Say Farewell to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump, meet Canada, the Mouse that Roared.

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.

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement that he is resigning as Leader of the Liberal Pary, two other Canadian politicians deserve condemnation for how they have responded.

Pierre Poilievre responded with a pre-recorded video presentation with more of his diatribe: Axe the Tax; Build the Homes; Stop the Crime; and Fix the Budget. Poilievre has clearly had success with the electorate. But in a coming election campaign he will have to put a great deal more flesh on the bones.                 
                                   
Poilievre is likely the person in Canada who most wanted Trudeau to remain on the job through an election. Afterall, the Conservative leader has blamed Trudeau for everything that is wrong with Canada and said endlessly that the Prime minister is the one responsible for everything in the country being “broken.”

Although Poilievre is the prominent Canadian politician who is ideologically closest to Donald Trump, the Conservative leader must become “Captain Canada” if, as expected, he wins election as Prime Minister, in the upcoming federal election.

The other Canadian politician who responded badly to Trudeau’s decision to go is the NDP Leader, Jagmeet Singh, who has been on shaky ground for several months. Singh had nothing good to say about Trudeau about his departure. Singh launched into his favorite rhetoric about the main enemy in the country being the over-paid CEOs of large corporations. In Singh’s brand of social democracy, he does not have anything good to say even about the role of small business in our economy.

Anyone who expects to be successful in Canadian politics or journalism must have a humanist ethic. Neither Poilievre nor Singh showed any of the milk of human kindness in their response to Mr. Trudeau’s departure.

A politician who has been solid as a rock in the recent period is New Brunswick’s Dominic LeBlanc. We said previously in this blog that it would be very difficult for LeBlanc to run for the Liberal Leadership, having accepted Trudeau’s appointment as Finance Minister.

LeBlanc has announced that he will not be throwing his hat in the ring for the party leadership. Although he is still under pressure from members of caucus to run, we believe that his first instinct was correct. He should stay and help Prime Minister Trudeau and the country weather the onslaught on Canada of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump.

At first it seemed that Trump was joking when he said that the USA should make Canada the 51st state of America. Now is clear that Trump wants to use “economic force” to annex Canada. He also covets Greenland and the Panama Canal. We must resist him, not with words but with action.
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The Canadian Premiers, led by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, the Chair of the Council of the Federation composed of the 13 Premiers, including New Brunswick’s able Premier Susan Holt. The Council and the Canadian government are well underway in making the political argument to American political leaders and citizens that the USA needs Canada as much as Canada needs the USA. Preparations are well underway to impose retaliatory tariffs if Trump goes ahead with his 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods entering the U.S.

Trump's approach to our country is demeaning and insulting and we will oppose him. He should take heed from the message of author Leonard Wibberley telling the story of The Mouse that Roared.