The Canada that Canadians now view every day is not the sensible, reasonable, and generous society that Canadians of all stripes have built up over many generations.
It has become polarized, nasty and barely recognizable.
Just listen to people talking in stores, on the street, and in meeting places.
Just walk or drive through cities and villages and the countryside, and see the Canadian flags — paired with signs expressing vehement disapproval of our federal government. Loyal Canadians are fed up with their federal government.
And one person is responsible for this — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
He has drastically altered Canadian institutions and norms so considerably that usually calm people are raising their voices in protest.
The core of the protestors in Ottawa and other Canadian centres were angry not only about government heavy-handedness in its pandemic policies, but also the changes being brought about by Trudeau.
He has cheapened public discourse and public life.
He talks so high-minded, yet has a lifelong history of deplorable acts.
He has arbitrarily ruined the lives of many other people who have been supposedly guilty of far less egregious acts than have been proven by photographs against him — perhaps to deflect his own guilt?
Does “do as I say, not as I do” strike home? How about “one standard for the masses, and another for the elites like me?”
His intolerance, and high-handed and ill-founded rectitude has led many to regard the government with disdain, and doubt its ability to get things right.
And now his decision to not only invoke the Emergencies Act (which most minds — those not cowardly beholden to Trudeau — agree was not necessary to get the job done in Ottawa), but to keep it in force for an undetermined period (to “hunt down” some Canadians to charge them with mischief?), has shown precisely how inappropriate Trudeau really is for this high office.
Those who know Trudeau, or have studied him in office, know that he is not only immature and calculatedly unfair to those who are not in his circle, but know that he is unschooled.
From his utterances such as the declaration that everything with the SNC-Lavalin Affair was entirely appropriate to his embarrassing behaviour in front of cameras at Buckingham Palace to his penchant for dressing up to his puerile approach to any person who dares not defer to him to his lack of consideration of any thought that does not mesh with his — Trudeau exhibits time and time again that he is not fit for the job.
The English have the perfect word to describe our prime minister — a cockwomble! To save you the time in looking it up, here it is: a person prone to making outrageously stupid statements and/or inappropriate behaviour while generally having a very high opinion of his own wisdom and importance. Does that not perfectly capture our prime minister?
But take heart — Canada is still strong due to its majority of citizens who maintain common sense. We will recover when this prime minister is gone.
The freedom to differ, to voice, to offend, and to live our lives within the law, and not some person’s elite notion of what is good and bad, will return.
We are resilient, but let’s hope that it is sooner rather than later –the pain inflicted by this government has almost brought us to the tipping point.
— Stephen LeDrew is a lawyer, broadcaster, and the longest-serving president of the Liberal Party of Canada.
