The guy who, on his 6th month anniversary in power, proudly proclaimed himself a global free trader, first and foremost, says he's had a change of heart.
From The Guardian
Ordinary people around the world have been failed by globalisation, Justin Trudeau has told the Guardian, as he sought to explain a turbulent year marked by the election of Donald Trump, the Brexit vote and the rise of anti-establishment, nation-first parties around the world.
“What we’re facing right now – in terms of the rise of populism and divisive and fearful narratives around the world – it’s based around the fact that globalisation doesn’t seem to be working for the middle class, for ordinary people,” the Canadian prime minister said in an interview at his oak-panelled office in the country’s parliament. “And this is something that we identified years ago and built an entire platform and agenda for governing on.”
Oh, wait a minute. This is one of those "we'll fight climate change by flogging ever more high-carbon fossil fuel" sort of things.
This begs the question - just what does "globalisation" mean to our prime minister? He seems to grasp that, for "ordinary people" it translates into loss of good jobs, wage stagnation, inequality - the fallout of globalized free trade that has seen the "good jobs" outsourced offshore. Then he holds out pipelines and free trade agreements to demonstrate that he gets it? Really?
The double-barrelled approach, said Trudeau, echoes his government’s broader effort to address the tensions currently wreaking havoc on the political status quo around the world. “People get that we need jobs, we need a protected environment,” he said. “On the other hand, if people have no jobs, if they have no opportunity, they’re not going to worry about protection of the air and water if they can’t feed their kids.”
Yes, Justin, we can see what you're "trying to do" and that's the problem.
More school marm bafflegab changes nothing.
8 comments:
I am sorry to have to say, Mound, that words seem to come easily to Trudeau, principled policy stances not so much. There will likely come a time when he and his admirers realize that rhetoric, no matter how lofty, can be empty and vapid. Some of us are just ahead of the curve in that realization.
"globalisation doesn’t seem to be working for the middle class, for ordinary people,"
--->Ya, that's why we need CETA, TPP, NAFTA eh Justin?
It about as logical as saying we approve pipelines as part of our climate change strategy.
It's becoming an increasingly common feature of political discourse these days that fact and logic need not restrain rhetoric.
I have been appreciating my daily readings of all your posts for a very long time. Your flying the symbolic upside down 'in distress' iconic red maple leaf on your masthead was very fitting.
I was in agreement and hopeful when you made the decision sometime after the government change... there seemed to be some positive first moves and hope in the air and uprighting the maple leaf was warranted. Since the early blush of the the first yea that hope and promise on major promises and issues the bloom has faded. There has been considerable over promise and under performance. Major failures on the most important critical issues.
We have a more smiley captain and crew still sailing into the rocky shallows - still at full speed on critical issues that only grow more challenging. We needed a sea change, a full corse change not small scale feather dusting.
Somehow I missed your flipping back to the upside down of the maple leaf but I have to agree whole heartedly with your move.
I did you flip upside the I have had the same sinking feeling that there has been some progress however on the big issues
Maybe Al Gore will have some suggestions for the boy on his choices in enlightened public image transformation should the CRAP Party bump him in 2019 for the sin of appearing to wiggly-waffle on the Market Law file. Since crusading for awareness of the impending climate change disaster is already taken and, in any case, by that time it will be too late to do anything about it, how about something like allaying the certain to be present world-wide fear epidemic? Seems like a logical and effortless slither over from the Sunny Ways project.
We're in for a long, long Neoliberal night over the next few yrs with this guy Mound.
Trudeau doesn't have a clue. Neoliberal globalism are what defines most of his policies. Someone should tell him words have meaning.
I don't know when you flipped back to putting the maple leaf upside down, but it was the right thing to do, I'm sad to say.
Trudeau is as much a threat to our sovereignty as Harper was, maybe more.
The more Trudeau talks the dumber he seems. Is it an act? Can he see the contradictions?
My sense of it is that our prime minister was ill equipped for the job. Compare and contrast Justin's background, education and life experience with that which his father brought to the job. Sure he taught elementary school drama for a few years but did that give him the grounding needed in a prime minister? I don't see it.
He's no gifted orator to be sure but the video interview posted by The Guardian is uncomfortably stilted, awkward and unconvincing as though he's struggling to get a B- for talking point regurgitation. I get the impression that he has a weak grasp on concepts such as globalism and neoliberalism. Yes, he did get CETA approved by only after a Wallonian holdout managed to strip the pact of its ISDS provisions.
It was very Harperesque of Trudeau to brush off the expansion of Athabasca bitumen production as "a couple of pipelines." It's also disingenuous of him to stick to this perverse notion that increased bitumen extraction and export is the key to Canada's green energy future. Maybe if he was going to redirect fossil energy subsidies and the government's bitumen royalties to clean energy initiatives it would be less grating but he's not entertaining any such thing. The bottom line is that the guy is a consummate bullshitter made the more dangerous by his lack of preparatory experience for the job and his feeble grasp of the fundamental issues before him.
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