'Our collective shame': Trudeau delivers historic apology to LGBT Canadians

[mentalfloss]

Politics and tears: For Trudeau, it works

There are many things that set Mr. Trudeau apart from his predecessors, and one is his open displays of emotion. Tears fall easily for him. By my count, there have been at least seven times since coming to office when he has openly wept, or had his eyes well up, overcome briefly by the moment. And that is different. To this point, no one has questioned his sincerity or suggested these episodes have been calculated in any way.

Canada is used to having stoics in the Prime Minister's Office. Long-time Hill journalists recall that Jean Chrétien might have once become emotional, during a visit to Auschwitz. (Another place that moved the current Prime Minister to tears). But few of our modern leaders have ever cried in public. One couldn't imagine, for instance, Stephen Harper ever allowing himself to appear that vulnerable in front of the cameras – or Justin's father, Pierre. (Justin is very much his mother Margaret's child in this regard).

Of more contemporary politicians, former U.S. president Barack Obama has the most in common with our current Prime Minister, at least in terms of being utterly unafraid to show the world his emotional side. The most memorable of those moments came during a news conference on gun violence in the United States. He began mentioning the tragedy at Newtown, and the little children who were murdered. "First graders," he said, shaking his head. As tears flowed heavily down his cheeks, you couldn't help but be struck by how unusual it was to see the most powerful leader in the world be so open with his feelings. (Something Donald Trump seems genetically incapable of).

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opi...au-it-works/article37145320/?click=sf_globefb

 

[Cannuck]

"or Justin's father, Pierre"

His father was Fidel.

 

[mentalfloss]

And his mother was Che

 

[Walter]

Too funny.
Norm Macdonald Trolls SJWs with Hilarious LGBT Rant
https://pjmedia.com/trending/norm-macdonald-trolls-sjws-hilarious-lgbt-rant/

 

[Dixie Cup]

I have not totally disliked a PM as much as I dislike Trudeau. There is just something so phony about him. He's an attention-getter; there is nothing substantive about this guy. I don't understand how people can't see through this.


Amazing to me and also bad for the country. If he had any intestinal fortitude I might actually cut him a break but there's nothing there.


JMHO

 

[mentalfloss]

Trudeau Promise Tracker

Days in office 782
Not started 58 of 226 - 26%
In progress 72 of 226 - 32%
Achieved 58 of 226 - 26%
Broken 38 of 226 - 17%


Trump Promise Tracker

Days In Office: 339
Not started: 103 of 174 - 59%
In progress: 18 of 174 - 10%
Achieved: 13 of 174 - 7% (LOL)
Broken: 37 of 174 - 21% (LOL x2)
Compromised: 3 of 174 - 2%

 

[petros]

The prime minister said it “would not be July 1,” but that it would be “for next summer.” “The date will not be July 1, I can assure you of that ...

Kiss those voters good bye.

 

[Jinentonix]

Trudeau Promise Tracker

Days in office 782
Not started 58 of 226 - 26%
In progress 72 of 226 - 32%
Achieved 58 of 226 - 26%
Broken 38 of 226 - 17%

It's hard to decide whether a review of the government's new promise-tracker should give them points for a step toward reporting results or lambaste them for using the kind of Orwellian descriptors that casually lie about the results.

The new website – more precisely a mandate-letter tracker – grew from the "deliverology" notions that Justin Trudeau's Liberals earnestly chucked around early in their term. That's supposed to be a discipline of focusing on outcomes, and it requires reporting on what you've done, publicly. The tracker collates all the specific items that the Prime Minister tasked his ministers with achieving in their mandate letters – a version of Liberal promises – and then reports on progress.

Let's pause to note that the tracker is what bureaucrats in the 1980s British TV show Yes, Minister would qualify as a "courageous" proposal – fraught with political risk and potential embarrassment. Listing promises calls attention to the ones you have broken, especially if you evaluate progress.

Perhaps we must expect a little soft-soaping. So electoral reform is listed under "not being pursued," a phrase that delicately describes the discarding of a promise that seemed good for a third party but not a government – but makes it clear it is dead. Some of the other items get silly.

The promise to "balance the budget by 2019-20," a task given to Finance Minister Bill Morneau as item No. 1 in his mandate letter, is listed as "underway with challenges." Unfortunately, that only applies if you remove the deadline of "by 2019-20," which certainly won't be met, and the phrase "balance the budget," which is nowhere in any specific plan put forward by the current government.

This promise certainly had "challenges," but it cannot, in any normal sense of the term, be described as "underway." "Ditched" might have been appropriate; "replaced by new policy" would have been acceptable. But "underway" is false.

The promise to "improve access to information to enhance the openness of government" is marked as "underway, on track," presumably because the rubric "egregious betrayal" wasn't available. Treasury Board President Scott Brison's mandate letter actually tasked him with widening the scope of the law as the Liberals promised in the 2015 election campaign, notably by making the Access to Information Act apply to ministers' offices. That's not happening. Mr. Brison tabled a bill that, according to Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, weakens access to information. It's off the rails, not on track.

George Orwell wrote that "political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." The new mandate-letter tracker doesn't justify homicide, but there are masquerading falsehoods and lots of hardened wind.

The Liberal government wrote their own report card, and – surprise! – they get high marks.

At this point, if you're a Liberal partisan, you might be thinking this column has focused on lambasting the government's self-serving self-evaluation more than lauding a new tracking tool. That's the point. When an accountability tool dodges accountability, it's hard not to focus on the evasion.

There are legitimate promises kept among the 66 qualified as "Completed, fully met." The Liberal promise to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees is fairly described as "Completed, modified." Some things are legitimately matters of interpretation. And just going through the exercise of publicly collating the commitments is a useful step.

Dom Bernard, one of four non-politicians who put together the Trudeau Meter website, which tracks whether the Liberals have fulfilled their campaign promises, says he thinks it's a valuable exercise.

His site follows campaign promises rather than mandate-letter commitments, but it is far less positive: the Trudeau Meter lists 36 of 226 promises as "broken," where the government tracker lists three "not being pursued" out of 322. He said he's not so naive that he would expect a government to be unbiased, but the public can compare the tracker to multiple sources, and make their own judgments.

That's true. The problem is not that the public will innocently buy all the tracker's misrepresentations. It's that the very notion of an accountability exercise is discredited by avoiding accountability. Maybe the government could have garnered trust by being, as Mr. Bernard put it, "brutally honest." Maybe that's too much courage. The tracking site deserves a good grade for the idea, but it lacks standards, so it fails in deliverology.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opi...ood-idea-that-doesnt-deliver/article36983570/

 

[captain morgan]

Trudeau Promise Tracker

Days in office 782
Not started 58 of 226 - 26%
Broken 38 of 226 - 17%

Falling down

 

[Sorrow]

Thought Trudeau were Canada's president not are only Prime Minister like United Kingdom????

 

[mentalfloss]

Thought Trudeau were Canada's president not are only Prime Minister like United Kingdom????

 

[Curious Cdn]

Thought Trudeau were Canada's president not are only Prime Minister like United Kingdom????

No. It's more like he's our national mascot, like Youpee or the Phillie Phanatic.

 

[B00Mer]

Trudeau will do better in his 2nd term... no worries

 

[coldstream]

The nationalist and populist wave in the West will sweep Justin from office in the next election.. if just being a effeminate, incompetent, submissive twit wasn't enough.

 

[White_Unifier]

The nationalist and populist wave in the West will sweep Justin from office in the next election.. if just being a effeminate, incompetent, submissive twit wasn't enough.

I don't know about that. Giving everyone everything they want through borrowing and spending tends to win votes... at least until the Royal credit card maxes out.

 

[B00Mer]

The nationalist and populist wave in the West will sweep Justin from office in the next election.. if just being a effeminate, incompetent, submissive twit wasn't enough.

They just elected NDP in BC and Ontario & Quebec hold the balance of Canada’s population.

The west doesn’t have the population to make any changes on a national level.. we are just along for the ride.

Unless...

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/hot-topics/144365-abexit-time-alberta-think-about.html

It would make a great 51st State and with Trump in Office it might be a welcome opportunity for Trump

... even a territory of the USA.

 

[pgs]

They just elected NDP in BC and Ontario & Quebec hold the balance of Canada’s population.

The west doesn’t have the population to make any changes on a national level.. we are just along for the ride.

Unless...

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/hot-topics/144365-abexit-time-alberta-think-about.html

It would make a great 51st State and with Trump in Office it might be a welcome opportunity for Trump

... even a territory of the USA.

Who has the most seats in B.C. ?

 

[Curious Cdn]

They just elected NDP in BC and Ontario & Quebec hold the balance of Canada’s population.

The west doesn’t have the population to make any changes on a national level.. we are just along for the ride.

Unless...

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/hot-topics/144365-abexit-time-alberta-think-about.html

It would make a great 51st State and with Trump in Office it might be a welcome opportunity for Trump

... even a territory of the USA.

The West gets to make Conservative governments if they can draw on the centerist Liberal and centerist Conservative vote in the East. Unfortunately, the Libertarian Reform Party types in the West consider that huge voting block to be Commie Socialist Snowflakes. They don't like the Easterners who hold the keys to Parliament, believe that they are ideologically weak and impure and they will be hard pressed to form many more Federal governments in the future. The voting majority in Canada has no time for Family Values evangelism, mean spirited parsimony or Trump style populism. The only hope those Westerners have is that Canadians eventually fire all of their governments. You won't see a sudden shift in the population to Alt Right values in most of Canada. You will see a populace fed up with old style Liberal Party shenanigans,yet again.

 

[B00Mer]

Who has the most seats in B.C. ?

NDP & Green that’s why they were able to form a coalition and oust the Liberals.

“Liberals” clearly..

 

[captain morgan]

I don't know about that. Giving everyone everything they want through borrowing and spending tends to win votes... at least until the Royal credit card maxes out.

The public at large is fast learning the effects and the direct costs of debt financing.... The cost of living increases, taxes going up all across the board and add-on costs like gvt controlled utility costs being raised.

It's always difficult for the sitting PM to gain traction during a poor economy as the electorate gravitate towards taking out their ire on the sitting Party. That said, unless the economy does an about face, I suspect that trudeau will have a tough time getting a mandate a second time