Campaign 2019: The Only Issue is Justin Trudeau

The election has now clearly moved away from a discussion of policy to a single-issue debate, namely Justin Trudeau himself. I am sure the Liberal war room had hoped for this six months ago. They saw a charismatically challenged Conservative leader in Andrew Scheer and an NDP, woefully underfunded and in nascent revolt against its leader.  I wonder if they don’t now wish for a more traditional Canadian election campaign, one as about as exciting as watching accountants argue.

The simple fact is that Justin Trudeau cannot run on a record of achievement. For other than legalize cannabis, which of course has made several well-connected Liberal apparatchiks fabulously wealthy has not solved the primary issue for which it was proposed, namely the illegal distribution of cannabis. 

Instead, even a cursory review of the last four years leads to the inevitable conclusion that everything this government has touched has been an abject failure. For those of you who might have been lulled into a CBC induced coma, here are some of the highlights:

·        Promised that 2015 would be the last “first past the post” election fails. The Minister responsible for it is demoted in a cabinet shuffle.

·        Justin, in a cheap attempt to score points against his phantom electoral opponent Donald Trump tweets out an open-door immigration policy for Canada resulting in a flood at the Quebec (and Manitoba) border and creation of a scarcity issue with regards to homeless shelter capacity in Toronto.

·        After calling those who operate Canadian Controlled Private Corporations “tax cheats” in the 2015 campaign, his Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who himself is named in the Paradise Papers and found to own a villa in Provence through a numbered company attempts the most substantive reform of the corporate tax system with no consultation. He is forced to unceremoniously retreat after massive opposition. The legislation that emerges from this creates an administrative nightmare with regards to interpretation and enforcement.

·        Mr. Trudeau is found in violation of ethics rules after he and his closest advisors take a vacation on the private island owned by the Aga Khan.

·        Mr. Trudeau in what is essentially a publicly funded family vacation does his best impression of Peter Sellers in “The Party” and shreds Canada’s international reputation. He brings along documented Sikh separatists and worse in a blatant attempt to score political points in a few strategic ridings. He meets with Indian PM Modi for 30 minutes.

·        He engineers a complete “ass whooping” of Canada by China including the termination of many agricultural exports from Canada to China. Two Canadians are arbitrarily detained without due process (or the assistance of the Canadian government).

·        He in three years surpasses the damage done by his father with regards to Western alienation due to his fanatical devotion to a globalist radical environmental ideology. He overpays for a pipeline and has his Justice Department engage in further delay tactics to make sure that work does not move forward on the project.

·        He engages in potentially illegal activity and violates ethics rules in interfering with the work of his then Attorney General in the matter of a public prosecution of Quebec oligarch SNC Lavalin.

·        He obstructs a current RCMP investigation into the aforementioned interference. He also attempts to destroy the reputation of the two most capable and prominent female cabinet ministers whilst claiming impeccable feminist credentials.

·        He claims to provide help for the “middle class” through a tax cut. He never defines the “middle class” and instead heaps the largest income tax hike on many in Canadian history and then introduces a carbon tax to further impoverish the Canadian people.

Justin’s own complete lack of a moral compass, including delivering a scripted response to groping allegations (experiencing events differently) and now the recent claim that wearing blackface was a product of the latest woke buzz term “white privilege” whilst not being able to remember how many incidents actually occurred are just the latest. 

I am as a tax policy wonk, and a dedicated conservative therefore delighted to eschew a policy driven debate and instead focus on a single-issue question. Canadians, other than those whose votes have literally been bought through the promise of endless entitlement, or some perverse sense of a “levelling of the playing field” should come to a similar conclusion; Justin Trudeau is not qualified, intellectually or ethically to govern this country. Quite simply in the battle of wits he is unarmed.