The criticisms of Canada’s prime minister justified

By Lethbridge Herald on April 6, 2022.

Editor:

“Politics is full of children,” veteran British PM Margaret Thatcher once quipped. We’ve just seen some really thin-skinned ones overreact (April 1) to a retweeted criticism of Justin Trudeau by our MP Rachael Thomas. The tweet itself, by EU Parliamentarian Mislav Kolakuši, is deadly accurate. “Dictator”?! Let the Liberals recoil!

Yet Trudeau himself told us he admires basic dictatorship. Was he lying?

 He fronts a government and political party that arrogates public money and decision-making increasingly to itself. We’ve just absorbed an April Fool’s double-tap: more for Ottawa, less for you. And this, following an election in which 70 per cent did not vote for his party. Were prime ministerial candidates directly on the ballot, Trudeau wouldn’t be PM at all. 

The “services” and “rebates” his government offer are hollow mockeries. If our money didn’t progressively lose purchasing power, who would need government services? We involuntarily part with the funds – any paybacks, only a portion of what’s taken from us. This system rigs a gross imbalance of power. 

As money concentrates at the top, so too does power. Very pleasing to a dictatorial aspirant.

Not so pleasing to Justin was his European reception. Outspoken Parliamentarians denounced him, then stayed away from his speech. 

Rachael Thomas continues to articulate our concerns on the Commons floor. Unfortunately, she attracts a fair amount of spite. No, Chris Spearman, we don’t need to go to Russia to “understand dictatorship firsthand,” we need to thwart it here, among liberal democracies. His own legacy left us a glass house: Easterners who know of this city refer to it as “Methbridge.” How’d that happen? Is Chris the guy to be throwing rocks?

It’s no surprise to hear from the obviously unpopular Shannon Phillips, and struggling also-ran Devon Hargreaves, in howling against a social media share that could have said much more. Loyalty to such a petulant man-child is indeed a struggle. But please, spare us the affect displays. I doubt you were truly that shocked. And if you were, you still have yet to hear the worst that can be said about Justin Trudeau.

Tom Yeoman

Lethbridge