters" implying they falsely led indigenous people on and swept the rug from underneath them when the time for action arrived.
Trudeau also failed to do anything of significance for the LGBT community besides continuing to posture at pride events. And after bringing in the first 25,000 Syrain refugees Trudeau's commitment to them fizzled out. After the initial 25,000 resettlements only about another 10,000 refugees came in.12 The Syrian refugee program was successful but it failed to meet Trudeau's ambitious 2016 target of over 55,000.13
On top of broken promises the Liberals had run consistent deficits since being elected.
"Justin Trudeau is projected to be the largest debt accumulator amoung prime ministers who did not fight a world war or experience an economic downturn during their tenure."
A report conducted by the Fraser Institute found that the debt per person in Canada increased 5.6% during Trudeau's first 4 years in office. The paper found "Justin Trudeau is projected to be the largest debt accumulator amoung prime ministers who did not fight a world war or experience an economic downturn during their tenure."14
All of this led to Trudeau's government barely retaining power in the election of 2019 which resulted in a Liberal minority government. Shortly after the October election of 2019 in January of the next year reports of a novel virus in China had started popping up. Three months later we where in a full blown pandemic.
COVID 19 was officially declared a pandemic by the W.H.O March 11th of 2020. To its credit the government moved quickly to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Trudeau government closed our borders including our landlocked one with the U.S to non-essential travel, dispensed emergency aid and made a 14-day quarantine necessary for travelers all by the end of March. 15
Also by the end of March each province had declared their own state of emergency.16 These emergency powers allowed provincial governments to conduct lockdowns in some form or another. Now as much of a staunch critic of lockdown policy as I am I do believe the first lockdowns of 2020 where justified since at the time there where many unknowns with COVID-19 and available modeling showed the virus would cause unmanageable surges in hospitalization and death17 so airing on the side of caution made sense. But as I and other authors have written about before, this modeling showed to be a gross over-projection.18
So with the country in lockdown and the immediate threat of COVID-19 you would figure the government would be solely focused on the current crisis however you'd by wrong. About a month after the provinces went into lockdown Justin Trudeau quietly passed firearm legislation that banned over 1500 models and variants of "assault-style" weapons.19
This legislation was put forth when Canadian parliment was scrambled. In April of 2020 they where only meeting once a week with limited attendance to adhere to social distancing measures and virtual sessions which where held twice weekly where riddled with problems due to either the technology or lack of understanding as it pertains to the technology needed for remote sessions.20 So with parliment stumbling around in a confused stupor Justin rammed through his firearms policy.
An almost empty parliment April 11th 2020
As the pandemic continued Justin's approval ratings increased. In-between September and December of 2020 alone Trudeau's approval rating increased five points and the Liberals enjoyed a 6 point lead over the opposition in voting intention.21 An increase in approval ratings was natural for many politicians during the beginnings of COVID the premiers of B.C, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick recieved similar bumps. The effect especially benefited those who held daily or near daily press conferences through COVID like Trudeau and Andrew Cuomo.22
Justin later tried to hedge his new found approval into a Liberal majority.
"While Mr. Trudeau carefully avoids using the word āmajority,ā there is no doubt that heās seeking to take back control of the House of Commons..."
By calling an emergency election in 2021. "While Mr. Trudeau carefully avoids using the word āmajority,ā there is no doubt that heās seeking to take back control of the House of Commons..."23 reported the NY Times during the "snap" election of 2021. However Trudeau's efforts failed and the house of commons was pretty well unchanged post election.
A few months later Trudeau's grasp for government power came to its climax as a result of the "Freedom Convoy" protests. The federal government was preparing to begin to enforce legislation it had announced months earlier that would get rid of the exemption unvaccinated truckers had to the quarantine that applied when crossing the international border of the U.S and Canada.24
As the convoy headed across Western Canada towards Ottawa Trudeau did not mince words when showing his disgust for the protest calling them a "small fringe minority" and framing their views as "unacceptable". He and the mainstream media immediately tried to frame the protestors as hateful right wing extremists.25
Nonetheless the protestors decended onto Ottawa and did exactly what they said they would, they settled in and intended to stay until the government was willing to lift the mandates around COVID-19. Outside of the truckers thousands of other Canadians showed their support for the movement by either attending the demonstrations or donating to them. They where not the "fringe minority" Justin thought they where. They represented a decent chunk of the Canadian population who are frustrated with the restrictions around COVID-19. Despite this, during the month's long protest Trudeau or anyone from his government did not meet once, not once with the protestors to possibly negotiate their demands or officially listen to their grievances.
Instead in mid February Trudeau invoked the never before used emergency act to freeze accounts without court order and deploy a large police force to crush the protest. Citing the blockades as justification for triggering the act.26 Even though the most significant blockade at the Ambassador bridge had already been cleared days earlier.27
"The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said on Monday that the government had not met the threshold, warning that emergency legislation such as the Emergencies Act āshould not be normalizedā"
The emergency act requires a certain threshold in order for it to be put in place. As reported by AlJazeera "The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said on Monday that the government had not met the threshold, warning that emergency legislation such as the Emergencies Act āshould not be normalizedā" However the act can be put to use as it's being reviewed and apparently a protest that opposed Justin Trudeau was of enough significance to trigger the act, but just two years earlier COVID itself had not met this threshold when Justin failed to invoke the act as the virus spread across Canada. "Trudeau said heās leaning on restrictions provinces have put in place rather than issuing a mandatory national stay-home order, which would require him to invoke the never-before-used Emergencies Act."28
His distaste in political dissent against him amd contradictory approach to protest is highlighted further by how he handled this protest VS other one's that have occurred during his tenure. In June of 2020 he took a knee at an Ottawa BLM protest during the middle of the pandemic.29 Even though the organization was in the process of causing $23 million dollars worth of damage to downtown Portland alone.30 Or how he supported the "every child matters" movement even though they where linked to multiple acts of vandalism and even arson against churches.31 Trudeau did condemn the violence around the every child matters protests however he offered understanding to the movements core motivation. āItās real and it is fully understandable given the shameful history we are all become more aware of,ā Justin said in regards to the demonstrations.32
The remains of a Church in Surrey B.C
He never extended this olive branch to the freedom convoy protestors, why? Because he personally disagreed with them leaving no room for tolerance since their opinions differed from his. Diversity is something championed by Trudeau and the Liberals as long as it's superficial diversity like gender and race but diversity of thought and opinion will NOT be tolerated!
Now as the world seems to enter the next chapter in the book of crises with the conflict in Ukraine Trudeau and his government may pose a domestic threat to freedom along with the foreign ones. As evidenced Justin is willing to use the opportunity of crisis to push through legislation or increase government power and influence. On top of this he is more than willing to use the power of government in its full effect to crush political dissent against him. Maybe it's time we call another "snap" election to ensure this is the leader we as Canadians want to guide us through possible war time.
Footnotes
The Canadian Press, "RBC predicts big bounce-back for the Canadian economy in 2014", Financial Post, December 12 2013, https://financialpost.com/news/economy/canada-economy-rbc-2014
Author Unknown, "Canada GDP Growth Rate 1961-2022", macrotrends, 2022, https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/gdp-growth-rate
Don Melvin, "Greece: How did it get into this mess?", CNN, July 7 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/06/europe/greece-how-did-we-get-here/index.html
Daniel Schwartz, "Going deeper into Canada's 2015 federal election results", CBC, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-numbers-1.3281210
Author Unknown, "Canada's 2015 federal election result", The Econimist, October 20th 2015, https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2015/10/20/canadas-2015-federal-election-result
CBC News, "Harper re-opens same-sex marriage debate", CBC, November 29 2005, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/harper-reopens-same-sex-marriage-debate-1.524436
The Canadian Press, "Liberal election promises from the campaign trail so far", CBC, September 27 2015, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-liberal-election-promises-1.3246205
CBC News, "Justin Trudeau's promise to take 25,000 Syrian refugees this year 'problematic'", CBC, October 28th 2015, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-syria-refugees-settlement-groups-1.3291959
Darryl Dyck, "Vancouver Pride Parade 2015: Event Draws Politicians, Massive Crowds", Huffpost, August 3 2015, https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/vancouver-pride-parade-2015_n_7927820
James Wilt, "Six more broken Liberal promises", The Tyee, February 14 2015, https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/02/14/Broken-Liberal-Promises/
Jeffrey Ansloos, "The trickery behind Justin Trudeau's reconciliation talk", Maclean's, September 21 2017, https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-trickery-behind-justin-trudeaus-reconciliation-talk/
Ashifa Kassam, "Syrian Refugees in Canada lose support one year on: 'How are we going to live?'", The Guardian, December 09 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/09/syria-refugees-canada-government-stipend-justin-trudeau
Ian Austen, "Canada: Government raises its target for admitting political refugees", The New York Times, March 8 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/world/americas/canada-government-raises-its-target-for-admitting-political-refugees.html
Fraser Institute, "Examining Federal Debt in Canada by Prime Ministers Since Confederation, 2019", Fraser Institute, April 2019, https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/federal-debt-in-canada-by-prime-ministers-2019.pdf
The Canadian Press, "A timeline of events in Canada's fight against COVID-19",Ā The Star, June 18 2020, https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/06/18/a-timeline-of-events-in-canadas-fight-against-covid-19.html?rf
Tyler Dawson,"As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Provinces declared states of emergency. Now many are up for renewal.", National Post, April 15 2020, https://nationalpost.com/news/provincial-states-of-emergencies-were-issued-a-month-ago-most-are-coming-up-for-renewal
Neil M. Ferguson et al., āReport 9: Impact of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) to Reduce COVID-19 Mortality and Healthcare Demand,ā Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, MarchĀ 16 2020, https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2020-03-16-COVID19-Report-9.pdf
Darren Gabrylewicz, "The Imperial College of Over Estimation and the Modeling Data That Locked You Down", Substack, January 30 2022, https://darrengabrylewicz.substack.com/p/the-imperial-college-of-overestimation?utm_source=url
Canadian Government, "Prime Minister announces ban on assault-style firearms", Government of Canada, May 1 2020, https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2020/05/01/prime-minister-announces-ban-assault-style-firearms
Ryan Tumilty, "COVID-19 Canada: Parliment moves to reduced in-person sittings after motion passes", National Post, April 20 2020, https://nationalpost.com/news/covid-19-scheer-says-parliament-to-reopen
Mario Canseco, "Public approval of Trudeau's job rises, poll finds", BIV, December 17 2020, https://biv.com/article/2020/12/public-approval-trudeaus-job-performance-rises-poll-finds
āCoronavirus Pandemic Pushes Cuomo to Record High Ratings; Voters Trust Cuomo over Trump on NY Reopening 78ā16%,ā April 27, 2020, Siena College Research Institute, https://scri.siena.edu/2020/04/27/coronavirus-pandemic-pushes-cuomo-to-record-high-ratings-voters-trust-cuomo-over-trump-on-ny-reopening-78-16/
Ian Austen, "Why did Justin Trudeau call for an early election?", The New York Times, September 20 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/world/canada/justin-trudeau-why-early-election.html
Jessica Murphy,"Freedom Convoy: Why truckers are protesting in Ottawa", BBC, January 29 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60164561
Darren Gabrylewicz,"Convoy of "Hate": How the Government and media attempt to brand right leaning protests", Substack, February 3 2022, https://darrengabrylewicz.substack.com/p/convoy-of-hate-how-the-government?utm_source=url
"Canada's emergency act: What power does it give Justin Trudeau?",AlJazeera, February 15 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/15/canada-emergencies-act-what-power-does-it-give-justin-trudeau
"Main U.S-Canada bridge reopens after police clear remaining protestors", CBS News, February 14 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trucker-protest-freedom-convoy-ambassador-bridge-canada-reopens
Colin Perkel,"Trudeau rejects mandatory stay at home order for now; COVID deaths up", The Star, April 3 2020, https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/04/03/ontarios-move-puts-pressure-on-feds-to-reveal-national-covid-19-projections.html
Leah Asmelash, "Justin Trudeau takes a knee at Black Lives Matter demonstration on Parliament Hill", CNN, June 6 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/us/justin-trudeau-kneel-black-lives-matter-trnd/index.html
Associated Press, "Portland Protests Have Cost Local Businesses $23 million so Far", Fox Business, July 9th 2020, https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/portland-protests-businesses-damage
Mary Margaret, "48 Churches in Canada have been burned down or vandalized as persecution continues", LifeNews, July 20 2021, https://www.lifenews.com/2021/07/20/48-christian-churches-in-canada-have-been-burned-down-or-vandalized-as-persecution-continues/
Jim Morris,"Trudeau denounces church burnings, vandalism in Canada", ABC News, July 2 2021, https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/trudeau-denounces-church-burnings-vandalism-canada-78638877