The Daily Telegraph, 28 November, David Collins
The slow-motion car crash that has been Justin Trudeau’s time as prime minister of Canada appears to be nearing its merciful conclusion. It is difficult to see how he can go on much longer, lurching from one controversy to the next, vacuously mugging for the camera as he muddles through another awkward press conference with his deer-in-the-headlights gaze, repeating himself in French translation to take up more time, ensuring that he says as little as possible to a country that has stopped listening.
Largely insulated from criticism by Canada’s legacy media, especially the state-funded CBC, Trudeau has stumbled through the past eight years as leader of the ruling Liberal party, weathering ever-declining poll numbers as Canada’s economy, along with its esteem in the eyes of world, has slipped. At the last federal election, called while the country grappled with the pandemic, Trudeau managed to cobble together a coalition government with the ultra-Left NDP, having earned fewer total votes than the opposition Conservative party. He is widely reviled across Canada as a performative, lightweight short on common sense and big on showy PR. He evinces, to the best of his limited ability, a carefully crafted media persona designed to appeal to the woke urban intelligentsia.
His policy and personal failings are so numerous that it is difficult to know where to begin. From accusations that he violated conflict of interest rules to his shameful treatment of anti-lockdown protestors, Trudeau is a man wholly lacking in any sense of decency. His most recent debacle, ostensibly in service of his mission to combat climate change, involved pushing through a ludicrous carbon tax only to allow carve-outs once it became clear that the policy was politically unpopular. The reality that Trudeau’s whatever-the-cost pursuit of “net zero”, aimed at appeasing Greta-inspired eco-warriors, is economic suicide must now be painfully obvious even to him.
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