Whither Canada?

"I am convinced Canadians prefer that taxpayer dollars don't go to hostile regimes and regimes who use Canadian money to support governments."
"It's time for Canada to put our money where our mouth is and only use foreign aid to support the Canadian values we hold dear."
"At a time when Canadians are working harder than ever, [Liberal Leader Justin] Trudeau is using their hard-earned tax dollars to support anti-Semitic organizations and prop up foreign dictatorships."
“Canadians now can see the choice between sending more of their hard earned tax dollars to countries that rank relatively high on the development index — countries like Italy, like Brazil, like Turkey, and hostile governments like Iran."
"These types of groups [sexual and reproductive health rights] will not be affected by this announcement [cutting back foreign aid]."
"It's more important to me that I help Canadians get ahead than curry favour at the United Nations."
"[Canadians] deserve a prime minister who will do everything within their power to return Canada to a place of honour and leadership around the world, while doing more to help hard-working families right here at home get ahead."
"Justin Trudeau has spent the last four years humiliating himself and all Canadians on the world stage with his weak, unprincipled leadership." 
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, 2019 election campaign

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer addresses the media during a morning announcement in Toronto, Tuesday, October 1, 2019. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

It's an election campaign. How else would one expect the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons to address his adversary's record? All the more so since it's all true and even more egregious than a brief statement could encapsulate with accuracy. Canada has, in the highest office in the land, a prime minister in Justin Trudeau who has, repeatedly embarrassed Canadians both at home and abroad. None of Justin Trudeau's illegal manipulations and clownish behaviour has embarrassed him personally because this is a man whose ego is so flamboyantly robust he truly believes that nothing he does can be offputting to anyone, much less an insult to the office he holds.

He is a thespian to the very core. Someone in old British parlance who was called a 'cut-up', a larger-than-life personality, an individual who wants all eyes on him, all the time. He does believe he is quite unique, very special, a one-of-a-kind, and he is quite correct in that estimation. The trouble is that what he thinks of himself and what others have come to realize of him is that his larger-than-life personality and penchant for headlines and admiration from all quarters, and his readiness to portray himself in colours different than his own to curry favour and votes have become all too transparent.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, daughter, Ella-Grace, and son, Xavier, visit Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, India. (Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images)

His admiration for dictators and for wealth and celebrity had him taking financial favours from wealthy world figures that lobby government and were clearly illegal. His double-dipping as a member of Parliament, taking his salary and topping it up with speaking engagements to charitable institutions partially funded by tax dollars, a peculiar choice for a personal millionaire, which he is. Portraying himself as anti-racist, pro-woman, he manhandled a woman reporter, groping her, then protested that men and women perceive such matters differently. Evidence popping up through old photographs and videos of his penchant for dressing and clowning about in blackface is less than endearing.

His hounding and persecution of the second in command of the Canadian military, suspecting him of countermanding his initiative to set aside a signed contract for a naval supply ship in favour of giving the contract to a Liberal-favoured competitor, his undermining of his cabinet's Attorney General and Minister of Justice over a prosecution of a Quebec-based engineering firm with tentacles in the Liberal party, a direct and unlawful interference in Canadian justice. His trip to India where his love of costumery was in full, glittery display, complete with cozy relations with a Canadian Sikh convicted of attempted murder of an Indian diplomat, destroying a relationship with India.

 2001 “Arabian Nights”-themed party, West Point Grey Academy Time.com

The controversies that emerge under this man who never appears to have emerged into full maturity, stuck in the fun-and-games chronological age of arrested juvenile development are simply too many and too egregious to recount. But the way he and his cronies have conducted this election campaign by making every effort to personally smear their political competitors, attributing to them the worst attitudes that 'progressives' despise, demeans both the office he holds and the campaign itself.

So the official leader of the Parliamentary opposition, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer offers an alternative, a most palatable one.  He is perfectly right when he states that Canadians' tax dollars are misused supporting "repressive regimes" like Iran and North Korea, "hostile" to Canadian values and interests. As for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at every campaign stop throughout the country in a busy schedule to convince as many voters as possible that he deserves another four years in control, promises galore are being flaunted, and the government, already deep in fiscal disrepair, is bringing Canada ever more into a situation of tens of billions in deficits.

Justin Trudeau | Instagram Justin Trudeau | Twitter  October 2019

He is most generous buying votes with Canadians' own tax money. Offering legs-up for families with children, encouraging greater numbers of refugees, a larger immigration influx annually, though the last several years have added an additional third of a million new immigrants year by year. There is no avenue of public and private life in the country where Justin Trudeau cannot see an opportunity to offer tax relief targeted at voting blocs. It is time, and past time, for this episode of governance with the traditionally corrupt Liberal Party of Canada headed by the juicily insouciant Justin Trudeau to come to a clanging end.

From left to right: Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, moderator Pierre Bruneau of TVA, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh pose for a photo before the French-language debate for the 2019 federal election at TVA studios in Montreal Wednesday. (Joel Lemay/POOL/Agence QMI)