BY: ANTHONY FUREY
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is really against the ropes both domestically and on the world stage.
The PM’s been taking a beating in public support ever since his disastrous India trip the other year. He then went from low to lower during the dreadful Lavscam and fell down another peg following the Vice Admiral Mark Norman affair.
These fiascos can largely be chalked up to ineptitude and poor management. There are other problems arising though that aren’t so much bungled files but signs that Trudeau and a lot of the leadership in this country are looking at things the wrong way.
On the domestic front, immigration and refugees is a main example. Trudeau and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen continue to undermine Canada’s immigration system, whether it’s by failing to deal with the Roxham Road illegal border crisis or by vilifying Canadians who have basic concerns about integration.
A number of polls have revealed that the majority of Canadians want improved integration and even want to reduce the number of refugees invited in until we can figure things out. Instead of using this as a learning opportunity to readjust their priorities to get more in line with the people they’re tasked with serving, Hussen and Trudeau seem to revel in accusing Canadians of being racist or similar such nonsense. It’s a mistake they keep wilfully making: pretending concerns about integration are somehow objections to the race or ethnicity of those refugees.
Meanwhile, Trudeau is floundering on the world stage. China keeps turning the screws on Ottawa almost daily and all the Liberal government seems able to do is flail its arms and stammer in response. A growing chorus of observers is calling on Trudeau to do something, anything, in response. Yet, like some sort of Canadian Hamlet, he can’t bring himself to act.
China’s offensive strikes are rooted in their disdain for the Western system and our belief in the rule of law. The Chinese Communist Party is the opposite of what North American politics should stand for. President Xi Jinping is far from alone in his attitudes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sneered at Western values in an interview with the Financial Times recently: “The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.”
One of the most irksome parts of Trudeau’s worldview is his moral and cultural relativism, his refusal to criticize bad actors – unless they’re Canadians he’s hectoring about carbon emissions or plastic straw usage.
Sadly, Putin may be right that “the liberal idea”, as in free democratic capitalist societies, are on the decline. It would be nice if Trudeau would put his foot down and stand defiantly against this decline. Think what you will of President Donald Trump, but he’s certainly not willing to let the West die a slow death – he’s putting up a fight against the likes of Communist China.
Whether it’s Trudeau’s approach to the integration of refugees or his refusal to confront China, it all seems rooted in a shoddy moral relativism. It would be nice if Trudeau would drop this attitude and give Canadian politics a reboot that does more to embrace and promote Western values.
