06.12.2017 05:07 PM

Ten reasons I am quite satisfied with the Trudeau government

  • Doing the right things – daycare, defence, etc. 
  • Not doing the the wrong things – re-opening the Constitution, etc. 
  • Staying out of the papers
  • Cooling it with the selfie stuff 
  • Underselling, overperforming
  • Conspicuously opposing Trump’s manifest destiny
  • No scandals of significance 
  • No big fights with the provinces 
  • Significant spending on opposing extremists who falsely claim to be Muslims
  • Mostly doing what he said he’d do

Discuss. 

15 Comments

  1. Dan Calda says:

    Team Trudeau is doing pretty good as a rookie gov’t. A few hiccups along the way…but overall not bad. I loved JT’s response to Scheer regarding Carbon Taxes and solutions.

    But really…how do you deal with a psychopath that happens to be the President of our largest trading partner.

    Trudeau has a one in a generation chance to become one of the most important leaders in the world. This will bode well for Canada.

  2. James Smith says:

    You should write for the Guardian. It might counterbalance their leaning heavily for what passes as reporting from this fair dominion on folks who penned the LEEP manifesto.

  3. Mark says:

    As for “under-selling and over-performing”, I would say the entire electoral campaign was over-selling (as third parties are known to do) and the general result thus far has been under-performance. While the Trudeau government has done exceptionally well in managing the US relationship, implementing trade deals, trying to strike a balance between the environment and pipelines, and on gender equality, other important public policy initiatives, such as electoral reform, moderate deficit financing, and the infrastructure program have been either a disaster or nothing has happened. As for selfies, I see no evidence Trudeau is doing less of this. He has two years to make some major adjustments and less than six months, IMO, to start checking off more in the promise column. If not, the Libs will have a drastically-reduced majority in 2019.

  4. Matt says:

    1) Get back to me when they’ve actually started spending on the defence “commitments”
    2) Not opening the constitution – What other choice did he have?
    3) He’s in the media on an almost daily basis for the dumbest things like, oh I don’t know….his choice of socks.
    4) He may have cooled it with the selfie stuff, but he’s ramping up the obviously, pathetically staged “spontaneous” photos
    5) He oversold and is under performing
    6) His handling of Trump is, in my view anyway, to early to tell
    7) No scandals of significance…I’ll give you that one for now. A couple ethics lapses though
    8) Carbon tax, health transfers were kinda big fights
    9)
    10) He hasn’t done what he said he do. He’s broken over 35 promises including electoral reform, modest deficits, legalizing weed (his plan is more like decriminalization of small amounts) and the biggest of all – his governments extreme lack of openness and transparency.

  5. the salamander says:

    .. True enuff tho here’s a proviso..

    How about sacrificing just one ground attack jet ..
    & instead maintain or enhance Canada’s Coast Guard ?
    Not sure why he is closing more CG stations
    than Stephen Harper ever did..
    Folks should just rescue themselves ?

  6. whyshouldIsellyourwheat says:

    Warren sounds a wee bit concerned. The Andrew-Jagmeet tag team is coming this fall. Pretty Boy Justin will be fighting a two front “war”…three if one counts the orange beast of the southern wild.

    Jagmeet can go the full Corbyn/Sanders…seeing as how Wynne and Horgan already have. While Andrew has money in the piggy bank, a rock solid 30%, and an increasingly apprehensive 10% on the centre right. Andrew just has to collect them as Justin’s pixie dust slowly wears off.

    • Gyor says:

      I say this as. NDPer, Jagmeet is a long shot for winning, it’s more likely to Angus or Caron who wins, with an outside chance Peter Julian.

      Jagmeet has impressed very few actually NDPers that I’ve conversed with, his support seems be more the MSM then actual people in the NDP, so it’s been given and over inflated sense of influence on the campaign.

      Jagmeet avoids answering question like Trudeau and he reminds too many NDPers of Trudeau, which is bad news for Jagmeet. Jagmeet is seen as the establishment candiatate.

      Ashtons obsession with identity politics help on the first ballot, but hurt on fallowing ballots.

      Angus is in the lead, but his offerings are sparse and he doesn’t handle deep policies debates well at all, but his major appeal is his folksy Everyman demeaned which could be a real threat if Angus makes Caron his right hand man and fiance minister and just let Caron handle the policy details.

      Caron still has a shot, people who watch Caron talk about policy become more and more impressed with him each time. Caron is the antitrudeau, a man of ideas, integrity, talent, and policies, things Trudeau has little of.

  7. Kevin says:

    I’m pretty much in agreement there, except for item 4. In order for JT to “cool it” with selfies he’d have to have taken lots of selfies. There have only been 3 or 4 of those. There have been lots of other people’s selfies with Trudeau in them, but those are Joe Frontporch’s selfies and not Trudeau selfies. It’s not a selfie if you don’t take it yourself – it’s just a picture of you. And I don’t know how a PM could get away with not having their picture taken. Dress like a nun with a veil maybe? Wear a chador?

    There are some disappointments though. Marijuana is one, and scary deficits, as has been mentioned. Electoral reform – it’s not a huge issue to me other than the fact that it was a strong proposal that many people found very important, and those people have been betrayed. Always forgotten (except by me) is Goodale blithely handing over Canadians’ personal information to US security folks, because they asked for it and you know, would never misuse it.

    And when will we see some action on the Sinclair report?

  8. Simon says:

    See WK, when you say “falsely claim” to be Muslims, that’s when people who aren’t bigots, but want to criticize certain Islamist strains of Islam get their backs up.

    A more accurate term to deploy would be “false Muslims” i.e. hypocrites. This is the approach Christians usually use when calling out brethren. For example, a liberal Protestant probably wouldn’t say the Pope was falsely claiming to be Christian (without sounding like a complete tool). Instead they would say the Pope was being a “false Christian” or a hypocrite, for example, on the issue of homosexual relationships being a sin.

    Using the term “false Muslim” though would move the discussion to the level of theology i.e. what are the beliefs the majority of Muslims take to be the core of their faith, what are minority positions, what are on the outer fringe, and what is anathema. And maybe I’m being cynical, but this is what some charges of Islamophobia seem to seek to shut down. Perhaps because of funding from conservative groups in the Gulf, perhaps out of fear of Islam’s encounter with Western modernity. Who knows?

    As a test though, next time you are talking to an activist on the Islamophobia issue, ask them about the propriety of using the term “false Muslim” or hypocrite instead, and see what the reaction is. It might be instructive.

  9. Charlie says:

    Here’s one reason I’m satisfied with the Liberals: They aren’t the Conservatives.

    I look at politics as a game of alternatives and the Conservatives offer shit on a platter for an alternative to the Trudeau Liberals.

    Having voted and worked for the Liberals, I’m not particularly infatuated with the leader or the “sunny ways” PR — in fact, I can’t stand it. But I get it. I understand the appeal of it and appreciate the effort they go to towards establishing a positive and palatable place for government in the lives of Canadians. Which is a notion the Conservatives are pathetically struggling to grasp.

    With that said, there are plenty of criticisms that I recognize as legitimate. Eventually, Canadians will tire of the strategic public relations, thats when they’ll need to see tangible results. This is where I think the rhetoric is beginning to outpace the action for this government. A lot of platitudes and praise but less and less clarity on whats actually being delivered. We all know Canada is great, stop telling us about it and start telling us how the infrastructure bank is going to create jobs in Calgary, Winnipeg and Quebec City.

  10. Joe H says:

    Agree with you WK.

  11. Gord says:

    Generally agree. The Liberals have not (yet) done anything to tick off or alienate large swaths of the electorate, which is usually how governments get defeated (either that the desire for change for change’s sake, which won’t kick in for a couple more terms). Add the fact that so far neither the Tories nor the NDP have a compelling narrative to sell to the electorate (although if the NDP goes full Corbyn that could change), and I have a hard time seeing any serious political trouble in the near future.

  12. Bill Templeman says:

    Have to disagree with you, Warren, on your last point (Mostly doing what he said he’d do). Trudeau said, 100s of times, that 2015 would be the last FPTP election. A lot of Greens & NDP peeps here in Peterborough held their noses and votes for Maryam Monsef, partly because of Trudeau’s promise on ER. Despite this dynamic, the Liberals only won 29. 000 votes, the Cons 23,000, the NDP 12,000 and the Greens just under 2,000 votes. I can easily see 5,000 NDP & Green votes going back home in 2019, which would lower the Liberal vote to parity with the Conservatives. Add Morneau’s lack of spine in dealing with economic inequality, plus Trudeau’s “having it both ways” approach to climate change (Yes to COP21 + Yes to pipelines), to the Electoral Reform flip-flop, and this riding could be neck & neck in 2019. The Conservative vote in Peterborough has little room to grow, but is very solid. So as goes Peterborough, so goes the country? By reputation it is a bell weather riding

  13. Terence Quinn says:

    I generally agree with your synopsis but one big issue is looming that will determine if JT has the cojones I think he has. The TM pipeline will be front and centre when the government changes hands in BC. The Federal government has complete authority over that pipeline but the dippers and greens think differently. I personally hope he shoves it right at them as I detest the Country being held ransom by a bunch of mostly ignorant “environmentalists”. Those people in the BC lower mainland want all the conveniences offered but don’t want anything to disturb their easy going lifestyle.
    Notley also has a hand to play and could, legally, cut off gas and avgas to BC if they get really stupid. She could also shut down the gas that comes into Alberta from the NE gas fields in BC. This has the earmarks of making us all real Canadians or a collection of regions without a centre.

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