Canada is still being held hostage by a small and radical group of far-left protesters. Still.
We’ve entered the third week of this national temper tantrum, and our country’s leaders are further from a solution now then they were while Trudeau was off gallivanting around the world in vain pursuit of a seat at the United Nations security council.
Politicians in Ottawa held an emergency debate session in the House of Commons on Tuesday, where interim Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer delivered one of the better speeches of his career.
He called Trudeau’s handling of this whole ordeal, “the weakest response to a national crisis in history.” Fact check: true.
Trudeau wrongly conflates these anti-development activists with legitimate First Nations concerns. He doesn’t see this as an assault on the rule of law and the Canadian economy, but instead as an issue of reconciliation and a time for a healing session.
Scheer condemned Trudeau for not clearly denouncing the illegal actions of the masked protesters and for failing to present any kind of an action plan to end the blockades and get our country moving again.
“Will our country be one of the rule of law, or will our country be one of the rule of the mob?” Scheer asked. “Will we let our entire economy be held hostage by a small group, trampling over our legal system?” He rightly described the protesters as “a small group of radical activists, many of whom have little to no connection to First Nations communities.”
Scheer was on fire. In fact, had this Andrew Scheer been running in the last election, he would be Prime Minister right now.
Scheer spoke the truth, and it clearly struck a nerve with Justin Trudeau. So much so, that when Trudeau called a meeting of party leaders to discuss a strategy for dealing with the protesters, he refused to invite Scheer into the meeting.
Just last weekend, Trudeau was filmed bowing and laughing it up with Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif at a closed door meeting in Europe. Zarif runs the military of what Canada considers a terrorist state, and just one month ago, his government blew a commercial airliner out of the sky, murdering 176 souls aboard, including scores of Canadians.
Trudeau is perfectly willing to meet with someone who can rightly be called a wicked Islamist terrorist, but, apparently, he’s unwilling to meet with the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.
On Wednesday, a new national poll vindicated Scheer’s position on the issue. A clear majority of Canadians — 61% — disagree with the protesters and see the blockades as unjustified. More than half of the country wants the police to arrest the protesters and end the disruptions.
Scheer speaks for many Canadians, and yet, Trudeau refuses to listen.
Instead of defending our democracy, enforcing our laws, and heeding to the majority of Canadians who want this dealt with now, the Trudeau government has retreated. They ordered the RCMP in British Columbia to stand down, abandon the court order to arrest the protesters and remove police presence from the original protests in the Wet’suwet’en territory.
And so, here we are, closing in on twenty days of these blockades. Via Rail announced 1000 temporary layoffs and CN Rail announced another 450. The Maritimes and parts of Quebec are at risk of running out of propane and have already begun rationing supplies.
Meanwhile, emboldened protesters are flexing their power and taking their theatrics to the next level. A group of environmentalists showed up at the home of B.C. Premier John Horgan, himself a left-wing environmentalist who opposes most pipelines, to block his driveway and attempt a “citizens’ arrest.”
The radical far-left is winning. Canada is falling apart. And Trudeau doesn’t seem to have a clue on how to fix it.
