According to Mark Levin in Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, the political demographic in the U.S. breaks down into 30 percent in the hard-core, institutional or knee-jerk left and 70 percent in the center, agnostic, and conservative majority. In Canada the reverse is the case, with the left-wing Liberals, New Democratic Party (NDP), Bloc Québécois and Greens commanding approximately 70 percent of the vote and the Conservatives hovering in the 30 percent range.
Indeed, the Conservative Party polled only 31.91 percent of the vote in the 2015 general election; the remaining parties together, all of a socialist complexion, reaped the remaining 68.09 percent, allowing the Liberals to form a majority government with 184 seats. These statistics show that Canada is essentially a socialist country, the occasional Conservative government merely a national anomaly.
This means there is, in any event at present, little hope for Canada. It is a pacifist and uninspiring nation whose electorate is programmatically incapable of independent thought and which swallows whole the progressivist starch our national broadcaster, the CBC, and print/online media feed it as if it were high-energy protein. There appears to be nothing in the country even remotely resembling the redoubtable, massive, galvanized middle-and-working class constituency that propelled Donald Trump to the American presidency.
Of course, the propaganda in this country is relentless, supporting a growing welfare regime, Muslim immigration, judicial activism, and identity politics favoring “gender equity,” priming a dysfunctional aboriginal (aka “First Nations”) clientage at enormous cost to the public treasury, and promoting a fraudulent “rape culture” and “diversity”-mad academy rapidly going bankrupt in more ways than one. At the same time, the campaign of vilification targeting public figures not in step with the reigning ideological orthodoxy proceeds without intermission.
Thus, former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper — for all his flaws, a decent man who steered the country adroitly through the 2008 recession and bequeathed a balanced budget when he left office — was reviled for harboring a “secret agenda” that never existed and derided as a conveniently evil villain known as “Harperman.” Currently, in the Conservative Party leadership race, venture capitalist and reality TV star Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank and Dragons’ Den fame, a pragmatic and no-nonsense candidate with a thorough knowledge of the business world, has been slandered in a CBC hit piece, penned by former Dragon Arlene Dickinson, as an “opportunist” and a “cold, money-driven person” who should “have us all afraid.”
Where have we heard this before? O’Leary, the wild-card aspirant, is clearly regarded as Canada’s version of Donald Trump, someone alien to a “compassionate and caring people” as we Canadians presumably are. The subtext of this mealy-mouthed apology for besottedness is that, unlike supposedly crass Americans, Canadians are a kind, considerate and morally pristine people who do not deserve “a leader that’s only in it for himself [and] who views our country as nothing more than a balance sheet.” One can imagine how Trump would have fared in Canada.
It is no accident that such an article should be posted by the CBC, the Liberal agitprop network. In true CBC fashion, Dickinson concludes by informing us that politics is “about people. It’s about shepherding all Canadians through good times and bad, and ensuring that the most vulnerable stay with the flock.” Well, let’s see how Liberal poster boy Justin Trudeau is doing in the Canadian compassion trade, how well he is shepherding Canadians through good times and bad, and how he is caring for the vulnerable:
- The budget is no longer balanced. The deficit is approaching the $6 billion mark and, under current fiscal policies, Canada Finance projects a 1.5 trillion dollar debt over the next thirty years. Trudeau is creating a debtor nation in perpetuity. This is a shepherd happy to mortgage his flock to the fiscal butcher.
- Trudeau is now under investigation by the federal ethics commissioner for traveling in a private aircraft, a violation of the Conflict of Interest Act and the first-ever investigation into a sitting prime minister for political wrongdoing. He is also on the hook for illegal party fundraising practices and for selling influence to foreign businessmen who donate to his foundation—his cash-for-access version of the Clintonian pay-for-play scheme. How this will benefit Canadians, as Trudeau claims, is a mystery.
- Trudeau is set to impose a carbon tax on those provinces that have not yet done so, raising gasoline prices, heating costs, transportation and delivery expenses, food prices and more. These are significant hikes for most consumers, especially as the GST (value-added tax) sits atop the carbon tax, piling layer upon layer of mulct on hard-pressed people. Some I know are cutting back on driving their children to sports events and fitness centers. A weeping Ontario woman complained at a Trudeau Town Hall forum that her hydro bill was now higher than her mortgage. Others are being forced to choose groceries over utilities. Of course, the cap-and-trade policy is just another tax grab, justified by Trudeau’s desire to “phase out” fossil fuels, the mainstay of the Canadian economy. Adding injury to injury, he has pledged 2.65 billion of taxpayer dollars to developing countries as part of his “Global Climate Change Action.” Yet there has been no global warming for 21 years; indeed, APG is the greatest scam of the modern era.
- Liberal cabinet ministers have been scandalously billing the public for their personal and whimsical expenses, some outrageous—private limousine service, office redecorating, staff relocation totalling more than $1 million, and so on. Trudeau has taken ten vacations during his first year as PM, partied with rock stars, and enjoyed down time with family and friends on the Aga Khan’s private island known as the “Hamptons of the Bahamas”—the Aga Khan’s helicopter was the “private aircraft” in question. During the last parliamentary session, he skipped 58 per cent of parliamentary question periods. He has clearly learned much from his mentor, Barack Obama.
- Trudeau’s Liberals want to bring back the per-vote subsidy, cancelled by the Conservatives, which forces taxpayers to underwrite the partisan activities of political parties.
- The economy is seriously ailing. Over 30,000 jobs have been lost in July 2016 alone, a severe drop for a small country.
- Trudeau has signed an extradition treaty with China, among the world’s worst human rights abusers, whose “basic dictatorship” Trudeau has publicly admired. He has sympathized with the Boston bombers and mourned the death of Fidel Castro, a “remarkable leader.” This is the trendy millennial Canadians have elected to lead them to tomorrow.
- Trudeau has made a habit of ostentatiously visiting mosques around the country, one in particular known as a “terror mosque.” Islamic immigration vigorously promoted by Trudeau, to the tune of 300,000 immigrants, mainly “Syrians,” in 2016, will strain the country’s failing resources and promise cultural dissolution in the coming years.
In summary, we are obviously enjoying the fruits of the sort of compassionate leadership that Dickinson and the CBC support. Unfortunately, Canadians may find it increasingly difficult to console themselves for their good fortune, now that the Trudeau cabinet is contemplating a tax on Netflix.
Canada will have to sink further into the economic doldrums and social disarray before it may start to reconsider its infatuation with Liberal/NDP/socialist dispensations. The spectacle of a resurgent U.S. will no doubt prompt a majority of Canadians to react with resentment and the usual conviction of moral superiority, but a significant minority who have suffered under federal and provincial administrations may be inspired to re-think their voting habits. It is unlikely that such a turn would lead to a sea-change; more likely it would at best produce a Liberal minority government buttressed by its junior partner, the NDP.
It is moot whether someone like Kevin O’Leary, should he be nominated as Conservative Party leader, can significantly reverse the fortunes of the nation, as Trump is prepared to do for the U.S. O’Leary labors under several disadvantages. Our tony Mensheviks in the media have trained their weapons on him, intent on character assassination. O’Leary does not speak French, pretty much the kiss of death for a Canadian politician who must appeal to a revanchist Quebec electorate—unless, like Stephen Harper, he can profit from a crash course in the language. There is little chance that he can placate the various identity factions that work against national unity—the Muslim community, the aboriginal tribes, the cowering academics, the snowflakes, the entitlementarians, the raging feminists. Most damning of all is the Canadian national temperament, tepid, indifferent, self-righteous, content with insular mediocrity, which may have defeated even a larger-than-life Donald Trump.
Nevertheless, there is little doubt that Canada needs someone like Kevin O’Leary to initiate a process of gradual revitalization. Can he capitalize on Trump’s electoral earthquake? (In his new book Trumping Trudeau, Ezra Levant thinks the altered political landscape may signal a new reality to which Canada will need to adapt.) At this point I am wondering if O’Leary can even win the Conservative Party nomination at its May 27 leadership convention. It’s a mixed bag at present. One candidate, Chris Alexander, wants to increase immigration, as if Canada needed more Muslims from terror-sponsoring countries. (He could take a lesson from Donald Trump on this file.) Michael Chong believes in global warming, but has not the slightest idea of the concentration of C02 in the atmosphere; when queried at a leadership debate luncheon, he ventured it was “pretty big,” somewhere between 20 percent and 90 percent. (It is 0.04). These guys are obviously in the wrong party. If not on the wrong planet.
There are some viable candidates proposing sensible policies and attitudes. Kellie Leitch is a Trump supporter and respects what he represents. Maxime Bernier wants to change the mandate of and “refocus” the CBC. Brad Trost opposes carbon tax, transgender bathrooms, tax increases, deficit financing and abortion, and argues for traditional marriage and privatizing the CBC. All three are excellent candidates. I suspect that O’Leary would endorse many of these initiatives. And his business acumen is a quality Canada is desperately in need of.
As a prospective Conservative Party member, I would be content with any of these four hopefuls as the future leader of the Party—though we must remember they are not contending only against Trudeau but against Canada for Canada’s benefit. At the moment I’m leaning towards O’Leary — in part because he reminds me of Trump, an aggressive entrepreneur who is not a career politician, and in part thanks to the smarmy put-down of shepherdess Arlene Dickinson. If someone like Dickinson, speaking for the CBC, spends her venom on O’Leary, then there must be something right about him. Similarly, the fact that Ontario’s inept and decadent Premier Kathleen Wynne has seen fit to write a poison pen open letter to O’Leary is further evidence that O’Leary has the goods to serve as a competent prime minister. As the U.S. Air Force proverb has it, “If you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target.” O’Leary’s rebuttal is a classic instance of precision perforation.
Canada is definitely in for some tough times as Trump moves to revamp NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). Under Trudeau, Canada will be as helpless to negotiate forcefully as Mexican Prime Minister Enrique Peña Nieto, whose bluster is as empty as Mexico’s coffers. Trudeau doesn’t bluster, he merely postures, which is equally ineffective. As O’Leary said, trade talks between Trudeau and Trump will pit Bambi against Godzilla. O’Leary is the only political figure in this country cut from the same cloth as Trump and who may be able to arrange for a number of concessions favorable to Canada.
On the whole, I’m not particularly sanguine about our electoral future. We cannot say, à la Trump, Make Canada Great Again, since, unlike the U.S., Canada was never great to begin with. But sometimes, miracles do happen.
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Update: According to The Globe and Mail, Trudeau has just vowed to make the cash-for-access scheme “transparent.”
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