President Donald J. Trump is on a flight too far with his outrageous reaction to the U.S. airplane-helicopter disaster. Trump finally appears to have turned off many Americans, not to mention Canadians, with his paranoia and obsessive blame game.
 
In the early hours of Thursday morning, Trump began an astonishing rant, blaming Democrats and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) employees for the midair collision between the airliner and the U.S. army helicopter.  The two aircraft crashed into the Potomac River, near the Reagan Washington International Airport. Sixty-seven people are presumed dead.

American Eagle Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, collided midair with the army helicopter, carrying three people. American figure skaters, coaches and family members who had been at a skating camp in Wichita, were among those who died.

The dangerous mix of Donald Trump, Prime Minister Trudeau’s departure and the coming Federal election, is putting huge pressure on Cabinet Ministers and members of the Liberal caucus to pick a winner in the current Liberal Leadership race.

Of the seven candidates thus far, Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland are the front-runners, with the credible, youthful Karina Gould, a distant third.

With no strong Quebec candidate in the running for the party leadership the choice made by two senior Quebec Ministers becomes very important. Both Francois-Phillippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, have declared for Carney. Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc remains the most senior francophone minister in the Cabinet.

Among other senior ministers also supporting Carney are the Labour Minister, Steve MacKinnon, a bilingual Ottawa area MP, originally from PEI. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, the minister most identified with the controversial Carbon Tax, is now saying he is “forced to recognize that the Carbon Tax is “very unpopular.”

Midst the unprecedented swirl of major International and national events, New Brunswick new Premier, Susan Holt has matters well in hand, moving her province well beyond the dreary days of former Premier Blaine Higgs.

On the national stage, Premier Holt has taken a solid “Team Canada” approach and fit in well with New Brunswick’s other main political figure, federal Finance and Intergovernmental minister, Dominic LeBlanc.

Premier Susan Holt has already delivered the central message to New Brunswickers about her government, turning politics here from “me” to “we” – throwing the “I” approach to governing of former Premier Blaine Higgs into the ash can in favour of a commendable “team approach.”

The team ethic is already very evident in her reliance on her cabinet colleagues and her caucus members. It was clear right from election night when she rhymed off virtually every member of her team in the first blush of victory.

After nine years as Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau deserves our thanks for his service in a very challenging time.

Since last summer, the Against the Flow blog has twice called on the Prime Minister to leave. Mr. Trudeau ignored this small voice and that of many others. To the end, he believed that he was the best person and political campaigner to combat Pierre Poilievre, the Leader of the Conservative Party, and the dangerous threats against Canada of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump.

As argued earlier in the space, Trudeau will not be remembered for one great accomplishment such as that which his father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau achieved with the patriation of the Canadian constitution and the Charter of Rights.
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Yet, Justin Trudeau has had many achievements, including:

• Managing the COVID pandemic in the early 2020’s.
• Introducing several progressive social programs, notably the national Day Care program which has been of great benefit to many young Canadian families.
• Improving the lot of Indigenous peoples through openness to negotiations, especially on child welfare. Quality drinking water is a fundamental human necessity and although efforts are still insufficient, the Trudeau government made strides with First Nations communities toward improving water services.
• Helping make Canada a world leader in combatting climate change. We will return to this topic below because Trudeau did not respond quickly enough to the very real backlash against the Carbon Tax that he and his government implemented and chose to stick with.
• And lastly, something more personal, that despite his separation from his spouse, he continued addressing the demands of his office with strength and without complaint.
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On the negative side, the factors which ultimately outweighed the good he was doing as Prime Minister, included the following:

• Failing to appreciate fully the impact on average Canadians of the sharply rising cost of groceries and housing.
• Making serious errors of judgment in the management of people closest to him in government. Four cabinet ministers, Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jane Philpott, Dr. Carolyn Bennett, and David Lametti, either left the government or were dropped from it.  The loss of both Bennett and Lametti contributed to the key Liberal by-election losses in St. Paul’s and Lasalle ridings in Toronto and Montreal, respectively. Finally, Trudeau’s provoked the resignation of his long-loyal Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland. This was the ultimate undoing of his Prime Ministership.
• Obviously, Trudeau’s insufficient attention to caucus relations also contributed greatly to the palace revolt of so many of his MP’s.
• As mentioned above, the government placed a strong priority on Climate change, but Trudeau seemed blind to the damage being done to him and his government by the relentless campaign by Opposition Leader Poilievre against the Carbon Tax. Trudeau’s government never properly defended or explained the tax. Nor did the government adequately explain the compensatory deposits made directly into citizens’ bank accounts for the cost of the Carbon Tax.
• Lastly, Trudeau departed from good straight talk in favor of what in this space we have called “Marshmallow Talk.”  This contributed to the increasing sentiment against Trudeau which can only be called hatred. Evidence of this near the home base of this blog, was a very large sign outside a modest house, saying, “F*ck Trudeau.” For whatever reason, our Prime Minister could not read the writing on the wall about this this sentiment which would ultimately destroy his political career.