Just extraordinary findings by the Pew people. 

Someone said to me last night: “I hate America.” I was astonished this person, in particular, would say such a thing. 

Apparently they’re not alone. 

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Here.

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The European Union certainly seems to think so:

The European Union’s competition watchdog has slapped a record 2.42 billion euro fine — roughly $3.6 billion Cdn — on internet giant Google for breaching antitrust rules with its online shopping service.

European regulators said Tuesday that “Google has abused its market dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison shopping service.”

It gave the Mountain View, Calif., company 90 days to stop or face fines of up to five per cent of the average daily worldwide turnover of parent company Alphabet.

Closer to home, meanwhile, there’s this from the office of the camera-loving, gaffe-prone, possibly-doomed Minister of Heritage, who has done a singularly lousy job of promoting Canada 150:

Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s chief of staff has been lobbied by her former employer Google six times in 2017, which the Conservatives and NDP tell Global News raises concerns as her department plans to overhaul the laws which regulate the media industry in which the U.S.-based tech giant has emerged as one of the world’s most powerful companies.

Leslie Church joined Joly’s office following the 2015 federal election straight from Google Canada, where she served as director of communications for three years and seven months according to her LinkedIn page. (The sixth meeting in 2017 was to discuss “science and technology.” Church was lobbied once by Google in all of 2016.)

Ironically, all of these links were found using a search engine other than Google.

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[And also on HuffPo, here.]

Justin Trudeau is going to win the next federal election.

Now, we know, we know. The election is far away. He’s broken some promises. His legislative achievements are modest. The Tories and the Dippers are getting shiny new leaders. Commenters are commenting that he’s slipping. And, in the post-Trump/Brexit era, the “sunny ways” stuff seems as culturally relevant as, say, Kardsahian reruns.

But he’s still going to win. And it’s not just because Andrew Scheer is Stock Day redux with a perma-smirk – or because Scheer’s most-influential advisor helped found the alt-Right hate site, The Rebel, whose most-recent oeuvre includes an essay titled “Ten Things I Hate About Jews.”

Nor is it because the NDP leadership candidate this space invented, Jagmeet Singh, has turned out to be a bit of a letdown, uncertain on his feet in debate, and inspiring few – or because the incorrigible rageaholic Tom Mulcair is still around, chewing up headlines and scenery, and reminding everyone why they abandoned the NDP in the Fall of 2015.

No, Justin Trudeau is going to win because of him. Also, in spite of him.

As part of my ongoing effort to make Conservative and New Democratic heads explode, and because I love Top Ten lists, herewith and hereupon are The Top Ten Reasons Trudeau Is Going To Win Again, You’re Welcome.

1. He’s doing the right things.  Spending more on daycare, for example, but also on defence.  Trudeau has had the right instincts on the policy front. To the ongoing irritation of his Opposition, he’s not bad at nudging Right, shimmying Left, and then ending up in the Centre – which is where most Canadians generally are, too.  Triangulation isn’t a new strategy, but it’s an effective one.  Trudeau is good at it.
2. He’s not doing the wrong things. Re-opening the Constitution, for instance: he’s not doing that. With the Trump regime busily tearing up vital trade treaties – with Agent Orange pulling out the Paris Accord, the agreement that could prevent the extinction of all species – what does Quebec’s Premier want to do? Why, he wants to kick start divisive, corrosive negotiations about the Constitution, naturally. The politically-tone-deaf NDP promptly agreed with him, but Trudeau sure didn’t. The Liberal leader immediately slammed the door on that policy Vietnam, thereby earning the gratitude of the mutlitude.
3. Staying out of the papers.  That’s what Messrs. Chretien and Harper did, and they both knew a thing or two about political survival. Trudeau’s figured out that overexposure leads inevitably tounderwhelming election results. So he’s being seen and heard a lot less. Canadians, like most voters everywhere, believe politics is improved by silence. Trudeau, at long last, is doing more by being seen less.
4. Cooling it with the selfie stuff.  Praise the Lord! Yes, he’s a rather good-looking fellow. Yes, he has a boyish grin and an impressive mane. Yes, his family looks like it stepped out of a J. Crew catalogue. Yes, he makes Donald Trump recall Jabba the Hutt on a bad day. But Trudeau has evidently surmised that the endless stream of selfies suggested to Canadians – even Liberal Canadians – that he was a bit egotistical and a bit shallow. So he’s doing it a lot less. We’ve all noticed. We’re all grateful.
5. Opposing Trump’s manifest destiny. At the start of Trump’s corrupt, chaotic reign, Trudeau and Team too often resembled latter-day Neville Chamberlains, labouring to if not defend then deny the indefensible. They were proud progressives at home, condemning racism and bullies and Kellie Leitch. But when Stateside, they became ostrich-like, and didn’t condemn (much less critique) the Racist Bully-in-Chief – not once. What did all that cheek-turning get them? Well, Trump-led attacks on the Canadian softwood and dairy sectors, among other things. So, they changed course.  They’ve mapped out a foreign policy that goes around Trump. This week, no less than the New York Timesnoticed and approved.  About time.
6. No scandals of significance – no real scandals, even. The Aga Khan Saga? Elbowgate? So-called cash for access? A boastful minister, and a couple underwhelming ones?  No one South of the Queensway cares, folks.  They just don’t. One solitary ministerial resignation, in the time it took Brian Mulroney to rack up a dozen: that’s it. For a caucus and cabinet so replete with rookies, Trudeau has experienced shockingly few big scandals. And, when contrasted with the slime oozing out of the White House, Trudeau continues to look positively angelic.
7. No nasty fights with the provinces.  At all. Sure, Brad Wall has been angry, a couple times, but such disputes typically work with Wall’s core vote –  and, coincidentally, Trudeau’s. Sure, some provinces were briefly upset about health transfers – but they all had no choice but to sign on, and they all eventually did. Apart from Couillard’s short-lived constitutional gambit (see above), all is decidedly quiet on the provincial front. That’s what Trudeau promised, that’s what he’s delivered.
8. He’s got luck to spare.  Unlike just about every other centrist you can name – in the U.S., in Europe, at the sub-national level – Justin Trudeau wasn’t just born with a silver shovel in his mouth.  He came into being with multiple horseshoes in his nether regions, too.  All of the things that have felled his progressive contemporaries – a global populist surge, terror attacks, hackers and fake news, clumsy campaign strategies – haven’t hurt him one bit.  For the most part, it’s because he’s the luckiest guy to ever run for office.
9. He’s hard to hate.  Tom Mulcair and assorted Tories try, certainly, but they usually just come off sounding bitter and/or jealous.  Trudeau (unlike his Dad, unlike Stephen Harper) is the Lloyd Dobler of politics:  like that immortal character in 1989’s Say Anything, Trudeau is the guy in high school who gets invited to every party, breaks up fights, and makes sure no one drives home drunk.  He isn’t a straight-A student or the valedictorian, but that’s also why you don’t hate him.
10. He’s likeable.  Justin Trudeau is an anomaly.  He grew up surrounded by wealth and privilege, but he personally embodies neither, somehow pulling off the middle-class artifice.  For older voters who adored Trudeau Senior, he offers the occasional Trudeau-esque pirouette – but he avoids his father’s imperial inclinations.  For younger voters, seeking an Obama-like outsider, Trudeau will do the unexpected and unconventional – but he still knows how to get the billionaires at Davos to do his bidding.  And so on, and so on.  In some ways, he is more of an enigma than his Dad: just when you think you know him, you don’t.  Either way, as noted, what remains is a guy who is kind of impossible to hate.

In politics, all of that is a winning formulation.  And it’s why Justin Trudeau – he alone – is going to win for Liberals again in 2019.

(Oh, and happy Canada Day, Trudeau.  Something tells me you are going to have a good one.)

 

 

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Life is too short.

Gord Tulk – he of the nearly-4,000-comments-does-this-guy-work – is gone, for good.  This is my space, with my rules, and cheap shots championing the “free speech” rights of neo-Nazis are not welcome, particularly with lots of litigation underway.  Find a new sandbox, Gordon.  You have been erased.

Also erased: a nutty musician who needs to get a life, and a couple anonymous racist commenters.  And that’s just in the past week.

A plea: spare us, please, any pious sermonizing about Winston Smith and the memory hole and all that.  This is the Internet: nothing ever disappears for good.  If you want to find it, you can find it.

But if it’s offensive or libellous or repetitive or off-topic, you won’t find it here.

Have a good week, all.

 

 

 

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Angus Reid released its semi-regular Premier thing last week, and I missed it with all the Nazi-fighting.  But, as usual, it tells a story:

The poll may or may not be accurate, 21 times out of 20, plus or minus 101 points.  But it sure is fun to prognosticate about.

Some quick takes:

• At the top, Brad Wall is the Energizer Bunny of Canadian politics – he just keeps on ticking.  It’s amazing, given (a) how long he’s been there and (b) the state of the oil industry.  This guy is becoming a legend in Canadian politics.
• At the bottom, Kathleen Wynne has been at or near the bottom of this regular poll for a long time – it can’t be dismissed anymore as an aberration or something that can be magically fixed.  I know her well enough to know she will do the right thing for herself and her party.
• Near the top, Christy Clark.  Her third place position, here, belies the conventional wisdom in some circles in B.C.  And, this week, we will see why: she has appropriated key elements of the BC NDP and BC Green platforms for her Throne Speech, and she is forcing them this week to vote against same.  She will then use that vote as a club to beat them with in the election that comes shortly thereafter.  Genius, actually.
• Near the bottom, Rachel Notley in my home province is still somewhat competitive – for an Opposition role.  With the PC-Wildrose forces about to commence a civil war for control, I continue to believe that the beneficiary of the Conservative Wars will be my brilliant friend Dave Khan, the Alberta Liberal leader.  Dave is the guy to watch, next time.  (And I will be out there, helping out.)

What do you think, O Smart Reader?  Who’s really up, who’s really down? Opine away!

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I love the movie, still, and I also think the comparison works.  If you disagree, tell us what movie character he most resembles?

He’s hard to hate.  Tom Mulcair and assorted Tories try, certainly, but they usually just come off sounding bitter and/or jealous.  Trudeau (unlike his Dad, unlike Stephen Harper) is the Lloyd Dobler of politics:  like that immortal character in 1989’s Say Anything, Trudeau is the guy in high school who gets invited to every party, breaks up fights, and makes sure no one drives home drunk.  He isn’t a straight-A student or the valedictorian, but that’s also why you don’t hate him.

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Backing Conrad Black Sabbath. Nobody dimebagged me. 

L-R: Steve Deceive, Bjorn von Flapjack III, Wink, Snipe

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Come throw things at us!

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