Two interesting things happened last week. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigned, and public opinion polling continues to show Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party sinking rapidly.
There’s been a lot of talk about whether Trudeau will follow Jacinda Ardern’s lead in finally taking his walk in the snow – with many different reasons given as to why Canadians are slowly but increasingly becoming fed up with Prime Minister Trudeau.
Some have offered answers such as failing to deliver services. Which I think is accurate. Not being able to get a passport in a timely manner. Not processing immigration applications. Airports falling apart and so on. It’s maddening.
Others have pointed out that the numerous scandals have eroded people’s trust and patience. Blackface, WE, multiple MPs engaging in blatantly poor behaviour but then suffering no consequences. I think that’s starting to bother a lot of people.
There’s also the economic angle. Raising the carbon tax during an affordability crisis. Out of control spending leading to inflation. While no one blames Trudeau entirely for this crisis, he could have helped; but instead made it worse.
But I think a perhaps simpler, albeit big, reason why the public is fed up with Trudeau is that his entire party’s agenda has become one giant no-fun, anti-prosperity, ban-everything government.
Bent on shutting everything down that happens to go against their increasingly radical ideology. Using them as wedge issues, trying desperately to hold on to power.
There are three big “bans” that have backfired on the Prime Minister over the last several months. And I argue it’s because of these blunders that Canadian voters are fleeing for both the NDP, and in larger numbers, the Tories.
Number one is the gun ban. The Prime Minister, in Elmer Fudd fashion, asked for everyone to be very, very quiet, while he was banning hunting rifles. I’m not sure if it was pride or some kind of contempt for hunters and farmers that led him to assume he could get away with it.
But it backfired, pun very much intended. Trudeau managed to get the NDP, Bloc, CPC, Assembly of First Nations, and Carey Price to unite against him. Quite the feat.
Canadians want strong and smart gun laws. But they also understand how important hunting and sport shooting culture is to a lot of their fellow Canadians. Coupled with the Prime Minister’s disastrous handling of crime in this country – people are angry.
Number two would be oil and gas. He hasn’t outright said that he would ban it in Canada, but he’s come pretty close. And he has certainly spent the last seven years working diligently to make it so that starting new projects is nearly impossible and existing projects take way too long to complete.
I think he assumed because Canadians care about the planet they’d go along with his radical schemes. But attitudes are shifting. In the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, the argument for Canadian oil and gas displacing Putin’s despot oil became very strong. Polling shows large majorities of Canadians want not only to become more energy self-sufficient, but to help our allies get off dictator energy.
But then any time one of our allies comes here asking for help, the Prime Minister lectures them about wind and solar. Leaving them going to nations like Qatar – with questionable human rights records – and then those countries get to reap the rewards of the GDP growth. And I think that really ticks people off.
Number three is banning internet free speech. I bet you a decent amount of Canadians know what Bills C-11 and C-18 are – internet censorship bills. Designed to control your social media feeds, suppress content that doesn’t fit Trudeau’s agenda. And allow the government to pick winners and losers in the news business.
And boy did it backfire. On top of turning basically every Canadian digital influencer left and right against them, they even manage to have Youtube and others spending tens of thousands of dollars on a campaign against them.
A ton of Canadians pushed back, sent letters to MPs and Senators, and testified in favour of free expression online. That’s a lot of peeved off voters.
Now that’s just three examples. There’s also the plastics ban, emissions caps, fertilizer reduction plans, gas-powered car bans, the list goes on and on. Ban, block, shut down. Trudeau might as well go plant a giant “no fun” sign on the lawn of Parliament hill.
Rather than funding or backing innovative ideas for improving people’s lives, this government just bans everything. And Canadians are noticing.
