Justin Trudeau may have broken promises in the past but it is absolutely guaranteed that his latest pledge will be shattered to smithereens in very short order.
“I won’t be stirring up anger,” the prime minister
said this week. Considering his track record, Trudeau’s statement was as hypocritical as it was laughable.
Trudeau has in the past labelled Canadians racists and misogynists; called the Freedom Convoy a “fringe minority,” which earned a rebuke from the Emergencies Act Commissioner; and several polls have highlighted the prime minister’s divisive and angry tone.
And yet he still believes he occupies the high moral ground and can lecture Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre. Trudeau may lack many virtues, but he clearly has no shame.
At the same press conference on Monday, Trudeau was at his most moralizing when he accused Poilievre of playing on people’s “fear, anxiety and frustration.”
“You don’t solve problems by scaring people, by stirring up anger. (Poilievre’s) hoping he’s going to get votes out of it,” said the prime minister, at the conference in Hamilton, Ont.
Is this the same man who
told a Quebec television station in December 2021 that those who refused to get vaccinated “don’t believe in the science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist.” He added, “This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?”
A prime minister implying that certain sections of his country were intolerable might justifiably be accused of stirring up hatred and anger.
And when you consider that he was doing it in the middle of an election campaign, it’s fairly certain that his motive was to get votes.
Then there was the calling out of Freedom Convoy protesters as a “
fringe minority” with “unacceptable views.” The prime minister later said he regretted using those words but only after Paul Rouleau, the Emergencies Act Commissioner, highlighted what Trudeau said as an example of political rhetoric that tended to inflame anger.
Canadians, however, seem to have long realized that it is the prime minister who is the source of major divisions in this country.
Various Poll results from various times at the below link.
It's the PM who has been divisive and ill-tempered, not Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre
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It is worth remembering what Jody Wilson-Raybould said of her former boss when she refused to be bullied by him into giving SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution when she was attorney general.
“I wish that I had never met you,”
she told Trudeau, according to her memoir, Indian in the Cabinet.
What an extraordinary statement to make to a prime minister.
But there was more.
She was mad at herself, Wilson-Raybould said, because she had believed Trudeau was an “honest and good person, when, in truth, he would so casually lie to the public and then think he could get away with it.”
Accusing Trudeau of lying was bad enough, but saying he did it casually is an absolutely damning indictment of a man’s character.
So, when a clearly irate Trudeau says of Poilievre, “His answer to everything is cuts and be angry,” who can believe the prime minister?
And when he says, “The anger that he is drumming up is dangerous for Canadians,” it’s almost as if Trudeau is talking to himself.
But being divisive has worked for Trudeau in the past, so no one should hold their breath that he will change.
In contrast, Poilievre’s response to Trudeau’s rant was surprisingly calm and measured.
Asked whether he was stoking fear and anxiety, Poilievre said, “I’m concerned that
Canadians can’t afford to live and that they are not safe in their communities. Justin Trudeau is upset that I’m saying things are broken. Maybe he should stop breaking them.”
Poilievre has often been the pit bull on the Opposition’s front bench in the House of Commons. Adopting a calm and measured approach seems to be part of a new image makeover. Let’s hope it continues.
Calm and measured is a better prime ministerial look and far better than the angry and divisive one attached to the current incumbent.