Categories for Feature

My latest: murder is murder

You’re on the Internet.

You express opinions. You write a letter. You show up at a meeting.

If you’re Irish and Catholic, let’s say, you express sympathy for those who want to unite Ireland, and leave the United Kingdom.

Or, let’s say you’re Italian, and you’ve passionately expressed support on Facebook for any one of the many separatist movements that have been active in Italy for a long time.

Or, you’re of German ancestry, and you’ve written letters to the editor about making Bavaria or Saxony a separate country.

Or you’ve publicly expressed support for the Basques in France. Or the ones in Spain. Or any of the currently – current, not historic – active separatist movements in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia or Switzerland. (And that’s just Europe.)

That’s not an exhaustive list, of course. In just about every country in the world, there is a constituency who wants to break away and form their own homeland. Here in Canada, we’ve had people like that in Quebec and Western Canada for a long, long time. Some of them even have seats in our Parliament. They won them, fair and square.

We may not like it when nationalists express a desire to separate. It makes people pretty upset. (In this writer’s case, our family literally left our longtime home of Quebec to get away from separatist xenophobia and prejudice. We moved to Alberta, which welcomed us.)

That’s generally how we do it here in Canada: peacefully. Most of us don’t like the Bloc Québecois or the Parti Québecois or things like the Western Canada Concept. At all.

We oppose them with our words, as my former boss Jean Chretien successfully did for 40 years. Or we oppose them, too, with our actions – rallying against their referendum, or defeating them at the ballot box.

What we don’t do is kill them.

As someone did to Hardeep Singh Nijjar. He was a 45-year-old plumber, and he was active in his Sikh temple in Surrey BC. He was married and had two kids, and he drove a gray Ram 1500 pick up.

At around 8:30 p.m. on June 18 of this year, Nijjar was in his truck at the Sikh temple where he and his family worshipped. Two men wearing masks stepped up to his truck, and fired shots through the window, killing him. They then ran to a car, where a third man was waiting for them, and drove away.

Three months later, no one knows who killed Nijjar. No one has been caught.

His family and friends figure they know. As the indefatigable Stewart Bell has reported, local gang members had told Nijjar that Indian intelligence agencies had put a bounty on his head. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, too, reportedly told Nijjar that he was under threat from professional assassins.

He was scared, his family was scared. He’s been scared for a long time, in fact. Because Nijjar wanted a separate state for Sikh in India.

That’s why he came to Canada for the first time in 1997, as a refugee. He said he feared for his life, and that he had been detained and tortured at the police station in the city of Phillaur. Canadian officials didn’t believe him.

He got married to a Canadian. Canadian officials didn’t believe him about that, either. But he eventually got to stay here.

He never gave up on a separate Sikh state.  One time, Nijjar even went to Geneva to ask the UN Human Rights Council to accept that anti-Sikh violence was genocide. He wrote a letter asking for support to the United Nations in New York, too.

And then, just a few months after Nijjar did those things, India issued a warrant for his arrest. They said he was “mastermind/active member” of something called “Tiger Force.” Which was it? The “mastermind,” or just a “member?”

Didn’t matter. India kept after him. They issued another notice via Interpol. They put out a reward for him, because they wanted him captured. They wanted an end to his advocacy.

Three months ago, in a parking lot at a place of worship, they allegedly did. Canada’s government says they have information implicating India in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India’s government, predictably, has denied it.

There’s been a lot of commentary about whether Justin Trudeau can be trusted. There’s been commentary about Nijjar being a bad guy. There’s been commentary about how inadvisable it is to pick a fight with a big country like India. And so on.

I don’t give a sweet damn. I don’t care if Hardeep Singh Nijjar agitated for Sikhs, or if he was dislikable, or what this will do to trade with India.

Ours is a country of laws. No one – no person, no country – is allowed to come here and murder one of our citizens, on Canadian soil, in cold blood. No one.

If we allow that to go unpunished, we cease to be a country of laws.

Oh, and this: any of you out there, writing letters to the editor about some separatist ambitions in your ancestral home lands?

You can become a target, too.


My latest: hero to zero

Hero to zero.

That’s the transformation that takes place in politics, if you overstay your welcome. And it happens pretty fast, too.

That’s why they say a week is a long time in politics. Because it is.

One day you’re on the cover of Rolling Stone, being touted as the literal personification of wokefulness — and the next day you’re miserable and cooling your heels in India, because your plane broke down and no one wants to shake your hand anymore. Boom. From hero to zero, just like that.

Politics is weird in that way, and unforgiving. Brian Mulroney won two big majorities, and ended his tenure with the support of 12% of Canadians. Paul Martin was supposed to be a juggernaut, a Toronto Star columnist decreed, and then went from juggernaut to after-thought.

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Stephen Harper was supposed to be Mr. Economics, started fretting about niqabs and “barbaric practices,” and thereby got clobbered by no less than hopey-wokey Justin Trudeau. (That barbaric practices nonsense, by the by, was cooked up by Pierre Poilievre’s brain trust. Hero to zero can happen to anyone, and does.)

And so on and so on. One minute everyone wants a selfie with you, applauding when you hijack a plane. And, the next minute, they’re looking at the tops of their shoes when you enter the room.

Trudeau has experienced metamorphosis in reverse. He started off as a beautiful and delicate butterfly, flitting from one social justice flower to the next. And now he’s turned into a caterpillar, chewing away at leaves and detritus in the dark. He is in profound danger of being stepped on by voters.

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Fifteen points! Young people! Liberal strongholds! Those are the things he’s lost, in his devolution into something less than he was. Without them, he’s hooped.

How did it happen? Lots of reasons. Serial scandals, over-promise and underdeliver, circumstances and events. But, mainly, it’s because he’s become the party guest who won’t leave.

The hosts are sweeping the floors and putting away the silverware, but Justin still sits over in a corner, loudly recalling past glories and the time Melania Trump gave him a look you could pour on a stack of waffles. He won’t leave.

He doesn’t listen to many, ever, but he was indeed advised by a few smart folks to start inching towards the exits. One majority and two minorities is plenty, he’s been told, something about which to be proud. That’s a decade. As good as it gets.

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But he demurred. He declined. He deferred. And, now, it feels like it is too late to install a fresh new Liberal face, and rescue the brand of the Liberal Party of Canada. Smart Liberals know that another victory is impossible. They just want to save the furniture, now.

Trudeau, the caterpillar who thinks he’s still a butterfly, doesn’t get it — or he doesn’t care.

This writer’s working theory is that — like many men — his father’s shadow looms large over Justin’s path through life. He wants to equal, or surpass, his father’s record. (It happens. Ask George W. Bush about it.)

Whatever the reason, he is just about out of time. If he doesn’t leave — and for the love of God, Justin, please leave — he’s done like dinner. He’s got to Christmas to rescue the party. Maybe.

Hero to zero. It’s a political cliché, sure.

But it’s also Justin Trudeau.


My latest: the Weekend from Hell™️


The Weekend from Hell™️.

All of us have had one, at one time or another. A fender-bender on the way to an important appointment. A flooded basement. A positive Covid test. Getting dumped by text.

Justin Trudeau’s Weekend from Hell™️ was different. His wasn’t private. It was right out in the open, observed by millions.

Such are the foibles of leaders of countries, and such are the foibles of Justin Trudeau these days. Try as he might, the Liberal leader can’t seem to catch a break.

As his Weekend from Hell™️ unfolded, it was almost (almost) possible to feel sorry for the guy. Almost.

Trudeau went to India for the G20. Based on the photographic evidence, nobody really wanted to talk to him or shake his hand. He looked miserable. And his plane was grounded there for nearly two days.

Meanwhile, back home, his main adversary, Pierre Poilievre, was having the best weekend of his political life. Ahead 14 points in the polls. Old rivals lining up behind his leadership. Party united. A multi-lingual, photogenic spouse charming everyone. And a picture-perfect convention in Quebec City.

And, to top it all off, Trudeau’s rust-bucket plane was wheezing back to Canada, and his timely arrival to a caucus retreat in London, Ont. was in doubt. Late for his own meeting. Ouch.

That’s not all. Over in the Liberal Party house organ, the Toronto Star, columnist Althea Raj was reporting that mutiny is brewing. While none of the quoted Liberal MPs were willing to go on the record, quite a few were prepared to dump on Trudeau anonymously.

Said one: “We don’t feel that we have a partner in the Prime Minister’s Office that is doing what it needs to be doing to help us at this time.”

Another: “This is a prime minister who never likes to even allow you to finish your sentence in national caucus…[If] you’re going to say something he’s not going to like, he always cuts you off.”

Said two different MPs: “People are really disillusioned.” Another: “Really, really, disillusioned.”

Finally, at least one said it was time for Trudeau to leave: “Do the right thing for himself and for the Liberal Party.” And go.

Like we said: it was Justin Trudeau’s Weekend from Hell™️.

Can he reverse it? Can he become competitive again?

As we all know, a week is a lifetime in politics. Conservatives have a well-documented history of shooting themselves in the foot. Trudeau is an excellent campaigner. And, as my colleague Brian Lilley likes to say, voters are fickle. They change their minds.

But right now, one thing is certain: a stench of death can be detected around Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

And we suspect many more Weekends from Hell™️ are on the calendar.


My latest: watch LeBlanc

Watch Dominic LeBlanc.

Watch what he does.

As everyone knows by now, reputable pollsters are saying that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are as much as 14 points behind Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. 14 points!

Depending on how the votes break, and where, that’s not just a Conservative majority. That’s a Conservative landslide victory.

And, as much as the winged monkeys who make up TruAnon try to do so, Abacus and Angus Reid can’t be dismissed as fly-by-night bucket shops. They do good survey work – including, over the years, for Liberal governments.

So, it’s real. The Tory leader’s lead hasn’t been an erratic leap upwards – it’s been slow and steady. In just about every demographic, in just about every region, Poilievre is ahead. Sometimes far ahead.

So what’s the big deal about Dominic LeBlanc, you ask? Pull up a chair.

And, first things first: I know LeBlanc well. His office was right next to mine when Jean Chretien was opposition leader. Dominic was an Atlantic desk advisor, and I wrote speeches and helped prepare Chretien for Question Period.

We were close, back then – close enough that Dominic’s father, the legendary Romeo LeBlanc, became godfather to my daughter. We’re not close anymore, however. (Dominic didn’t even bother to send along a note of sympathy when my mother died in July.)

That’s politics, I suppose. But one relationship cannot be denied: Justin Trudeau and Dominic Leblanc are very very close.

It’s hard to know if Justin Trudeau actually has a best friend. But if he does, it’s LeBlanc. Whenever Trudeau gets into trouble – a frequent occurrence – LeBlanc is one of the trusted ones who regularly gets sent in to do cleanup. As he did, this week, announcing a public inquiry into Chinese election meddling.

It’s a question that was asked   often this week, as the magnitude of Trudeau’s electoral problems becomes more clear: who has the guts – or the clout – to tell Justin Trudeau it’s time to take a walk in the snow?

Because, make no mistake, if the Liberal brand is to survive, it needs a change in leadership. It needs a Trudeau – Liberal leader for more than a decade – to retire to speech-making and memoir-writing.

At this stage in his mandate, unfortunately, Trudeau surrounded by the C team. None of his aides have the seniority or wherewithal to tell him that he needs to quit.

So that task must now fall to Dominic LeBlanc.  He’s the only one who can do it, at this stage.

Will he? He certainly has personal motivation to do so. The Reid and Abacus surveys found that Trudeau’s Liberals are in big trouble in Atlantic Canada generally, and New Brunswick specifically. And LeBlanc watches the numbers in New Brunswick like a hawk.

He knows that if the so-called “red wall” crumbles in Atlantic Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada is heading for second place, or worse. And Dominic LeBlanc doesn’t want that for himself – or his best friend.

As the Conservative convention kicks off in Quebec City, the delegates are understandably cheering their good fortune. But some of the smart folks in Pierre Poilievre’s office will be keeping an eye trained on Dominic Leblanc, too.

Because if he tells his best friend to leave – and his best friend does – it’s a whole new ball game.

Watch Dominic LeBlanc.


My latest: bits and pieces, this and that

Almost-end-of-summer, long weekend political bits and pieces:

**

Crickets.

That’s what you will hear if you are waiting for a public inquiry into Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal general elections. Crickets.

Towards the end of the last Parliamentary session, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau famously dangled the prospect of actually having such an inquiry. Back then, it looked like he had no choice.

His chosen “rapporteur” David Johnson — he who helped lead the Trudeau Foundation, that itself received boodle from the Chinese regime — had quit.

And an overwhelming number of Canadians — including more than 70% of self-described Liberal voters — wanted an inquiry into well-documented allegations that the Chinese had attempted to gut our democracy.

All of the opposition parties wanted an inquiry, too. But they, and we, all made a big mistake: we trusted Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau sent out his Maytag repairman, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, to rag the puck. LeBlanc did.

So, here we all are in September, with no public inquiry in sight. Just the unmistakable sound of crickets, reminding us that nothing has happened.

Oh, wait. Something has happened. A U.S. congressional committee — that is, a legislative committee found in another country — has invited one of the victims of Chinese political meddling, Canadian MP and former cabinet minister Michael Chong, to testify.

Before them. In America.

Get that? The Americans are calling Canadian witnesses to investigate Chinese interference in democracy.

Not us.

**

Look, Tasha Kheiriddin is a nice person.

She’s been a Conservative, and is a conservative, but I don’t hold that against her. She is smart, and perceptive, and a great writer. In fact, she is a writer who is a colleague: she writes about politics for The National Post, which shares an owner with the Toronto Sun.

A few weeks ago, Tasha sought media credentials to attend the upcoming Conservative Party convention in Quebec City. A party functionary wrote back: no.

She got her bosses at The National Post, no Trotskyite leaflet, involved. They also stressed that they wanted Tasha at the convention.

Her conservative credentials are pretty impeccable. She cochaired the Tory leadership campaign of Jean Charest and she has written books about being a conservative.

Even after the intervention by her editors at The National Post, the answer came back: no. Podcasters were allowed, assholes at Rebel “Media” were welcome. But not Tasha Kheiriddin, longtime conservative operative.

Says she: “I was disappointed with the Conservative Party’s decision to deny my media accreditation. Ironically, the only places where I am not welcome as a journalist are Russia, where I was banned last year, and the Conservative Convention, where I am persona non grata this year.”

She notes that representatives of other political parties are also being barred: “This kind of hostility is not only petty but feeds the polarization people deplore in today’s politics. It’s also a great example of gatekeeping — which I thought the party opposed.”

All of this reminds us, once again, of the famous words of my colleague Brian Lilley: “Politics is about addition, not subtraction.”

Meaning: You should always be trying to keep good people, not drive them away.

**

A final note on the polls.

All of them, pretty much, are now showing Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives far ahead of the governing Liberals. For instance, late last week, the pollster with the best record for accuracy federally, Leger, also confirmed the Tories are ahead of the Grits by nearly ten points.

That’s a majority government, folks. That’s lights out for Justin Trudeau’s team.

The horserace numbers probably don’t mean a whole lot, however. What is more meaningful is the reason why. Why is Pierre so far ahead, and Justin so far behind?

Trudeau’s tendency to overpromise and under-deliver is part of it. His fondness for Nanny State “woke” stuff, too. Serial scandals, the housing crisis, soaring inflation, and the total absence of a policy agenda haven’t helped, either.

But the main reason why Trudeau is losing so definitively to someone he clearly considers to be beneath him is this: we have grown sick of his face. He’s been Liberal leader for more than a decade, and he’s reached his best-before date.

In politics, the best you can hope for is eight years at the top. After that, voters are generally coming after you with nooses and pitchforks.

If Justin Trudeau wants to prevent the election disaster that is looming ahead, he needs to leave. Sooner than later.

Will he?

That’s a question worth debating after Labour Day!