Callow, Shallow, Inexperienced, Ambitious

"You certainly don't expect me, after 11 years here, to get involved in your politics. So I will only repeat what I said: Whoever discusses rumours about Russian military intervention in Ukraine is committing an insult to the intellect of the Canadian public, full stop."
"Whoever, whatever shape or form, political attribution, I don't care. This is our position, and you will sort it out with Mr. Trudeau."
"It's your politician. I will judge my own."
"We are interested in territorial integrity, democracy, and the well-being of the Ukrainian people. It's as simple as that. You shouldn't second guess what you hear. We've said it every day. We've said it to the United States. We've said it to the chancellor of Germany, we are saying it everyday: What we need now is to stop violence, bloodshed, to restore human rights and law and order."
"This is what we share with reasonable politicians of the world, and this is our position on Ukraine. It's very simple. We are not NATO, this is not Libya, you won't see any Russian troops in Ukraine. It's the last thing you should be worried about."
Russian Ambassador to Canada Georgy Mamedov

Can it be possible that Canada knows Russia better than Russia itself? On the face of it, a rather startling explanation and entitled chastisement from the Russian ambassador. Of course, Russia under President Vladimir Putin resembles a fairly rigid autocracy, reflecting Russian political and social history. Ambassador Mamedov's stern words of rebuke without casting specific blame, echo democratic values; a speech geared for presentation to a democratic audience.

That little lecture was pure unadulterated poetry. That priceless dig at NATO's intervention in Libya which in the final analysis appears to have accomplished little other than to help spread the virus of Islamist extremism throughout North Africa, and aiding in bringing al-Qaeda and Islamists linked with terror hauling their Libyan-looted arms to Syria. Russia certainly had no hand in that debacle, though the Kremlin's hands are stained with Syrian blood. But are we worried?

This is precisely what diplomats are skilled at, and why they are valued as communicators and skilled at intercessions by their governments. Justin Trudeau simply outdoes himself at times. His off-the-cuff statement in the French-language television program Tout le monde en parle of Sunday evening, "It is even more worrying now that Russia lost in hockey and will be in a bad mood. We fear some involvement of the Russian government in Ukraine".

That telling "we" is the royal imperative of Queen Victoria. For we the people of Canada may think along those lines, but we the people of Canada expect our politicians, particularly those aspiring to lead the country on the international stage, not to exercise their penchant on the public stage for jocularity when casually discussing matters of serious moment on the world stage.

We don't elect clowns to represent the best interests of the country, we elect mature individuals with a certain level of gravitas who know when to speak and when to remain mute.

The trouble is, that Justin Trudeau must be disabused of the quaint notion that everything that trips gaily out of his mouth is sheer spoken gold. Employment Minister Jason Kenney, a man of impeccable understanding of the value of speech, spoke of Mr. Trudeau's comment as an exercise in "bad judgement", and that it most certainly was. One has reason to elaborate and state that in fact, it was a spoken event of no judgement whatever.

An impression fortified by Mr. Trudeau's apology, when he expressed regret that he "made light of very real fears and concerns that Ukrainians have about Russian intervention", and of the dreadful peril that Ukrainians protesting their corrupt government and their unwillingness to continue being a pawn of Russia were putting their lives on the line, despite the inherent dangers in so doing, resulting in death for some of them.

Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press ... Justin Trudeau regrets he 'made light' of fears Ukrainians have of the possibility of Russian intervention

"Canadians are open to having people who aren't tightly scripted, who are willing to talk like people talk, and from time to time take risks and from time to time apologize or withdraw their comments", Justin Trudeau said in his defence. Wrong! He couldn't be more wrong. Canadians have every right to expect of a politician who aspires to become prime minister that he be aware, intelligently sensitive and prepared to demonstrate that state.

From his performance on this occasion and others that preceded this one, it's clear that he should be aspiring for a more populist stage than achieving the political helm of the country. He's quite simply confused in conflating his charming attributes with politics when clearly he should be competing on a quite different type of stage, say a radio or television talk-show host.