Tuesday, September 03, 2019

Trudeau's Squandered Opportunities


As Justin Trudeau nears the end of his government's first majority mandate it is lamentable how his government still follows in Stephen Harper's footprints.

That's the conclusion of an op-ed in today's Globe and Mail by Jocelyn Coulon, a researcher at the Montreal Centre for International Relations and a former senior policy adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Canada’s situation in the world has deteriorated. For the first time in its recent history, Canada now finds itself in an exceptional position: its relations are rocky, not to mention poor, with four of the world’s great powers: the United States, Russia, China and India. It was not supposed to be like this. 
During the previous election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had promised to restore Canada’s reputation on the international stage. According to the Liberals, during their decade in power, the Conservatives had refocused the international role of Canada, from that of an honest broker to that of a warrior nation, a country with a belligerent tone. Opinion polls had consistently shown that Canadians were uncomfortable with this new role for the country. 
Mr. Trudeau understood the gap between Conservative government policy and public expectations. He sought to restore the balance, providing voters with an ambitious election platform that skilfully combined tradition and innovation. Mr. Trudeau’s platform offered voters the prospect of Canada re-engaging with the United Nations, taking part once again in UN peacekeeping missions, and even looking to engage with adversaries such as Russia and Iran. 
Still, it is worth asking whether Mr. Trudeau walks the talk – whether his actions as Prime Minister correspond to his compelling words. What has become of the ambitious goal of restoring Canada’s role on the world stage? If the Trudeau government’s concrete actions are compared with its public statements, it is clear that the promise of bringing Canada back has not been fulfilled. On peacekeeping, on Russia, on the Middle East, on foreign aid, the Liberal foreign policy agenda does not represent a break with Conservative policies, but a continuation
After 2015, I'll be largely sitting out this election campaign. Justin has shown us that he'll tell us whatever he thinks we want to hear and then, if elected, will do whatever he damn well likes. Scheer is, at the very least, not one bit more credible than Trudeau. 

Again I fall back on the wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt who, in 1910, said this of deceptive politicians:
"A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics. No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life."
Fortunately for Trudeau and for Scheer, Canada's voting public now have an acquired taste for political horse shit.  This ensures they'll be ladling out steaming bowls of the same horse shit we got during the Harper years and from Justin Trudeau in 2015 and their acolytes will, like Dickens' Oliver Twist, hold out their gruel bowl and ask, "Please, Sir, I want some more." Dull-witted twits.

Me? On voting day I'll visit the polling station, unsullied by the Liberal and Conservative chicanery, and simply vote Green.

3 comments:

  1. Squandered opportunities indeed. Judging by the Canadian Dimension article immediately prior to this one in the Progblog lineup today, heavy-handed monitoring of journalists like Yves Engler is also part of the JT modus operandi. Criticize "too" much and the forces of the establishment are unleashed to make your life a living hell and to restrict your movements. Engage the stolid plods of the RCMP to harrass you if you dare criticize Canada's foreign policy. On the environmental front, it also happened to a gentleman in Nova Scotia who was kept out of a meeting in Sherbrooke NS on an information session for the opening of a new gold mine a few weeks ago - forcibly removed from a public meeting, charged with something idiotic, and then released afterwards. Freedom of speech and assembly restricted.

    We are a banana republic. Keep your head down and nobody bothers you. Squawk a bit and then see what happens. Funny that all the long-armed knuckle-dragging hairy-armpit racists and white supremacist ghouls get almost a free ride, with excuses everywhere for official inaction. But be a middle-class environmental or foreign policy agitator and the long arm of the establishment comes down on you hard. JT is indeed an arsehole of the first order.

    Green it is.

    BM

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  2. I also found the CD post troubling, BM. There is a thin line between the RCMP working to protect and actively working to intimidate law-abiding dissent.

    Way before JT bought Kinder Morgan's damned pipeline, the RCMP and CSIS joined company security to form something akin to a pipeline Stasi. This was set up under Harper.

    That force also worked to intimidate protesters. The Vancouver papers used one lady as an example. Corporate security had photographed her with others lawfully demonstrating outside the Burnaby depot. The 'secret police' then identified her. Two RCMP officers showed up at her door, invited themselves in, grilled the woman and warned her against future protests.

    How intimidating is it when a lifelong, law abiding person has two mounties show up on her doorstep to 'set her straight'? What does it say for our democracy and civil rights?

    This, of course, was set up under Harper, no champion of democratic freedoms, yet it still operates under Trudeau.

    The pipeline contractor's security types can do some things the RCMP cannot. CSIS now spies on law-abiding Canadians and delivers up intelligence on their 'unwelcome' views and actions. The RCMP stages the show of force intimidation.

    And it's all done on the taxpayers' dime. Pierre Trudeau gave us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He then also gave us this, his most useless son.

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  3. .. at the risk of being well off topic.. I again raise this issue. Babel On The Bay brought it up recently..

    Its the issue of the Electoral Voter Databases

    What recourse do Canadian citizens and voters have in this regard ? There should be no misunderstanding the role of the Harper Party database in 2011 - the Great Electoral Fraud.. a federal judge made that crystal clear. But what now ? Who will get a Pulitzer for really nailing this to the wall like Miami Herald re Jeffrey Epstein ? What whistleblower with full access will reveal exactly what goes on with these databases - legal or illegal.. or just plain out of control ? Run, collected, manipulated, grown, lent, sold, stolen, bought.. from whom, by whom? To whom? Yes yes.. after each federal election, Elections Canada provides 'our' political parties with yet another fresh and shiny update.. along with OUR taxpayer dollars for lying their asses off to US !

    Robo and Live is just part of it.. it plays into gerrymandering, 'political' thuggery as practiced by Stephen Harper ie intent to 'seed' various levels of courts with appointed judges.. I could go on and on and still miss many of the implications or practices related to data on Canadians.. and lest we forget.. we have political parties dredging and bottom dragging the worst of our so called American Cousins practices.. to implement into 'black ops' electoral fraud a la the late Senator Findley.. vote moving.. you name it.. they will do it.. the Field of Electoral Dreams..

    Data is the new salient.. the battles and campaigns.. its seemingly legal warfare upon citizens.. the so far - invisible 'front' or 'fronts' - riding by riding.. along with sold out mainstream media.. Welcome to the new 'warriors' Paul Godfrey et al and their allies like Arthur Hamilton, reserving his 'last breath' for Stephen Harper.. Deary me.. Jason the Kenney.. that 'great Albertan' via Ontario, Saskatchewan, Ottawa, .. now roosting in Alberta, like Andrew Scheer in Saskatchewan, or Harper or Ray Novak who found a province to exploit.. Good Grief but these thugs are insidious..

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