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Posts Tagged ‘Trudeau’

Team Canada…Conveniently

February 3rd, 2025 No comments

link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg0m79gm10o

The biggest news of the week was the imposition of tariffs by the US on its heretofore best trading partners, Mexico and Canada.  The expected outcry ensued from the respective governments about the unfair bullying tactics of the US and then the knee jerk retaliatory actions followed..

What could have precipitated this action on the part of the US?  General bullying? Manifest Destiny? Regional hegemony?  Well it took root with Donald Trump’s pledge to protect American citizens and their borders from infiltration of illegal migrants and associated with that, a continued flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl and of course, the associated crime.

It’s the national equivalent of having your neighbors with whom you share a fenceless property line, allowing their dogs to defecate on your lawn.

The rational response should be, “Wow, that is a problem, we’ll do better to stop that kind of activity, since we’re good neighbors and all”. Of course, that didn’t happen.  The response has been more like, “what dog?” Canada and Mexico took umbrage at the mere accusation of being un-neighborly and imposed sanctions of their own back at the US.

In the case of Canada, which at the moment is led by nobody, but nevertheless, the recently resigned Prime Minister Trudeau still presents himself as the savior and champion of Canada’s interests by invoking patriotism and the Team Canada flag. While this is entirely laughable and tragic, some delusional Canadians are voicing their national pride in denouncing the Americans and rallying around some of Canada’s political leaders.   They’ve already coined an expression for this: Stockholm Syndrome.  Some may recall that in the 1970’s, the heiress to the Hearst fortune, Patty Hearst, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.  After a period of captivity, she wound up sympathizing with her captors and acted on their behalf in committing various crimes.

Just a few years ago, Trudeau’s government imprisoned citizens daring to protest his Covid mandates, sending the police in to forcefully break them up, arrested organizers of the trucker’s convoy, garnished their bank accounts and labelled them enemies of the state for not complying with unjust vaccination mandates. Court cases surrounding this exist to this day.  In addition, Canadians were prevented from entering or leaving the country and made to walk only in the direction of arrows in grocery stores.  Some may also recall Trudeau proudly declaring Canada a post national state and that allegiance to the pride flag was more important than the maple leaf.

Suddenly as the nation is soon to be under the pressure of US tariffs, he invokes the patriotism flag….and the quadruple vaccinated are falling for it.

What is the tariff?  The tariff will be 25% on all goods entering the US unless the border issues are addressed.  People with short memories are reminded that the Liberal government themselves had plans to implement a carbon tax of at least that much to ALL Canadians in a few weeks time in order to fight the quixotic battle against climate change.  This was the entire reason for the unpopularity of the governing Liberals in the first place.  I’m convinced that Trudeau is annoyed that tax money would go to Americans instead of their own coffers.  As we know, all socialist regimes only use taxation in the most creative ways to fund their existence. Recall that the mayor of Toronto wanted to tax rain.

Like all demagogues, he invokes the classic “we’re all in this together” bleat to signify solidarity with all Canadians. Nothing says “in it together” like having your food, shelter, travel, vacation  and alcohol paid for by the taxpayers while also enjoying pay increases at will. This is reminiscent of Oprah Winfrey, a billionaire, imploring the little people to donate money to help re-build Maui… since they’re in it together.

The financial and cultural lives of Canada and the US are inextricably tied together. Are Canadians not going to use Amazon? Netflix? NFL? Trash TV? McDonald’s? Not travel to Palm Springs and Hawaii and Florida?

This tariff battle is the equivalent of staying with one card in blackjack when the dealer has a face card showing.  He cannot win. The good consequence of this period of stupidity is that now the conversation will be re-ignited on the larger issue of nationhood. The regions of the nation will have to consider in greater depth the terms of the confederation and the distribution of power….or even if Canada continues as a nation.  If a visionary cannot make the case for nationhood but only demagogues continue to be elected pushing the latest shiny thing, there is no future as a nation.

The Illusion Of Choice

April 18th, 2024 2 comments

Why are such incompetent people elected to public office?  Given the epidemic of incompetence in political regimes worldwide, but especially in the West where supposedly the most advanced democracies exist, we have to wonder; how can the ‘leaders’ be so inept?

There’s an old saying that you elect who you deserve as your political leaders, but is that really true?  Who really elects them?

Taking the case of Canada for an example, it’s not true that the nation decided that out of 40 million people, they collectively concluded that someone like Justin Trudeau is the best qualified person to run the affairs of the nation.  This is not a political view, it’s simply one of logic.  Someone whom has never run a business, nor had any training in management and whose only asset is that his father was once Prime Minister of the country is placed in the role of national leader.

As is the case in the United States, Canada has only two or three political parties that effectively control who people get to vote for. The system has evolved so that elections are like going to Costco. At Costco they only stock limited brands of any particular product. There is no wide selection of any given product unlike in grocery stores or large supermarkets.  Someone in management makes an economic decision to stock Brand A’s product instead of those of other brands. Thus, if you want to buy beans, it’s Brand A…or nothing.

It’s quite the same in politics.  Since there are really only two (at most 3) parties to choose from, the choices are made for the public by a very small cabal of party insiders.  Thus, if you’re part of that cabal, the leverage you have on the rest of the nation is gargantuan.  Logically, if you have enough money at your disposal, you can exert enormous influence simply by leveraging those in the cabal; forget the public. Of course, this is obvious now as corporate interests drive all elections. This process has been in place for decades, but it has becomes more and more refined with each election cycle. The illusion of choice to the public is thus perpetuated even as people become more disillusioned with the process.

Political strategists know that name recognition means much more than actual policies when it comes to voters.  Most will go into a polling booth and be discouraged by the list of names offered and just tick the box for the names or parties they recognize. It’s like buying Heinz ketchup at Costco.  It may not be the best, but you know the name. If we had an election today, Taylor Swift would win an election over almost any qualified candidate based solely on name recognition.  Yes, people are that level of dumb.  A guy like Joe Biden spends his entire career as a politician, elected only because he’s been elected enough times for name recognition, but makes it all the way to the top job while being on the wrong side of every major policy issue in his career….and often on both sides of the same issue.

An even more absurd example is the current mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow.  The mayor’s claim to fame is that her late husband was a national NDP politician and after his passing, the political halo effect was passed on to his wife.  Of course, now with revelations of her ruminating about taxing the rain on property holders as well as her police department advising citizens to keep car keys near their unlocked doors for easier theft, her unsuitability for political office is revealed.  Too late, she’s in.

We’re kind of seeing some of this nonsense in the US. There has been ongoing speculation that the wife of former President Obama, Michele, can somehow be qualified to step into the Presidency.  This is the same illogical mindset that thought Hilary Clinton would be a good second act for Bill.  Or that the Kennedy family has a permanent place in political office. This is the road favored by Monarchists who are able to pass on their reins of power to ensuing generations.  Queen Elizabeth knew this wasn’t a good idea, so she held off passing her reins as long as she could.

The whole idea of living in a society with representative governments is that people who have power and influence reflect the wishes and values of the citizens.  The US at least, was founded on this principle.  Now it seems as if the political winds have shifted back towards the monarchist model where people are considered to be ‘rightfully’ ensconced in power.

In the case of Costco, they have implemented a program of creating their own house labelled products to compete with the name brand products. What’s notable is that these house labelled products are often better and cheaper than the big label brands.  We need the Costco model for politics.  As at Costco, we should be able to return the politicians if not satisfactory.  There definitely has to be a better refund policy.