, 06.22.2024 04:24 PM

My latest: an open letter to Justin

Dear Justin:

You don’t mind if I call you Justin, do you?

Because, for starters, I don’t think many people are going to be calling you “Prime Minister” for much longer. You need to get used to it, big guy.

We were never particularly close, Justin. I was a Jean Chretien guy, which means that I believe in being socially progressive and economically conservative. You, on the other hand, have a different approach: spend like the drunkenest drunken sailor, and promote social policy favored by the Deepest Annex Intersectional Pro-Hamas Front Hole Meatless Collective. Not Liberal, in other words.

The country voted for your “vision” three times in a row, you might protest, and you’d be sort of right. But that’s because you fooled everyone. You promised to be different than you are now. You promised to bring people together, not drive them apart.

Instead, you have become what you came to Ottawa to change. You have gotten people madder than I can ever recall them being. Ever.

I’ve been talking to Chretien Liberals, Martin Liberals, every variety of Liberal, Justin. Most of them know you, many of them like you. But they all say – every single one of them – that it’s all over. You’ve been 15 to 20 points behind for more than a year. That’s not just unpopular: that’s a death sentence.

So, you have to go. And you will go, hopefully soon. Five reasons.

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34 Comments

  1. Warren,

    Really nice try. You put your former party first and then appeal to logic, reasoning and political calculus. You think that a Kinsella war room could reasonably easily take us down. I’ll bet your good friend would give Trudeau the same advice, if asked. But that’s the rub right there: he won’t ask anyone. He already “knows” better. Like many of his ministers, he’s all humongous ego and overinflated pride. He can’t possibly conceive of G-O-I-N-G, and so he won’t. Liberals would do well to either move mountains to force him out or quit caucus en masse. But they won’t. Short of that, he’s already there to take HMCS Trudeau straight down to the depths of the deepest ocean. On my side, Pierre and the rest of us already know this. That’s why we keep smiling. As long as we don’t screw it up in the campaign, we’ve practically got it made already.

  2. Warren,

    Now, if a Liberal war room becomes a Kinsella one, I, for one, would be incredibly pissed off and deeply worried. In my book, it was long ago self-evident that a Poilièvre war room should be a KINSELLA war room. But then again, I know nothing about political strategy, as so many of them think.

  3. Douglas W says:

    Libs will eke out a razor-thin win, and Trudeau stays.
    Which is precisely what the Conservatives want.

    • Pedant says:

      From the standpoint of who can best save the Liberal furniture next year, for me the clear answer is Justin. He alone can command his army of female retired 70+ comfortably-housed public sector workers to ensure the party doesn’t slip below 80-90 seats. I don’t think any of the possible Liberal leadership candidates will be able to do that.

      Even if Justin is the best bet to save the greatest number of seats, it might also be paradoxically true that Conservatives want him to stick around so they won’t need to completely revamp their strategy and comms at this stage.

      • Pedant,

        I expect the Trudeau Liberals to conduct several false flag operations against Poilièvre and our party in the campaign. So, quite logically, we better be prepared ahead of time to throw out both our strategy and communications operations plan in a New York minute. They’ll use the Trump playbook and will play as dirty as possible to hold on to power. Nothing will be off limits: lies, and absolute distortions will grow as plentifully as weeds on lawns in spring. There is NOTHING they won’t do to win the next election. We better be cognizant of that because it’s coming in spades. They’ll try to knock us down one day, one week and one month at a time.

      • AndrewT says:

        The Army of Barbs

  4. Douglas,

    I assume we’re talking Toronto-St. Paul’s? Maybe between inflation and the disastrous housing crisis coupled with a parachuted Liberal candidate, I think we can take it if our vote comes out in record numbers.

  5. Peter Williams says:

    Justin’s not going to resign.

    He might decide to abolish first past the post elections, and replace it with some type of proportional voting.

    He’ll figure Liberal + NDP votes will outnumber Conservatives. Thus he’ll continue to govern with NDP help.

    • Douglas W says:

      Agreed: at the very least, Justin is going to hang around to see how the U.S. presidential election plays out, and what the aftermath looks like.

      At the earliest he leave: next Spring.

    • Peter,

      I don’t expect a change of electoral system because Trudeau Liberals are simply too self-centred and self-interested. They LUV to govern alone, you know, where they actually don’t give a shit what the people think once they’ve attained that precious majority government. PR means only coalition government in the future and that is an anathema to entitled Trudeau Liberals who believe it’s their divine right as Canadian kings to be in power, mostly, if not always with a majority mandate.

      You all saw how they reacted when Pierre called Trudeau the first NDP prime minister or this government a Liberal-NDP coalition. I rest my case.

      • Peter Williams says:

        Ronald

        Is Justin a Liberal? Or is he really a New Democrat? Is there really a difference between the Liberals and the NDP?

        Justin wants power, and I think he’d do a lot to retain it.

        Justin has played Jagmeet Singh brilliantly. It wouldn’t surprise me if Justin decided to bring in something other than first past the post.

        And it doesn’t mean perpetual coalition governments. If you have some sort of ranked voting, you can still get majority governments. For example; a three person race: Conservative gets 45% of the vote, Liberal gets 30%, and New Democrat gets 25%. The lowest is removed, and their second choice votes are counted. Result; Liberal 55% and Conservative 45%. Liberal wins.

        Or run off voting between the top two vote getters.

        Either of the above could appeal to Trudeau.

      • Martin Dixon says:

        Isn’t it too late to make that change now?

        • Martin,

          If Harper got away with ignoring the fixed election date in 2008, then Trudeau can potentially get away with ramming through some kind of PR or other election system. But is it likely? Kind of depends if the NDP is all in or not. It’s sort of like Harper’s double prorogations. They could get away with it, making the Liberals at least more competitive.

  6. Gilbert says:

    Maybe Mr. Trudeau thinks he can still win. A lot of Liberals are very nervous, but maybe his plan is to tell voters the Conservatives will ban abortion, cut taxes for the rich, cut social programs, eliminate environmental regulations, drastically reduce immigration and put all drug addicts in jail.

  7. Pedant says:

    Points well taken. But only Justin commands such cult loyalty among the elderly retired comfortably-housed comfortably-pensioned female public service ‘wine grandma’ demographic. That’s the only devoted Liberal group left in the country and it’s far from certain whether they will gravitate to a new leader. Perhaps if it’s Freeland, but probably not if it’s Carney.

    • Pedant,

      Well, if I was part of that demographic and if the CPC’s numbers generally held to voting day, I would support Trudeau in Ignatieff numbers. Put another way, I would stay home rather than vote in an election where there was at least a 90% chance that the CPC would form a majority government.

      • Martin Dixon says:

        “elderly retired comfortably-housed comfortably-pensioned female public service ‘wine grandma’ demographic”

        Hilarious. And they still swoon inexplicably when Justin bats his eyes at them and they are all over X and mostly in Toronto.

    • Doug says:

      This bodes well for JT’s future career as an OnlyFans content creator. Wine Grandma’s have plenty of disposal income.

  8. Paul Henderson Olympic Sailor says:

    Mr. Kinsella:
    Referring to Trudeau spending our $$$ like “Drunken Sailors” is wrong. Drunken sailors spend their own $$$ to embarrass themselves. Trudeau is spending our taxpayers $$$ for the same result.

  9. RKJ says:

    In Justin’s narcissistic mind, we Canadians need to be lead. I doubt he will leave voluntarily. Furthermore, he’ll cause a great deal more harm before he finally goes.

    It is also bewildering to observe the control Justin exerts over Jagmeet Singh. The NDP may be wiped-out in the next election. What are their current MP’s thinking? Is it only pensions?

    Further to several comments above, it can be assumed they’ll push all the buttons – has worked before. It is plausible as well an attempt will be made to change the voting system and to stack the voting decks. I doubt a convincing Conservative, St. Paul’s win tomorrow, Monday, will change things either.

  10. Warren,

    IMHO, Trudeau backed himself into a corner with this:

    “The need to try and hold things together in a rational discourse … doing things that are meaningful and are going to nudge the arc of the moral universe forward, matters so much that I couldn’t be the person I am, the fighter I am and say, ‘yeah, no, this particular fight I’m walking away from,’ I can’t do that yet.”

  11. Warren,

    Well, what do you know? What a (planned?) coincidence! RCMP coming to the rescue of this government.

    From Global News:

    “RCMP commissioner urges ‘caution’ on naming alleged foreign state colluders”

    This one says it all: “The RCMP commissioner warned that investigations could be compromised if names are revealed.”

    “If we start disclosing a lot of secret and top-secret information, there’s tradecraft involved in that,” Duheme said.

    “We have to be mindful about the impact we’ll have on the international partners who are supplying some of that information.”

    Let me translate this for you: they send out the RCMP commissioner, as a placeholder for CSIS, to try and limit CSIS’s embarrassment for once again dropping the ball. Most of the names, if not all, don’t come from CSIS. Rather, they come from Australia, the United States and maybe the UK. That’s what they don’t want the public to know — another case of CSIS sleeping at the wheel while our national security burns. But you won’t see this government looking into that, anytime soon. They’re too busy covering CSIS’ ass. Why does a quid pro quo then come to mind?

  12. Sean says:

    The time for correcting course passed long ago.

    There is no hope at all of winning any of the next three elections. It might be best for Justin to continue only to save the incoming leader from being associated with all the disasters of the last 10 years.

    If Justin resigns after being destroyed in the election, it will be easier for the Liberal Party to ensure that he and his team are not present at the next convention…. and then permanently barred from ever again participating in the party. That is the only responsible way forward. However, that obviously can’t happen while he is a sitting PM.

  13. Sean,

    Harper won most of his three elections in a minority government context. One must not conflate that with winning three majority governments in a row. The chances of Pierre doing that range from slim to none. The CPC is never the natural governing party. At its best, it’s only the alternative governing party. That nuance needs to be understood in today’s political context. If Poilièvre gets two majority mandates, chances are that he’ll be more than satisfied with that.

  14. Dink Winkerson says:

    Who says he has to call an election. Conspiracy theory #1. With the help of the NPP and Bloc calls an national emergency to stay in power to protect Canada from the Neo con goose stepping conservatives. The GG would be on side for a hefty boost in pay. Who would object? The King? Discuss crazy theory.

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