And he's out
- Thread starter Serryah
- Start date
Does seem most likely. I never understood the concept of trade barriers within a nation. Unless one subscribes to the Animal Farm concept.
I just WISH pigs were in charge. Feed 'em and scratch their ears and they're perfectly content.
Justin Trudeau failed to achieve the legacy he set for himself
Author of the article:Lorrie Goldstein
Published Mar 08, 2025 • Last updated 15 hours ago • 4 minute read
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prepares to leave office, the best way to assess his political legacy is to judge the expectations he set for himself when he won his first election in 2015.
By that standard, he has clearly failed to deliver what he promised.
Here’s what he told Canadians in a campaign video from that time about what his years in office would be like.
With Parliament Hill in the background he said:
“This place belongs to all Canadians. It belongs to you. But after a decade in power, Stephen Harper thinks it belongs to him. So now, this place is broken. Today, I’m presenting a real plan to fix it …
“I know Harper and his government are the problem and the way to fix this place is to change the government … Replace this government with a better one. That’s what real change starts with.
“Our plan creates a truly transparent and open government that will put an end to the secrecy and scandals of the Harper decade …
“Our plan will modernize government and bring it into the 21st century. We’ll open this place up so you can see what’s going on, hold us accountable, and contribute more directly to what happens here.
“We’ll shift power away from the back rooms, to make sure your MP will be your voice here in Ottawa instead of Harper’s voice in your community …
“But most of all, real change means we’ll give our Parliament, our government and our democracy back to you.”
A decade later, what Trudeau criticized Harper for is part of his own legacy – scandals, secrecy and excessive power centralized in the the Prime Minister’s Office.
An emotional Trudeau elaborated on what he hopes Canadians will think of him in the years ahead at an announcement last week that the government is working on an expansion of his $10-a-day child care program with the provinces, during which he appeared near tears.
“On a personal level, I’ve made sure that every single day in this office I put Canadians first, that I have people’s backs,” he said.
“And that’s why I’m here to tell you all that we got you. Even in the last days of this government, we will not let Canadians down, today and long into the future.”
But that’s not the assessment of ordinary Canadians, according to an Angus Reid survey released last week of 1,850 adults taken from March 4-6.
It found while 63% believe Trudeau tried to tackle the country’s biggest problems and 30% said he made progress on them, 70% said he either tried to solve these problems but failed (33%), didn’t address them at all (15%) or made them worse (22%).
“Trudeau’s legacy is … more negative than positive in most regions of the country – aside from Atlantic Canada,” the survey said, “though many in each region also feel he will be viewed as average.”
Not all of the findings were negative.
Canadians generally viewed Trudeau’s legalization of marijuana as a success (52% compared to 24% who said it was a failure), along with his handling of the pandemic (47% approval albeit with a significant minority of 31% describing it as a failure).
The survey also found general approval for his handling of Canada’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his expansion of Canada’s social safety net through the Canada Child Benefit, dental care and other programs.
But most Canadians described as failures Trudeau’s rapid increase of immigration levels (64%), response to inflation (55%) and introduction of the carbon tax (53%).
“After nearly a decade of governance by the Trudeau Liberals … initial optimism has given way to more criticism than applause,” the survey concluded.
“Majorities of Canadians believe the Trudeau era has had a negative impact on Canadians’ trust in the federal government (63%) and housing affordability (61%).”
The survey also found significant numbers of Canadians believe the Trudeau Liberals have harmed more than helped Canada’s energy sector (42% negative), infrastructure (32%), the economy (52%), relations with the U.S. (48%), the federal government relationship with the provinces (43%), health care (37%), the job market (37%) and national unity (43%).
“Asked to describe what they’ll remember most about the near-decade that Trudeau led the country, the most common responses mention either the pandemic response or scandals like the SNC-Lavalin and WE Charity affairs,” the survey said.
Ironically, Trudeau may be going out on a bit of a high note since U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war against Canada now has many polls showing the Liberals are competitive with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, whereas a few weeks ago they appeared to be headed for a resounding defeat in this year’s federal election.
lgoldstein@postmedia.com
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Lorrie Goldstein
Published Mar 08, 2025 • Last updated 15 hours ago • 4 minute read
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prepares to leave office, the best way to assess his political legacy is to judge the expectations he set for himself when he won his first election in 2015.
By that standard, he has clearly failed to deliver what he promised.
Here’s what he told Canadians in a campaign video from that time about what his years in office would be like.
With Parliament Hill in the background he said:
“This place belongs to all Canadians. It belongs to you. But after a decade in power, Stephen Harper thinks it belongs to him. So now, this place is broken. Today, I’m presenting a real plan to fix it …
“I know Harper and his government are the problem and the way to fix this place is to change the government … Replace this government with a better one. That’s what real change starts with.
“Our plan creates a truly transparent and open government that will put an end to the secrecy and scandals of the Harper decade …
“Our plan will modernize government and bring it into the 21st century. We’ll open this place up so you can see what’s going on, hold us accountable, and contribute more directly to what happens here.
“We’ll shift power away from the back rooms, to make sure your MP will be your voice here in Ottawa instead of Harper’s voice in your community …
“But most of all, real change means we’ll give our Parliament, our government and our democracy back to you.”
A decade later, what Trudeau criticized Harper for is part of his own legacy – scandals, secrecy and excessive power centralized in the the Prime Minister’s Office.
An emotional Trudeau elaborated on what he hopes Canadians will think of him in the years ahead at an announcement last week that the government is working on an expansion of his $10-a-day child care program with the provinces, during which he appeared near tears.
“On a personal level, I’ve made sure that every single day in this office I put Canadians first, that I have people’s backs,” he said.
“And that’s why I’m here to tell you all that we got you. Even in the last days of this government, we will not let Canadians down, today and long into the future.”
But that’s not the assessment of ordinary Canadians, according to an Angus Reid survey released last week of 1,850 adults taken from March 4-6.
It found while 63% believe Trudeau tried to tackle the country’s biggest problems and 30% said he made progress on them, 70% said he either tried to solve these problems but failed (33%), didn’t address them at all (15%) or made them worse (22%).
“Trudeau’s legacy is … more negative than positive in most regions of the country – aside from Atlantic Canada,” the survey said, “though many in each region also feel he will be viewed as average.”
Not all of the findings were negative.
Canadians generally viewed Trudeau’s legalization of marijuana as a success (52% compared to 24% who said it was a failure), along with his handling of the pandemic (47% approval albeit with a significant minority of 31% describing it as a failure).
The survey also found general approval for his handling of Canada’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his expansion of Canada’s social safety net through the Canada Child Benefit, dental care and other programs.
But most Canadians described as failures Trudeau’s rapid increase of immigration levels (64%), response to inflation (55%) and introduction of the carbon tax (53%).
“After nearly a decade of governance by the Trudeau Liberals … initial optimism has given way to more criticism than applause,” the survey concluded.
“Majorities of Canadians believe the Trudeau era has had a negative impact on Canadians’ trust in the federal government (63%) and housing affordability (61%).”
The survey also found significant numbers of Canadians believe the Trudeau Liberals have harmed more than helped Canada’s energy sector (42% negative), infrastructure (32%), the economy (52%), relations with the U.S. (48%), the federal government relationship with the provinces (43%), health care (37%), the job market (37%) and national unity (43%).
“Asked to describe what they’ll remember most about the near-decade that Trudeau led the country, the most common responses mention either the pandemic response or scandals like the SNC-Lavalin and WE Charity affairs,” the survey said.
Ironically, Trudeau may be going out on a bit of a high note since U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war against Canada now has many polls showing the Liberals are competitive with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, whereas a few weeks ago they appeared to be headed for a resounding defeat in this year’s federal election.
lgoldstein@postmedia.com
GOLDSTEIN: Justin Trudeau failed to achieve the legacy he set for himself
As Justin Trudeau prepares to leave office, the best way to assess his legacy is to judge the expectations he set for himself in 2015.
Canadians measured Trudeau and found him wanting
What can we add to the inevitable political obituary that could be considered good?
Author of the article:Warren Kinsella
Published Mar 08, 2025 • Last updated 17 hours ago • 4 minute read
Justin, we hardly knew ye.
Although, towards the end, the reverse was actually true, wasn’t it? We had gotten to know Justin Trudeau all too well. We had measured him, and we had found him wanting.
The indictments of Justin Pierre James Trudeau could be conjured up without a Google search: blackface, SNC-Lavalin, Aga Khan, WE, ArriveCan, election interference – and no balanced budgets, no reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians, no electoral reform.
It’s a long list.
This writer broke the story about one of the scandals: Gropegate.
In 2018, I published that Trudeau had been credibly accused of groping a female reporter at a B.C. beer festival many years earlier, and years before he became Prime Minister. The victim, whom I did not name, had disclosed that Trudeau had “groped” and “blatantly disrespected” her.
I had voted for Trudeau’s party in 2015. I had thought he was the change the country needed. But then the young woman revealed what Trudeau had said to her at the time: “I’m sorry, if I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward.”
That was bad enough. But when my little scoop attracted unhelpful headlines around the world, Trudeau was confronted by the Canadian media.
He shrugged about what he did, and added another disclaimer for the ages: “This lesson that we are learning – and I’ll be blunt about it – often a man experiences an interaction as being benign, or not inappropriate, and a woman, particularly in a professional context can experience it differently.”
“Experience it differently?” When I heard that, from the self-professed feminist, that was it, for me.
When blackface broke the following year, it merely added to the conviction I (and others) already held – Justin Trudeau was ethically deficient. He was simply not who we thought he was.
He was (and is) just a man, of course. He has failings, like us all. But his response to the groping incident, and his acknowledgement that he had used racist blackface more times than he could remember? Those were a bridge too far, for me. I voted for the NDP in the next election, and Conservatives in the two after that. The fact that the people kept returning him to high public office was irrelevant. It did not cleanse him of his sins. It just spread the sins around.
So, now, we are days away from the end of the Justin Trudeau era. He is about to replaced by one of two men who are his polar opposite: a bland, boring banker who is genetically incapable of the melodramatic flourishes of Trudeau – or a morose, dyspeptic ideologue who keeps auditioning for the job he already has.
What can be salvaged, Justin? What can we add to the inevitable political obituary, in the few days that remain, that could be considered good?
Because there is good. There are achievements.
Trudeau halved child poverty in this country. His Canada Child Benefit was a positive thing. It helped to lift up to a million children out of poverty, and the hunger and desolation that always accompany it.
Trudeau kept the separatists at bay. In his decade in power, the Canada-wreckers could not resuscitate their destructive movement. Is that because Trudeau gave too much to the nationalists, or because Quebeckers trusted him more than the rest of us did? Historians will debate all that. The reality is that, under him, separatism became – and remains – a memory.
He had big political achievements, as well. He lifted his party from a distant third place to a historic Parliamentary majority. He effected a friendly acquisition of the New Democratic Party’s base, and still owns it. He beat three Conservatives in a row – including one, Stephen Harper, who was a giant.
And now, at the very end, Justin Trudeau is revealing glimpses of what we all thought we saw a decade ago: a fighter, a patriot, a believer in the undeniable greatness of this country.
On the morning that Donald Trump’s destructive tariffs landed, I tweeted out Trudeau’s own words: “The United States launched a trade war against Canada, its closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin: a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”
Those words were seen, and applauded, 2.2 million times. It was one of Justin Trudeau’s finest moments. A moment of courage and conviction.
It was sad, however, that we were only seeing that leader at the very end of his time at the top. It was what we had thought we all saw back at the beginning, wasn’t it?
When we knew him, and then we hardly knew him at all.
torontosun.com
What can we add to the inevitable political obituary that could be considered good?
Author of the article:Warren Kinsella
Published Mar 08, 2025 • Last updated 17 hours ago • 4 minute read
Justin, we hardly knew ye.
Although, towards the end, the reverse was actually true, wasn’t it? We had gotten to know Justin Trudeau all too well. We had measured him, and we had found him wanting.
The indictments of Justin Pierre James Trudeau could be conjured up without a Google search: blackface, SNC-Lavalin, Aga Khan, WE, ArriveCan, election interference – and no balanced budgets, no reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians, no electoral reform.
It’s a long list.
This writer broke the story about one of the scandals: Gropegate.
In 2018, I published that Trudeau had been credibly accused of groping a female reporter at a B.C. beer festival many years earlier, and years before he became Prime Minister. The victim, whom I did not name, had disclosed that Trudeau had “groped” and “blatantly disrespected” her.
I had voted for Trudeau’s party in 2015. I had thought he was the change the country needed. But then the young woman revealed what Trudeau had said to her at the time: “I’m sorry, if I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward.”
That was bad enough. But when my little scoop attracted unhelpful headlines around the world, Trudeau was confronted by the Canadian media.
He shrugged about what he did, and added another disclaimer for the ages: “This lesson that we are learning – and I’ll be blunt about it – often a man experiences an interaction as being benign, or not inappropriate, and a woman, particularly in a professional context can experience it differently.”
“Experience it differently?” When I heard that, from the self-professed feminist, that was it, for me.
When blackface broke the following year, it merely added to the conviction I (and others) already held – Justin Trudeau was ethically deficient. He was simply not who we thought he was.
He was (and is) just a man, of course. He has failings, like us all. But his response to the groping incident, and his acknowledgement that he had used racist blackface more times than he could remember? Those were a bridge too far, for me. I voted for the NDP in the next election, and Conservatives in the two after that. The fact that the people kept returning him to high public office was irrelevant. It did not cleanse him of his sins. It just spread the sins around.
So, now, we are days away from the end of the Justin Trudeau era. He is about to replaced by one of two men who are his polar opposite: a bland, boring banker who is genetically incapable of the melodramatic flourishes of Trudeau – or a morose, dyspeptic ideologue who keeps auditioning for the job he already has.
What can be salvaged, Justin? What can we add to the inevitable political obituary, in the few days that remain, that could be considered good?
Because there is good. There are achievements.
Trudeau halved child poverty in this country. His Canada Child Benefit was a positive thing. It helped to lift up to a million children out of poverty, and the hunger and desolation that always accompany it.
Trudeau kept the separatists at bay. In his decade in power, the Canada-wreckers could not resuscitate their destructive movement. Is that because Trudeau gave too much to the nationalists, or because Quebeckers trusted him more than the rest of us did? Historians will debate all that. The reality is that, under him, separatism became – and remains – a memory.
He had big political achievements, as well. He lifted his party from a distant third place to a historic Parliamentary majority. He effected a friendly acquisition of the New Democratic Party’s base, and still owns it. He beat three Conservatives in a row – including one, Stephen Harper, who was a giant.
And now, at the very end, Justin Trudeau is revealing glimpses of what we all thought we saw a decade ago: a fighter, a patriot, a believer in the undeniable greatness of this country.
On the morning that Donald Trump’s destructive tariffs landed, I tweeted out Trudeau’s own words: “The United States launched a trade war against Canada, its closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin: a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”
Those words were seen, and applauded, 2.2 million times. It was one of Justin Trudeau’s finest moments. A moment of courage and conviction.
It was sad, however, that we were only seeing that leader at the very end of his time at the top. It was what we had thought we all saw back at the beginning, wasn’t it?
When we knew him, and then we hardly knew him at all.
KINSELLA: Canadians measured Trudeau and found him wanting
We have gotten to know Justin Trudeau all too well. We measured him, and we had found him wanting.
The scandals, missteps and affairs that defined the Trudeau decade
While this newspaper doesn't have enough space to list every single misstep, the following is a summary of some of the most notable
The scandals, missteps and affairs that defined the Trudeau decade
While this newspaper doesn't have enough space to list every single misstep, the following is a summary of some of the most notable
I’ve wondered if he tried to count his own scandals & ethics violations…how many cabinet ministers hands he’d also need to count them on fingers, etc…& that might save him from taking off his sparkly socks.