What is it about western politics that produces a constant slew of creatures like Trudeau? And what is it about westerners that we keep voting for them? At this point, we cannot any longer blame the pernicious influence of our utterly corrupt media. We know what journalists are. They are the only profession we hold in greater contempt than our politicians. We know that when they support a given politician, it’s inevitable that he’ll be a bad ‘un, yet we go right on falling for it. There’s a point when the victim has to start taking some responsibility for allowing the criminal to constantly get away with it.
There is also the ongoing rift between Quebec and the rest of Canada. This is similar to the neverending battle between France and the English-speaking world.
In Quebec they think Trudeau is great, mainly because of his father. He is obviously useless but French is his language. Whenever languages come into politics there are disasters: Belgium vs Belgium, France vs everybody, Wales vs England, Hong Kong vs China.
Uninteresting that Canadians may appear to you mate, they will always be well-regarded in my house, whatever their politics. For I still recollect sitting around the kitchen fire in the early 1940s with my mum and my sisters for a rare treat of opening a can of Canadian red salmon clearly marked with the words “A gift from the Canadian Red Cross and paid for by the Canadian people.” They sent us food when we were hungry and facing an existential threat. They also sent us their young men to fight and die with us. No one on my house or my children’s houses will ever be disinterested in Canadians or ever rubbish them.
No one’s denying that but I lived there for 15 years, most of my family still does, we all hold Canadian citizenship … and yeah, Canada is kinda dull, politically and culturally. Not necessarily a bad thing! Boring, prosperous and under the radar for most suits me!
The U.K. where I live, on the other hand, makes me laugh out loud and scream with rage on a daily basis when I read a newspaper. Endlessly interesting!
Thank you for understanding me; I also lived in Canada for many years (but less than you). It would be nice to go back to the days when it was less interesting…. But, as has been said, “the past is a different country”.
Canadians may be boring. However from kindnesses and loyalty grows soft power. Putin and Xi Jinping may be able to muster 100 divisions, and Canada cannot match the military power of its neighbour, but no one rips down the Canadian flag for a burning. That may be for some another country, but it’s a country that is respected and has influence and soft power in spades.
And those who disrespect the past and refuse to learn from it are doomed to keep repeating the old mistakes. Recent history is littered with such people.
Clearly you haven’t followed the news over summer when Canadian churches as well as flags were burned.
Anyway, it’s nice that you like Canada. I do too but, truth be told, it can often be a bit bland. No amount of tinned salmon can alter that.
Last edited 2 years ago by Derek Bryce
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
I’ve heard that Trudeau bankrolls most large media outlets to the tune of millions of dollars – he therefore owns them. Anyone care to weigh in on more facts here, because this sounds like the USSR and Pravda in the making.
Personally I am horrified by the very illiberal actions of the Canadian government during lockdown, but I guess Canada are not alone here – though the actions have been extreme.
Trudeau himself appears to have become at best a figure of fun and at worst a disgracefully malign, corrupt and hypocritical individual. He is definitely not a liberal.
Trudeau increased federal support to the CBC from $1 B/yr to $1.2 B/yr and implemented a program to fund selected news media outlets $600 M/yr. So yes he does bankroll the large media outlets.
Bashar Mardini
2 years ago
Trudeau makes me ashamed to be a Canadian. A caricature of woke virtue signalling; he is a deeply flawed politician but with none of the redeeming greatness that his father or other historical heads of state possessed. He can’t be gone soon enough
Hersch Schneider
2 years ago
His indigenous name, I believe, is Dances With Queers
True and let’s never forget the late, great Tory cabinet minister and wit, John Crosbie, who told his Liberal Party shadow, Shiela Copps to ‘just quiet down, baby!’ in parliamentary debate, later alluding to her with a rendition of ‘Pass me the Tequila, Shiela, and lay down and love me again’.
Unacceptable by today’s standards but, boy, they don’t build ‘em like Mr Crosbie no more!
Last edited 2 years ago by Derek Bryce
Dennis Lewis
2 years ago
Well done, Mr. Zhu! This article just about sums up my anger at our vain, virtue-signalling PM and the completely unnecessary election that he’s called. For any readers who’d like to delve even deeper into the squalid world of Justin Trudeau, I’d recommend Jordan Peterson’s recent podcast conversation with the journalist Rex Murphy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3mZn5nimaU&t=3317s
Gunner Myrtle
2 years ago
For non Canadians the key thing to know is that the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec have enough seats to decide the election. So Trudeau got almost no seats from the border of Ontario to the west coast of BC. This creates enormous frustration in western Canada and one day may lead to the country breaking apart. I think the US is going to splinter and when that happens Canada will as well.
Philip Stott
2 years ago
More from this author please!
I loved this article, drawling with wit and acerbic asides, while making a pertinent point of the free ride given by the media to “progressives”.
David D'Andrea
2 years ago
Correction: Bernie Sanders endorsed the New Democratic Party and its leader Jagmeet Singh, not Trudeau and the Liberal Party
Pietro Toffoli
2 years ago
I didn’t know that Fidel Castro liked hugging himself, you learn new things everyday!
Why have Americans and Canadians of late become so concerned about what “the rest of the world” thinks about them? The author of this article then goes on to say that in reality much of the world doesn’t care what Canada gets up to. So why do they, the Canadians, punish themselves? I don’t think the vast majority of Canadians are beholden to their folks back in the old country. Biden, in his inaugural speech in front of the Capitol back in January, gave the world another reminder of how much Americans are concerned about what the rest of the world thinks of them when he said that “we can be, once again, a leading force for good in the world”. It was an admission that Americans had embarrassed themselves. And he was saying sorry. But they go on feeling guilty — yet it seems to me it is severe embarrassment that Americans feel, not shame or guilt. In the internet age, they know they are all under scrutiny, from here to Timbuktu. It’s like not being able to draw the curtains. What will the neighbours think? They, the Americans, then pretend to be Canadian when abroad. That probably then makes Canadians question themselves and then conclude that they ought to feel rotten and up their game. The Canadians are copycats. Can’t let America feel more virtuous than them. But it’s not just that, what the President or a few in the media declare. It’s been the shame that Americans have openly expressed about themselves, ad Infinitum, more so since the pandemic broke out last year and immediately post-Floyd. Shame, they say, but more a learning in how to become deeply, deeply, embarrassed. People who pretend to be Canadian when abroad are more likely to be feeling embarrassed than ashamed. It’s easier to spread embarrassment than shame. You are not necessarily guilty of anything when you are embarrassed. But it looks that way. For many Canadians, the USA is the old country, too. Maybe some Canadians are trying to impress the Americans.
Let them all get on with it! As if the rest of the world cares! Let them stew.
Adrian Maxwell
2 years ago
The only part of this v interesting article that I rankle at is the premis that Canada is uninteresting or dull.
Gareth Llewellyn
2 years ago
Spectacular article. I’d like to see by him.
Peter Morgan
2 years ago
Couldn’t get past the first paragraph because I’ve never experienced the Canada described. Nobody I know of or have heard about cares what The UK thinks of us. There used to be some inferiority about the US but that’s long gone given how crap the US has become.
How so? I really have never heard of anyone here who’s worried about what the UK or the EU think of Canada, and I doubt many in the UK or EU care about what we think about them. The premise of the article is just not true.
I’m not worried, but thanks anyways. Just thought it was bizarre to suggest we’re so sensitive to others’ views. The premise of the article as described in the first paragraph is just plain false, or at least it is anywhere and everywhere I’ve been in Canada.
The author is a Canadian opining about his own country. Some of what he said sounded pretty familiar to me but it’s been years since I actually lived in Canada rather than just visiting, so maybe things have changed. I agree with you that Canadians’ national insecurity is directed largely at the United States. It’s the familiar small country with a much bigger neighbour with a shared language and a similar culture thing: Scotland (where I now live) has it in relation to England; New Zealand with Australia etc. I’m guessing there are similar hang ups in Belgium and Austria in relation to France and Germany.
It’s true – there’s not much to hate. It’s an exceedingly harmless and inoffensive country, surely a good thing all in all. I tend to use my Canadian passport when travelling in countries when there’s reason to suspect that geopolitics might mean a frostier reception to my British one. On one memorable occasion a number of years ago, when checking into a hotel in Egypt, I presented my passport and the receptionist beamed ear to ear saying, ‘Canada! Very good! How is Celine Dion?’. Struggling for a reply, I said ‘well, her heart does go on, I’m told’.
After my visit to Canada i was left with the impression that, if the country was a person, i would have described it as very nice but dim. But there was also something intangible that i couldn`t quite put my finger on, a bit sinister (perhaps that is a too strong a word), a “too good to true sort of thing” hanging in the air. I thought then that one day smelly things would eventually float to the top.
But as you rightly say, why should you care what a foreigner thinks…
David Kwavnick
2 years ago
This is all foolishness. Trudeau is no worsse than, and probably a lot better than, most of the leaders of western countries. His problem is that he is not really very bright. That’s what got him into hot water with Wilson-Raybould. There is a very large enginering firm in Montreal, SNC-Lavalin, which followed the usual business practices in its third world dealings, which is to say that it paid bribes to local poobahs to obtain contracts. That’s how business is done in those countries. It just happens to be against Canadian law. W-R, in her capacity as Attorney General wanted to prosecute. That would have destroyed the company (See Arthur Andersen — and that’s why the Americans didn’t prossecute any banks after 2008.) so Trudeau refused to go along. But he didn’t explain it properly, he left W-R thinking it was all politics.
The bigger problem is that unlike many other politicians who display some warts and all, Trudeau has an image of squeaky clean. Of course he is rotten through and through. He is a complete fraud. Many people still have to realize that.
SNC Lavalin was also guilty of bribes in the Quebec Montreal hospital contract and a Quebec Bridge contract. Wilson Raybould accepted her staff’s recommendation to proceed with the prosecution and it was Trudeau and his minions that tried to interfere with the judicial process by pressuring her into dropping the prosecution. SNC pleaded guilty to the charge and no the company was not destroyed. Trudeau was found guilty of violating the conflict of interest rules in the handling of the corruption case by the federal ethics commissioner, his third violation.
What is it about western politics that produces a constant slew of creatures like Trudeau? And what is it about westerners that we keep voting for them? At this point, we cannot any longer blame the pernicious influence of our utterly corrupt media. We know what journalists are. They are the only profession we hold in greater contempt than our politicians. We know that when they support a given politician, it’s inevitable that he’ll be a bad ‘un, yet we go right on falling for it. There’s a point when the victim has to start taking some responsibility for allowing the criminal to constantly get away with it.
See my post. Trudeau owns the bulk of the journalists. A truly scary man.
There is also the ongoing rift between Quebec and the rest of Canada. This is similar to the neverending battle between France and the English-speaking world.
In Quebec they think Trudeau is great, mainly because of his father. He is obviously useless but French is his language. Whenever languages come into politics there are disasters: Belgium vs Belgium, France vs everybody, Wales vs England, Hong Kong vs China.
Why do we vote for them? Because we have been conditioned over the years to be obedient and to see the government as our saviour.
Answer: We’re sheep.
An excellent article that achieves the impossible by making Canada sound interesting.
Uninteresting that Canadians may appear to you mate, they will always be well-regarded in my house, whatever their politics. For I still recollect sitting around the kitchen fire in the early 1940s with my mum and my sisters for a rare treat of opening a can of Canadian red salmon clearly marked with the words “A gift from the Canadian Red Cross and paid for by the Canadian people.” They sent us food when we were hungry and facing an existential threat. They also sent us their young men to fight and die with us. No one on my house or my children’s houses will ever be disinterested in Canadians or ever rubbish them.
Good man!
No one’s denying that but I lived there for 15 years, most of my family still does, we all hold Canadian citizenship … and yeah, Canada is kinda dull, politically and culturally. Not necessarily a bad thing! Boring, prosperous and under the radar for most suits me!
The U.K. where I live, on the other hand, makes me laugh out loud and scream with rage on a daily basis when I read a newspaper. Endlessly interesting!
Thank you for understanding me; I also lived in Canada for many years (but less than you). It would be nice to go back to the days when it was less interesting…. But, as has been said, “the past is a different country”.
Canadians may be boring. However from kindnesses and loyalty grows soft power. Putin and Xi Jinping may be able to muster 100 divisions, and Canada cannot match the military power of its neighbour, but no one rips down the Canadian flag for a burning. That may be for some another country, but it’s a country that is respected and has influence and soft power in spades.
And those who disrespect the past and refuse to learn from it are doomed to keep repeating the old mistakes. Recent history is littered with such people.
Clearly you haven’t followed the news over summer when Canadian churches as well as flags were burned.
Anyway, it’s nice that you like Canada. I do too but, truth be told, it can often be a bit bland. No amount of tinned salmon can alter that.
I’ve heard that Trudeau bankrolls most large media outlets to the tune of millions of dollars – he therefore owns them. Anyone care to weigh in on more facts here, because this sounds like the USSR and Pravda in the making.
Personally I am horrified by the very illiberal actions of the Canadian government during lockdown, but I guess Canada are not alone here – though the actions have been extreme.
Trudeau himself appears to have become at best a figure of fun and at worst a disgracefully malign, corrupt and hypocritical individual. He is definitely not a liberal.
Trudeau increased federal support to the CBC from $1 B/yr to $1.2 B/yr and implemented a program to fund selected news media outlets $600 M/yr. So yes he does bankroll the large media outlets.
Trudeau makes me ashamed to be a Canadian. A caricature of woke virtue signalling; he is a deeply flawed politician but with none of the redeeming greatness that his father or other historical heads of state possessed. He can’t be gone soon enough
His indigenous name, I believe, is Dances With Queers
“Dances with Queers” while wearing blackface makeup!
Sounds like he was more of a laugh in those days.. before all this Mr Woke “erm actually we say ‘Peoplekind’ not ‘mankind'”
Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that he was always a very shallow and vain man.
The author is far too harsh in his assessment of Canadian politicians. I can remember at least two noteworthy facts about them:
1. Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto, who confessed to using crack cocaine, but used the excuse that he was blind drunk at the time.
2. Justin T himself. Specifically, the time he went on the Toronto Gay Pride parade while wearing Ramadan socks.
Well, number one sounds reasonable 🙂
In the US, (1) would be amateur level.
True and let’s never forget the late, great Tory cabinet minister and wit, John Crosbie, who told his Liberal Party shadow, Shiela Copps to ‘just quiet down, baby!’ in parliamentary debate, later alluding to her with a rendition of ‘Pass me the Tequila, Shiela, and lay down and love me again’.
Unacceptable by today’s standards but, boy, they don’t build ‘em like Mr Crosbie no more!
Well done, Mr. Zhu! This article just about sums up my anger at our vain, virtue-signalling PM and the completely unnecessary election that he’s called. For any readers who’d like to delve even deeper into the squalid world of Justin Trudeau, I’d recommend Jordan Peterson’s recent podcast conversation with the journalist Rex Murphy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3mZn5nimaU&t=3317s
For non Canadians the key thing to know is that the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec have enough seats to decide the election. So Trudeau got almost no seats from the border of Ontario to the west coast of BC. This creates enormous frustration in western Canada and one day may lead to the country breaking apart. I think the US is going to splinter and when that happens Canada will as well.
More from this author please!
I loved this article, drawling with wit and acerbic asides, while making a pertinent point of the free ride given by the media to “progressives”.
Correction: Bernie Sanders endorsed the New Democratic Party and its leader Jagmeet Singh, not Trudeau and the Liberal Party
I didn’t know that Fidel Castro liked hugging himself, you learn new things everyday!
Naughty!
Why have Americans and Canadians of late become so concerned about what “the rest of the world” thinks about them? The author of this article then goes on to say that in reality much of the world doesn’t care what Canada gets up to. So why do they, the Canadians, punish themselves? I don’t think the vast majority of Canadians are beholden to their folks back in the old country. Biden, in his inaugural speech in front of the Capitol back in January, gave the world another reminder of how much Americans are concerned about what the rest of the world thinks of them when he said that “we can be, once again, a leading force for good in the world”. It was an admission that Americans had embarrassed themselves. And he was saying sorry. But they go on feeling guilty — yet it seems to me it is severe embarrassment that Americans feel, not shame or guilt. In the internet age, they know they are all under scrutiny, from here to Timbuktu. It’s like not being able to draw the curtains. What will the neighbours think? They, the Americans, then pretend to be Canadian when abroad. That probably then makes Canadians question themselves and then conclude that they ought to feel rotten and up their game. The Canadians are copycats. Can’t let America feel more virtuous than them. But it’s not just that, what the President or a few in the media declare. It’s been the shame that Americans have openly expressed about themselves, ad Infinitum, more so since the pandemic broke out last year and immediately post-Floyd. Shame, they say, but more a learning in how to become deeply, deeply, embarrassed. People who pretend to be Canadian when abroad are more likely to be feeling embarrassed than ashamed. It’s easier to spread embarrassment than shame. You are not necessarily guilty of anything when you are embarrassed. But it looks that way. For many Canadians, the USA is the old country, too. Maybe some Canadians are trying to impress the Americans.
Let them all get on with it! As if the rest of the world cares! Let them stew.
The only part of this v interesting article that I rankle at is the premis that Canada is uninteresting or dull.
Spectacular article. I’d like to see by him.
Couldn’t get past the first paragraph because I’ve never experienced the Canada described. Nobody I know of or have heard about cares what The UK thinks of us. There used to be some inferiority about the US but that’s long gone given how crap the US has become.
Insular much?
How so? I really have never heard of anyone here who’s worried about what the UK or the EU think of Canada, and I doubt many in the UK or EU care about what we think about them. The premise of the article is just not true.
Peter, people in the UK love Canada and the Canadians. Nothing to worry about there.
I’m not worried, but thanks anyways. Just thought it was bizarre to suggest we’re so sensitive to others’ views. The premise of the article as described in the first paragraph is just plain false, or at least it is anywhere and everywhere I’ve been in Canada.
The author is a Canadian opining about his own country. Some of what he said sounded pretty familiar to me but it’s been years since I actually lived in Canada rather than just visiting, so maybe things have changed. I agree with you that Canadians’ national insecurity is directed largely at the United States. It’s the familiar small country with a much bigger neighbour with a shared language and a similar culture thing: Scotland (where I now live) has it in relation to England; New Zealand with Australia etc. I’m guessing there are similar hang ups in Belgium and Austria in relation to France and Germany.
It’s true – there’s not much to hate. It’s an exceedingly harmless and inoffensive country, surely a good thing all in all. I tend to use my Canadian passport when travelling in countries when there’s reason to suspect that geopolitics might mean a frostier reception to my British one. On one memorable occasion a number of years ago, when checking into a hotel in Egypt, I presented my passport and the receptionist beamed ear to ear saying, ‘Canada! Very good! How is Celine Dion?’. Struggling for a reply, I said ‘well, her heart does go on, I’m told’.
After my visit to Canada i was left with the impression that, if the country was a person, i would have described it as very nice but dim. But there was also something intangible that i couldn`t quite put my finger on, a bit sinister (perhaps that is a too strong a word), a “too good to true sort of thing” hanging in the air. I thought then that one day smelly things would eventually float to the top.
But as you rightly say, why should you care what a foreigner thinks…
This is all foolishness. Trudeau is no worsse than, and probably a lot better than, most of the leaders of western countries. His problem is that he is not really very bright. That’s what got him into hot water with Wilson-Raybould. There is a very large enginering firm in Montreal, SNC-Lavalin, which followed the usual business practices in its third world dealings, which is to say that it paid bribes to local poobahs to obtain contracts. That’s how business is done in those countries. It just happens to be against Canadian law. W-R, in her capacity as Attorney General wanted to prosecute. That would have destroyed the company (See Arthur Andersen — and that’s why the Americans didn’t prossecute any banks after 2008.) so Trudeau refused to go along. But he didn’t explain it properly, he left W-R thinking it was all politics.
The bigger problem is that unlike many other politicians who display some warts and all, Trudeau has an image of squeaky clean. Of course he is rotten through and through. He is a complete fraud. Many people still have to realize that.
SNC Lavalin was also guilty of bribes in the Quebec Montreal hospital contract and a Quebec Bridge contract. Wilson Raybould accepted her staff’s recommendation to proceed with the prosecution and it was Trudeau and his minions that tried to interfere with the judicial process by pressuring her into dropping the prosecution. SNC pleaded guilty to the charge and no the company was not destroyed. Trudeau was found guilty of violating the conflict of interest rules in the handling of the corruption case by the federal ethics commissioner, his third violation.
thanks David for the bigger perspective.