, 03.27.2021 11:26 AM

My latest: Trudeau’s “movement”

“Democracies are down-up,” said the old political pro.

He grinned.

“Movements are up-down.”

And that’s when the light went on in this writer’s tiny cranium.

It explained everything. Every scandal, every broken promise, every misdeed: to Justin Trudeau, the old pro was implying, the regular rules don’t apply.

Because he’s the leader of “a movement.”

That’s what Justin Trudeau thinks, anyway.

Trudeau and his acolytes have actually been telling anyone who will listen that they’re not the old Liberal Party of Canada anymore. They’re not really a grubby old political party. They’re a shining, shimmering “movement.”

Seriously, that’s what they’ve been saying around Ottawa. And who can blame them?

A political movement, the Webster’s people tell us, is “a group of people working together to achieve a political goal,” which sounds pretty benign.

And which doesn’t even begin to describe Justin Trudeau’s movement.

That’s because it’s not just a movement. It’s more like a cult, as this writer has suggested before.

It certainly has all the characteristics of one.

The Webster’s people have a definition for that, too, naturally.

They say a cult is “a system of intense religious veneration of a particular person.”

Bingo.

Now, the Trudeau movement folks would object to the notion that their fealty to Justin Trudeau is derived from the sacred and the divine.

They don’t like religious people — except at election times, that is, when they haul out the religious elements in the Conservative Party and (successfully) beat them like a rented mule.

But the Trudeau movement sure is decidedly cultish, isn’t it?

Here’s what the deprogramming experts say about cults:

They are unquestioningly devoted to their leader. The self-professed anti-racists in the Liberal caucus refusing to condemn Trudeau’s racist blackface: check.

Doubt and dissent and discouraged and even punished. Defaming and exiling Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott: check.

The cult is elitist, and claims an exalted, special status for itself. As everyone knows, the Trudeau Liberals regard themselves as synonymous with Canada, so that opposing them becomes un-Canadian: check.

The cult believes that the ends always justify the means. Victory at all costs, for which various compliant media folks hail their savvy political acumen: check.

The cult is preoccupied with making money and recruiting new members. So, Justin Trudeau made memberships in his party free — but he also charged charities hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees — to do what other Canadians do voluntarily. Check.

The cult’s leader is not accountable to any other authority. And, of course, Justin Trudeau isn’t. Despite being condemned for serial scandals – despite being the only Prime Minister in history to have violated a federal statute while in office – Justin Trudeau remains unaccountable. Check.

And who is to blame for all of that? Is it those who belong to his “movement?” The members of his ersatz cult?

No, it is us.

Us. You know, Canadians.

After all of it — the conflicts of interest, the obstructions of justice, the dishonesty, the groping incident and the blackface incidents — after all that, if we keep electing him to the highest office in the land, who is to blame?

The cult leader? Or those who shrug, and pencil an “X” by the Trudeau Liberal cultist candidate?

As he sits in his study in his government-appointed cottage, listening to his senior staff natter on and on about calling an election sooner than later, Justin Trudeau must often smile to himself, with that fake-phony smirk he so often uses for photo-ops and the like.

It’s a movement, all top-down, he must say to himself.

And, until it is down-up again, it won’t really be a democracy, will it?

56 Comments

  1. Robert White says:

    If Conservative leader O’Toole had any gumption he would knowingly act like The Thief of Baghdad [1940]
    to steal the all knowing eye and retain power as arbiter in Parliament, but he lacks the creativity to unseat competition via the cult of personality which the Liberals have mastered, I agree.

    Democracy in Canada expects opposition to come up with a viable candidate, but they are serial failures and one hit wonders like Harpy the confidence man kitten eater from Alberta.

    Harper’s cult is still alive and well too, professor.

    RW

  2. Ken Newman says:

    Good article. I have been saying all along”what would Trudeau have to do to get people to not vote for him?” I think he has done enough to be run off tarred and feathered. The folks in Western Canada have it figured out, as the Liberal brand is equivalent to the political kiss of death.Why do the folks out East not get it??

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Ken,

      Sure it’s a Justin Cult but in Alberta they’ve seen the PC and now UCP cult where the same rules apply. Albertans did have the balls to put in the NDP but most voters seemingly came to regret it, hence Kenney in power. But apparently, you don’t see them in the streets denouncing this government for inadequate economic diversification do you?…so welcome to the Kenney cult. Now, you’ve got an accurate picture both on the left and the right. As FDR so tellingly said: [He’s] A SON OF A BITCH, but he’s OUR SON OF A BITCH! That’s human nature for you.

      • Ken Newman says:

        Ronald- No comparison, Trudeau is incompetent, he is racist, he is unethical, he is an embarrassment. No comparison to Kenney, and yet the voters in Eastern Canada still support this pathetic idiot. Too tell me, what would Trudeau have to do to get people to not vote e for him??

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Ken,

          I could be full of shit but my sense of it is that most of the Trudeau Liberal voters at this point are not high conviction voters — rather they are default voters — because of some imagined menace that is viewed as inappropriate for government. Of course, none of that is true. After all, voters finally allowed Harper to form government after only two kicks at the can, even though Harper wasn’t exactly user friendly. (No offense, Stephen.) So, O’Toole’s branding of himself and the CPC is still a work in progress and he needs to step up his game. Erin like Scheer and Harper before him are not kitten-eaters. Only the party leader can turn around those ridiculous perceptions. If O’Toole pulls it off, the CPC wins next time. If not, then another Justin Minority is likely in the cards.

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            Scot,

            That’s a bit over the top don’t you think? Doubt we have WS in the CPC but yes we do have very religious people. God doesn’t seem to mind. That’s democracy. Doesn’t mean they get to control the party or policy though. O’Toole will see to that, as he should.

      • Andy Kaut says:

        *yawn* Tu quoque tires me out.

        The fact is that Alberta aside, the Trudeau cult has displaced rational politics in our once great nation. Now we’re with him, blackfaced and groping, pretty socks and all.

        We’ve elected him twice, we may as well fucking be him.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Andy,

          Nations can pretty much survive almost anything. One day, this country will get over the JustinTrudeauExperienceTM which has seriously damaged national unity. But what has done ten times more damage is our collective failure to reach a consensus on our view of the country and Canada going forward. If Canada ultimately dies, it will be because of that. The West and East want it their way, each bent upon taking no prisoners…how can a country stay together with mindsets like that? In this country, regions are supposed to rotate on who gets the shorter end of the stick on a given policy matter. It’s not supposed to be all about the West losing most of the time and that needs to change. Otherwise, The West goes first and Quebec after seeing that, will finally gather up her courage once again and go second. Canada is heading for make or break. Watch the Bloc clean the Liberals’ clock in this province in the next election. If it happens, it will be exactly what I was expecting.

        • jsa says:

          “We’ve elected him twice, we may as well fucking be him.”

          yup…

      • Steve Maudsley says:

        Ron, Alberta’s lack of economic diversification is false. Compared with 30 years ago, there is far less dependence on oil & gas. Consider that 30 years ago, Westjet did not exist and CP Rail’s headquarters were still in Montreal. According to the National Post, Edmonton and Calgary now have a thriving high tech sector, as well as, bioscience research and agricultural processing.

        Currently, there is no UCP cult around Jason Kenney as the opinion polls have the NDP and UCP near a tie. Most of the unhappiness with Kenney is with his unwillingness to stand up to the Alberta hating Federal government.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Steve,

          Thanks for bringing me up to speed. Is it my imagination that Kenney’s rhetoric mostly sounds like that of a one-trick pony? I’m very pleased that this is the direction that AB is headed. IMHO, what Kenney needs to remember is that AB must always hold their own and pick her battles. Frankly, the court challenge on the carbon tax was already lost right after arguments. Carbon taxes are a worldwide phenomenon. They’re far from perfect but how Kenney, Moe and Ford thought they could reverse the flow of Niagara Falls is beyond me. So, now Kenney has got to do the heavy lifting and do what he was elected to do and in this case, that will mean implementing it in a way that it has the least negative consequences on AB’s economy as possible. That’s the job that the voters are paying him for –stop playing the victim and start mitigating as best you can the negative factors of carbon tax implementation. Ford seemingly is already there. Now, it’s up to Kenney and Moe to do exactly the same thing. It’s called Realpolitik.

  3. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    I thought I was joining the Liberals eleven years ago, in the wake of my annoyance at seeing Harper move the Conservatives far more to the right than I was comfortable with, after finally getting his majority.

    But from Day One, I agreed with several of my friends who are political pros — who have political savvy and judgment: and to a person they told me this: Trudeau n’est pas prêt and thus my enthusiastic support for Garneau, who unfortunately, never had a chance.

    So, it was JustinPhoneyBaloneyTM from the get-go but being a dutiful soldier, I got on board and started a blog to do what I could to get them/us elected.

    But then came the slow reveal of who Justin Trudeau is: first India where this Prime Minister proved to the world his total incapacity at self-analysis and good judgment; then the various ethics violations that Trudeauists papered over with glee and finally the showdown with JWR and by ricochet, JP, where the FraudFeministTM was finally shown to be exactly that, as so many women did what they often do when they see strong, successful female leaders, they made excuses for our FF Prime Minister and gladly looked the other way. So much for real, vibrant Feminism in 2021…thine enemy is but one good look in the mirror away…as Campbell and Marois likely politely nod.

    Like everything else, it was all just an act by a not too clever B-rated performer backed by an equally inept PMO. But hey, by all means, keep on trucking if that floats your boat to royally scramble a few metaphors à la Justin Trudeau.

  4. dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack says:

    I don’t blame Justin for any of this. He’s to stupid to ever be held responsible for anything. Mostly I blame the cabinet. Most of them know better. They are leaving the Liberal Party in an ethical shambles from which it may never recover. They alone are Butts’ and Telford’s most guilty enablers. They refused to resign as was their duty during LavScam, Blackface and WeScam. I also blame the Liberal Party’s National Executive for carrying on as usual while the party is slowly turning into a joke. There is a permanent, career / lifelong stain on all of them. The next leader will have a hell of a mess to clean up. As a start, everyone in this current cabinet should be obliged to make lengthy public apologies before ever being allowed to carry the Liberal banner again.

    • Martin says:

      Not many know better though. Most would not be there but for him.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Martin,

        Yes, that’s absolutely true but only to a limited extent. The high profile Liberal names in and out of cabinet mostly don’t need Trudeau to win. But as far as backbenchers go, bang on. But the other thing is that all of them, across the board, are held in check by the leader’s signature on their nomination papers. They all want maximum pension access so that tends to keep them in line unless they decide to retire and then quite suddenly and unexpectedly they come up with their bottled courage. And remember that all parties who form government are exactly the same when it comes to bucking the party and especially the leader. No genuine heroes anywhere who hold public office. It goes all the way back to ’75 when Turner quit but only AFTER he discovered he couldn’t engineer a revolt that would have had him replace Trudeau as leader. He was the very first Martin.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Meanwhile, in modern times, i.e. from P-E-T onward, I can only think of Stock who really held his own in cabinet during the Harper years. I don’t remember any Liberals doing that other than in the first P-E-T cabinets, which were dominated by strong ministers. Today, forget it.

  5. Gilbert says:

    The prime minister must have good advisors. That makes a big difference.

    • dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack says:

      He doesn’t. They are the lowest level of political pirates that Canada will ever produce. When Justin’s disgraced term is finally up his entire staff should be rewarded with a life time ban from lobbying, organizing, running for office at any level and even holding a party membership.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Gilbert.

      Well, Yes and No. How many chiefs of staff did Harper have because they didn’t mesh properly with the boss? Let’s put it that way. Or worse yet, how many Comm. directors? LOL.

  6. Quo vadis says:

    Buyers remorse. You’re not the only one. I know of others (those that are honest) who change their vote not for want of Trudeau but dislike of Harper. So here is what I say “you put the pox on this country now do something about.”

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      QV,

      I disliked Harper but I rapidly grew to positively hate Trump. Now, there’s a world of difference right there. I’m in the process now of finally dumping my Canadian Trump apologists, Jim Crow state level Republican supporters and absolutely foolish deniers of the business cycle. Imagine, a financial “planner” who is OK with the concept that stocks are only going up in the future…complete lunacy. I have absolutely no time for that type of crap anymore.

    • Andy Kaut says:

      Twice. Young Justin has been chosen, as pox, twice.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      QV,

      I’m doing what I can but I’m no Moses. But I will revive the same sentence I used against Harper: I’ll keep at it until I drop dead or this government is defeated, whichever comes first. Happened to work great last time in 2015, so who knows. LOL.

  7. Peter Williams says:

    Trudeau is not a cult leader, he’s a Soviet.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Peter,

      I doubt that. Look at Trump: I was not so sure that he’d go willingly. I was thinking, what will they do if or when Trump barricades himself in the White House and refuses to come out? Trump proved me wrong. I expect Trudeau to disappear into the mist should he lose the next election. Hope my radar is more on track this time than it was with Trump.

      • Peter Williams says:

        1. What’s Trump got to do with Trudeau? They both lie?

        2. Take a look at how the Soviet leaders acted, Justin is quite similar in his beliefs and actions. Heck he even has a dacha which he immediately renovated for him and his family. He also bought 8 new boats for the lake.

        And the WE movement is starting to remind me of Soviet youth organizations. What were they? The young pioneers.

        Remember most small businesses are just tax dodges for the rich?

        True his control of the media isn’t as draconian as the Soviets, but the CBC is really trying hard to out Tass both Pravda and Izvestia.

        I could go on and on, but why not just take a look at his actions, and see if they fit a Soviet lens.

        Oh, not Soviet, but similar, “I admire their basic dictatorship”.

  8. Pedant says:

    I’d like to mention that it is almost entirely women leading this cult. When you have a gender that puts hairdo ahead of competence, the country is doomed.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Pedant,

      I don’t believe this is really on track. Women to a considerable degree are naturally inclined progressives and leftists. In fact, more women are genetically inclined toward the NDP than the Liberals. But a lot of them want to keep the Conservatives out and they tend to vote in greater numbers than men do. So, I would say it’s more that than anything else. CPC women are not a force to be reckoned with in this country, unlike Republican and Trump women in the States. I doubt many vote for Trudeau simply because he’s attractive. If that was the case, I’d be breaking down doors to vote A_C! LOL.

  9. Pedant says:

    The cult is elitist, and claims an exalted, special status for itself. As everyone knows, the Trudeau Liberals regard themselves as synonymous with Canada, so that opposing them becomes un-Canadian: check.

    Oh come on Warren. With respect, you know fully well that this tactic did not start with Blackface.

    I remember the abuse hurled at various Western-based opposition leaders and the implication that they were “un-Canadian” (or worse) for disagreeing with Liberal Party dogma. The 2000 election Liberal strategy was to place a target on the back of the province Alberta and portray it and its people as a threat to “Canadian values” (but apparently there is no problem with Albertan cheques funding those “values”).

    This kind of rhetoric is nothing new.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Pedant,

      Bang on. Winning majorities should never be about us versus them but they always are…even Harper’s the West is in played that game but granted to a far more limited extent. Canadian balkanization has always been good politics. Too bad that.

  10. Yet Another Calgarian says:

    Serious question is there even anyone left in the Liberal party who is capable of replacing Junior?

    To be polite about it Dion > Iggy > Trudeau doesn’t exactly scream depth of talent in the party. Seems to me that the LPC is deep into we had to destroy the party to save it territory right now.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      YAC,

      IMHO, no one expects Trudeau to be neutral re: the succession. I expect him to continue greasing the skids for Freeland, while those who reflexively vomit thinking about this PM’s handle on the job will more than likely rally around the Carney flag. And right now, I’d say Carney will clean Freeland’s clock as Liberals are always only about getting power and keeping it. Freeland is already far too tainted to have any hope of doing that.

      • Yet Another Calgarian says:

        Freeland has no moral authority left I agree.

        With regards to Carney though I’m not entirely certain he would want to come back and play in the equivalent of the kiddy pool that is Canadian politics.

        Again back to the not a lot of depth thing even if Carney does agree to it. There is an emptiness even.

        • YAC,

          I’m ancient but the Carney balloon has resurfaced before: was it before Dion became leader, or Michael, or both? Hope Team Carney have better luck this time but I’ll be voting CPC. I want this Prime Minister out of office and I want it in a New York minute.

  11. RKJ says:

    Does anyone watch the CBC anymore?

    I fell asleep on the couch this aft & woke up to Rosemary Barton and a supposed “panel”, talking about carbon taxes. The “panel” consisted of a Ryerson Journalism Prof, a senior CBC writer and a Globe & Mail columnist. All four were contemptuous of any other perspectives regarding the best way to manage-reduce emissions. Rosemary helpfully noted she just did her taxes and will be glad to receive the rebate. All four, based on “we drank all the cool-aid”, would be well qualified to work in the PMO.

    So, based on noting the PM has become a cult leader, we have a publicly funded “news” organization pushing his agenda, because they know where their personal bread is buttered. Pushing a Canadian reset button will require great skill from Erin O’Toole and his party – there will be no impartial and professional publicly funded news network assisting a respectful Canadian dialogue.

    If CBC viewership continues to decline, Canadians will be speaking. Perhaps a 90% budget cut would be in order.

    • The Doctor says:

      I don’t want to see the CBC nuked or weakened, but the CBC has to earn the trust of the public, every day. And a lot of the Annex wokebots who work at the CBC do not understand this, i.e., that if they go too far pushing wokeism and progressivism down people’s throats, somebody is going to come along some day to hoover up that audience that the CBC has been alienating with their suffocating wokeism.

      As a taxpayer-funded entity they have an enhanced duty IMO to strive to tell all sides of a story and give air to all reasonable opinions. Too often the CBC fails on that. And I say that as somebody who very much wants the CBC to continue to exist.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Doc,

        They can thank their lucky stars that I’ll never make Minister cause I would summarily fire the sorry asses of every director of television news I could find in all of Canada’s major cities served by The Mother Corp., crown corp or no crown corp. That would stimulate the rest of ’em accordingly.

    • Maybe if the Conservatives presented another perspective regarding the best way to manage-reduce emissions, but they haven’t. I suspect a lack of skill from Erin O’Toole and his party.

      • Quo vadis says:

        You miss the point. Every possible and imaginable topic has to have a woke angle to it in a CBC story. Climate change is not enough but now it has to be about “environmental racism” CBC no longer provides the news but rather a narrative. The lecturing never ends.
        I remember the day the blackface story broke. Justin comes out to speak to the press I think it was aboard a plane. He sheepishly makes some kind of statement. 24 hours later after his handlers have time to reframe the story the message then becomes it was all on account of his “privlage.” What does the CBC do from that point on…it changes the story. It’s no longer about Trudeau but a call to Canadians to reflect on their own privlage.
        That is but one of many examples….as a Canadian I am pissed at the CBC. The rot is deep and there is no saving it.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      RKJ,

      I take your points but I’m still looking for an impartial major media outlet in Canada. I’m even surprised that Katie lets her very good friends actually pay taxes! Just a joke, of course. [Smiling.]

      • RKJ says:

        Based on the further comments in this thread, one can assume most of us wish for a CBC that no longer exists. The CBC has become a publicly funded enabler and defender of the Liberal party. In order to fix and return to a professional, impartial news organization will require substantive surgery – which would likely require an initial shock of major funding reductions.

        • While it used to be more diverse here, the comments these days have been dominated by Conservatives as our host has focused on attacking Trudeau.

          • Warren says:

            If you don’t like it, get your friends to get off their asses and do something about it.

          • Quo vadis says:

            No Darwin. You are just slower than the rest here in seeing the train wreck. So what line in the sand needs to be crossed before you too see what Trudeau is doing to destroy what was Canada. Trudeau has many transgressions and failures what will it take?

          • dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack says:

            Wrong Darwin. I’m pretty sure almost all of the criticism on this site about Justin is coming FROM LIBERALS. Including myself. Justin is the greatest enemy the Liberal Party has ever known.

          • No Trudeau’s petty scandals and tepid climate change policy are not going to destroy Canada.

            What could destory Canada are politicians and pundits who exaggerate policy disagreements and scandals until things are as bad in Canada as they are in the US.

  12. Phil in London says:

    A lot of my peers’ comments miss the obvious, this is not a Justin Trudeau cult, it is an eastern Canada cult and a Western Canada cult. It is a cities cult and a rural cult.

    That eastern cult is so obsessed with the faint possibility of a Quebec separation that they can’t fall over themselves fast enough to appease La Belle Province. Let’s face it if you live in the Atlantic and Quebec is even showing a hint of discontent your vote goes to the party that will sell in Quebec.

    The western cult hates the east for one simple reason it is so eastern, those people east of Manitoba like the French for goodness sake, how can we support that? Westerners feel they are getting the short end of the stick so why the heck would they vote for the party that wants to make the stick even shorter?

    City folk have a cultist thinking so narrow they can’t see that food comes from farms, everyone there know that milk and bread come from the store.

    Country folk have been doing things there way for as long as their forefathers arrived here in Canada, why do city folk abandon their roots/ and invite all these foreigners in?

    The real cult is the cult of money, something I think could be a tool for good, it has two factions, one believes they were appointed as keepers of the money and should be able to grow it on the backs of others because those others don’t understand how it works anyway whereas the rival faction believes those with it have done nothing to deserve the money or worse have ill gotten gains and should have it confiscated to share (minus a generous cut for their Robin Hood efforts).

    There is not one political party today that has an interest in Canada that is greater than their own self-preservation.

    The Canada party would put all other considerations below preserving the country because it believes the country is worth saving.

    Sadly membership in that party is flat.

    I just wonder if the cults can blow up Canada before the other nations around the world succeed in blowing up the whole damn marble.

  13. Phil,

    Except there can be no Canada Party without caring about all of Canada and no party does that. Good thing I haven’t been holding my breath since 1982…but in the final analysis we did it to ourselves quite simply because we did not have the balls to call English Canada’s bluff. It should have been one to two years of constitutional negotiations, post 1982, or we walk, period, exclamation point. But English Canada simply rolled over and laughed knowing full well that we didn’t have the stomach to do it. And thus, we were royally shafted and remain so to this day and of course, as predicted, English Canada couldn’t care less, even after THIRTY-NINE years…

  14. Kurt says:

    I volunteer on either NDP or Green campaigns, but I have to vote Liberal in my riding (our MP is actually a good guy, but I digress). Why? Our steam-age first past the post electoral system. I do not want another lousy Conservative government again. Ever. Their policies are misguided and the party is full of economically illiterate monetarists and austrian economics enthusiasts. They will systematically shrink the economy and make us all poorer with their promises to balance the Federal budget. This belies an understanding of macro economics and what it means to live in a country with a government with a sovereign currency and the sole authority to issue currency. They also haven’t seen an American war they don’t want to get involved in. So I vote Liberal. For the most part the policies have been good. The economy is doing well on balance (sorry Alberta but you had it good for awhile while the rest of us lived through Dutch disease). Vaccines are rolling out…except where incompetent conservative premiers are running things. Anyway…Trudeau is not a great leader but so what? O’Toole would lead us over the cliff. Freedland wouldn’t make a bad PM, IMHO.

  15. Kurt says:

    Whoops should be …”This belies a LACK OF understanding of macro economics and what it means to live in a country with a government with a sovereign currency and the sole authority to issue that currency. “

  16. chris johnson says:

    birds of a feather

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