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Showing posts with label Prime Minister. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prime Minister. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Canadian Convulsions > Rachel Marsden Nails Trudeau Right-on

 

Trudeau’s term as PM was a boon for Canada, but not the way he expected


The outgoing leader managed to unite his nation, most of which now hates him
Trudeau’s term as PM was a boon for Canada, but not the way he expected











Another one bites the dust. Before he can get pushed into it. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came back from a rough Christmas break and promptly resigned. During his holiday downtime, he headed over to the westernmost province of British Columbia for some skiing, where he was caught on camera being welcomed by a local, who said as he went over to shake her hand, “Mr. Prime Minister, please get the f**k out of BC. You suck!” A growing chorus of homegrown profanity has followed Trudeau wherever he ends up going.

Merely days later, on January 6, he stood in front of the press at his Rideau Cottage residence and announced that he was stepping down, citing the desire to offer Canadians a “real choice.” Like he was sacrificing himself for the greater good of the country. In reality, he was just battering himself up and tossing himself on the barbecue before his own party did – which they were expected to do just two days later at a caucus meeting.

During his announcement, Trudeau demonstrated that he’s suffering from an incurable case of woke mind virus. He underscored his commitment to Ukraine, to “truth and reconciliation” with natives, and to climate change. Meanwhile, Canadians of all political stripes and backgrounds are more focused now on how to save their own behinds from impending economic doom, exacerbated by the carbon tax imposed by Trudeau, than they are with the abstract notion that by slitting their fiscal wrists for the planet, they can control its temperature.

Immigration has exploded under Trudeau to the point where it’s affecting housing and jobs, while also treating Canadians to a taste of various global conflicts right at home. You used to have to actually go abroad for that, but now you can have it Ubered right to your door. Literally. “Why do so many ‘skilled’ Indian migrants work as drivers in Canada?” someone asked on Quora, for instance.

There’s also the ongoing traveling roadshow of gunplay between Khalistani Sikh separatists and their opponents. And the Israel-Palestine protests and counterprotests, one of which saw a participant threaten her opponents with another Holocaust, then asking if they needed clarification on what that was because she’d gladly explain it. Canadians – always polite and helpful.

The NATO-backed Ukrainian conflict with Russia also culminated at home in Team Trudeau celebrating an honored Canadian guest during a visit from Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – who also happened to be a bona fide World War II-era Ukrainian Nazi who had served in Heinrich Himmler’s Waffen-SS.

If Trudeau wanted to bring the country together, he’s finally succeeded. Not through any contrived “truth and reconciliation” initiatives, but rather organically by virtue of the fact that Canadians now overwhelmingly agree that he sucks. All but 20 percent of the population, according to the latest polling. If that still seems like a lot, it is. Like, who are these people?

It’s worth remembering that there’s a significant chunk of the Canadian electorate that would reflexively vote for the self-styled “natural governing party” of Liberals even if they were lobotomized. Which they might be. After all, when Trudeau marginalized those who opted to pass on the Covid shots, they willingly fell into line and picked fights with friends and family.

“When people see that we are in lockdowns or serious public health restrictions right now because of the risk posed to all of us by unvaccinated people, people get angry,” Trudeau said three years ago, blaming the pro-choice for his own government’s draconian diktats.  And when Trudeau blamed Russian disinformation for the fact that everyone was laughing at him applauding a Nazi, some Canadians actually listened and complied, with all the power that their remaining functional neurons could muster.

But one could also say that these credulous Canadians are victims, too. After all, under Team Trudeau during the Covid fiasco, the military used social media to deploy weapons-grade propaganda honed on the battlefield of Afghanistan to enforce establishment narratives, as the Ottawa Citizen reported in 2021.

Then there are Canadians who fear the so-called scary “fascist” (but actually frustratingly centrist) Conservatives more than they do the guy whose party actually blocked bank accounts of honking Covid-era anti-mandate Freedom Convoy Protesters, and actually have to be told in a ruling by a federal judge that he overshot his authority.

But in announcing his exit, Trudeau has also joined the many other Western establishment leaders trying to save their shared establishment agenda from voter wrath, particularly of the populist kind, as they seek to purge their national leadership of anyone considered even remotely involved with the mess made.

Romania simply cancelled an election when a populist won the first round. Austria has tried (and failed) to form a coalition without the winning populist party. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is impossibly trying to govern the country to the total exclusion from government of the right-wing populist party that won the most votes and the left-wing populists that won the most seats, even after colluding openly with the latter in a desperate attempt to block a right-win parliamentary victory.

Trudeau’s gambit now involves suspending the Canadian parliament rather than dissolving it in favor of an immediate election. With parliament prorogued until March 24, it gives the Liberals time to find a new leader and then simply plop him into Trudeau’s role when parliament resumes with a new throne speech and a new direction. Like nothing ever happened.

Hardly the “real choice” that Trudeau just said that “Canadians deserve.” That would require an election. Which has to be held sometime before the Fall anyway, but a new Liberal leader might buy the party some time to try clawing back some of that 24-point lead that the Conservatives now enjoy. A lead that could result in a landslide victory and a long odyssey across the political desert for the establishment Liberals who’ve long thought that they own the place.

The Western establishment has repeatedly proven that when faced with a democratic reckoning that risks rendering a verdict against their status quo, they’ll pull any and every lever they can in an attempt to prevent it. US President-elect Trump reacted to Trudeau’s announcement by suggesting yet again that Canada merge with the US.  No doubt in jest, but the Trudeau-led Canadian establishment trying to subvert democracy by sprinkling glitter on a dumpster fire in a last-ditch effort to cling to power sounds more like a typical justification for the kind of full-blown Western regime change that they love.

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Sunday, August 25, 2024

Canadian Convulsions > Will Canada's answer to Joe Biden survive a 3-day Liberal cabinet meeting?

 

Liberals face storm clouds as

cabinet meets in Halifax

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau kicks off a three-day cabinet retreat in Halifax on Sunday. The themes will be fairness and Canada-U.S. relations, but the feelings are all about déjà vu.

A year ago in Charlottetown, the cabinet hoped its annual post-summer retreat and the massive cabinet shuffle that preceded it would give new life to the Liberal government.

Spoiler alert: It did not.

Trudeau and his team are so far behind the Conservatives in the polls that if they were on a running track they’d have been lapped by now. And with the next election at most a year away, the runway to recover is growing shorter by the day.

Interest rates have started to come down. Inflation is back in a normal range. Wage growth has been strong.

But housing costs and availability remain extremely challenging, food prices are still high and the Liberals have been unable to counter messaging from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre that life has become more expensive and unsafe under Trudeau’s watch.

In June, the Liberals lost a long-held Toronto seat to the Conservatives, further eroding what was left of the fragile confidence the party had that they could stage a miraculous comeback with Trudeau still at the helm.

The cabinet met briefly online over the summer to sign off on some appointments, but the working dinner that kicks off the retreat Sunday will mark the first in-person meeting since that byelection.

Marci Surkes, the chief strategy officer at the Compass Rose government relations firm and a former senior Liberal staffer, said most cabinet retreats are 90 per cent focused on the business of government and 10 per cent on politics and caucus management. This time, she said, there may be more focus on the latter, especially in the more informal conversations on the sidelines.

“I think what’s on the agenda at this retreat is probably even less important than simply having it be a moment to convene,” she said.

Click to play video: 'How would Conservative government deal with hot topic of immigration?'
2:07
How would Conservative government deal with hot topic of immigration?

This government “desperately needs” a reset, she said. But that may be as much about being better able to respond to the constant changes happening in the world and in Canada, rather than trying to game out every step of the next six to 12 months before the vote.

“I think the reality for this retreat is that in some respects it’s less about the agenda and the programming as it is being able to have some real, frank conversations about where they all stand and whether they have the energy, the muster, the ideas and the drive to keep going,” Surkes said.

The cabinet shuffle in July 2023 saw seven ministers dropped completely and seven new faces added, while 22 of the remaining 30 ministers moved into different roles. Only minor changes have been made since, and Trudeau has thus far chosen not to shuffle the cabinet again before this fall.

Surkes noted that some of the fallout from that 2023 shuffle is still being felt.

Both the Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection, which the Liberals lost in June, and an upcoming byelection in Montreal’s Lasalle-Emard riding, came after former ministers who lost their portfolios — Carolyn Bennett and David Lametti — chose to exit politics altogether.

Bennett’s seat in Toronto was lost to the Conservatives after being a Liberal stronghold for nearly 30 years, and Lametti’s is in danger of being taken by the NDP when that vote happens Sept. 16, something Surkes said would be a “devastating blow.”

While the agenda may not be as interesting as the politics at this retreat, the ministers do have a set itinerary for their discussions. The retreat includes a full-day of meetings Monday on housing, fairness and affordability, and the middle class.

Mid August Abacus poll - If an election were held today, 42% of committed voters would vote Conservative, while 25% would vote for the Liberals, 18% for the NDP, and 5% for the Greens. The BQ continues to hold 30% in Quebec.

Tuesday is devoted to Canada-U.S. relations. Trudeau launched a new Team Canada mission in the U.S. earlier this year to push Canada’s interests ahead of the presidential election.

The strategy, which Surkes jokingly called the “maple charm offensive,” is focused on shoring up Canada’s defences in case Donald Trump is voted back into the White House in November, but there are still irritants in the relationship even if Kamala Harris takes office.

Harris’s meteoric rise in the U.S. may be one of the things that gives some new energy to the Liberals. Her Democratic party and the Liberals overlap on many policy fronts, on everything from school lunches and women’s reproductive rights to climate change and clean energy.

What is not lost on many Liberals is that President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race brought a sudden surge of energy and momentum for the Democrats.

Speculation about Trudeau’s future has been a favourite game in Canadian political circles for years, though he has not suggested that he is even considering leaving. Surkes said she doesn’t think what happened for the Democrats will compel Trudeau to follow Biden’s lead.

I have asked this question before - Is it possible Joe Biden held on as long as he did because he suspected, or possibly even knew, that someone was going to try and 'take out' Trump? Who knows? It is certainly hard to overcome the ego of a man who, even when he is completely wrong, thinks he is always right.

“I expect to see lots of borrowing of technique, borrowing of language, but a wholesale shift in terms of the person at the front of the stage and on the podium? I don’t know that that is in store for the Liberals in the coming weeks,” she said. “But there’s no question in my mind that much of what we’re seeing down there is going to find its way into what happens here in the next six months in terms of agenda.”



Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Corruption is Everywhere > Japan PM Kishida to step down; Thai PM fired

 

Japan PM Kishida to step down as

scandals prove too much


“Politics cannot function without public trust,” Kishida said in a press conference on Wednesday to announce his decision not to seek re-election as the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader.

“I will now focus on supporting the newly elected LDP leader as a rank-and-file member of the party,” he said.

His decision to quit triggers a contest to replace him as president of the party, and by extension as the leader of the world’s fourth-biggest economy.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he will step down in September, ending a three-year term marred by political scandals and paving the way for a new premier to address the impact of rising prices.ZUMAPRESS.com


Kishida’s public support has been sliding amid revelations about the LDP’s ties to the controversial Unification Church and political donations made at party fundraising events that went unrecorded.

But he also faced public discontent over the failure of wages to keep track with the rising cost of living as the country finally shook off years of deflationary pressure.

“An LDP incumbent prime minister cannot run in the presidential race unless he’s assured of a victory. It’s like the grand champion yokozunas of sumo. You don’t just win, but you need to win with grace,” said Koichi Nakano, political science professor at Sophia University.

Who ever succeeds Kishida as the head of the LDP will have to unite a fractious ruling group and tackle the rising cost of living, escalating geopolitical tensions with China, and the potential return of Donald Trump as US president next year.




Thailand PM Srettha Thavisin dismissed by court

‘the show is over’


  • The decision reached by the nine-member Constitutional Court has deepened the country’s political turmoil

Zhao Ziwen



Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin after barely a year in office for breaching ethics by appointing a cabinet member who had served a jail term, in a ruling that is set to send the kingdom into deeper political turmoil.

The decision from the nine-member bench also torpedoed Srettha’s troubled government, which has failed to gain support inside parliament and among the Thai public despite months of efforts to spur economic growth.

Reading the ruling, Judge Punya Udchachon said Srettha must have known Pichit Chuenban, a lawyer for the powerful Shinawatra political clan, had served time in jail and was therefore ineligible for a ministerial post when he appointed Pichit to the cabinet.

The appointment showed Srettha “has no honesty and breached ethical standards”, the judge added.

A downcast Srettha, who did not attend the court hearing, said he was dismayed by the ruling, which hobbled his government after 11 months of turmoil characterised by infighting and economic woes.

“The show is over. I’ve done everything as honestly as possible the past year … I insist that I have never been the source of division and conflict,” he told reporters outside the Government House.

“I’m sad that I’ve been judged and I’m going to go down in history as a prime minister who has breached serious ethics when I’ve been honest all along. Being prime minister has been my greatest honour,” said Srettha, who helmed the Pheu Thai party founded by billionaire ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra.

For more on this file please go to:

Close China-Thailand ties