, 06.10.2020 08:03 PM

My latest: do as I say, not as I do

Justin Trudeau paused. Above his black mask, the famous dark eyes flitted around the crowd.

It was Friday, and thousands had gathered for a Parliament Hill protest against racism. They stood close together, the protestors did, trying to get a glimpse of Trudeau, who was surrounded by a phalanx of security.

Trudeau spotted cameras to his left, and pointed in his direction. Satisfied, he slowly eased to one knee and bowed his head.

His only black cabinet minister, Ahmed Hussen, had been walking a few paces behind Trudeau. He got down on one knee, too.

They remained like that for eight minutes or so, the amount of time it took a Minneapolis  police officer to murder the African-American named George Floyd.

The cameras recorded every moment.

Hypocrisy, as always, is Justin Trudeau’s fatal flaw. Every politician becomes a hypocrite, if they remain in public life too long.

But Justin Trudeau has taken hypocrisy to a different level entirely. His hypocrisies are so big, so monumental, so glaring, they practically have their own weather system. They have their own time zone.

He said he wanted more women in public life, and then he brutalized and exiled the two smartest women in his cabinet – Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott – simply because they wouldn’t do what he wanted them to. Which was break the law.

He said he wanted to emancipate Canada’s indigenous peoples – and then he defamed and demeaned the aforementioned Wilson-Raybould, a proud Indigenous leader. He sneered “thanks for your donation” to another woman, one who simply wanted him to make good on his promise to end the mercury poisoning at Grassy Narrows First Nation.

He said he objected to racism in the Conservative Party – and then tapes and photos emerged, showing Trudeau wearing racist blackface at least three times. Only when he was caught did he apologize.

He said he would return integrity and transparency to public life – and then he secretly took expensive gifts from a wealthy lobbyist. He repeatedly tried to stop the criminal prosecution of a big Quebec-based donor to his Liberal Party.

And on and on. Hypocrisy, thine name is Trudeau.

But the election result seemed to humble him. He got fewer votes than his nearest competitor. He lost his Parliamentary majority. He got quieter. He got a bit somber. The change suited him.

Then the pandemic hit, upending everyone’s life. Trudeau’s performance wasn’t flawless. He had to retreat when a plan to dramatically increase his powers became a controversy. He was criticized for traveling to be with his family, across a provincial border.

But, in the first few weeks of the pandemic, he didn’t do badly. He sounded sincere. He sounded concerned about Canadians. He came up with some good policies to help them.

And, over and over and over, he urged people to stay at home and maintain social distancing.  He said – over and over and over – that nothing was as important as that.

On April 1 – April Fool’s Day – this is what Justin Trudeau said: “The biggest variable in shaping projections is you and your behaviour. While many of you are staying home and limiting grocery trips, many are not. We must do everything we can today and tomorrow to set us on the right path for next week and the week after.”

Reporters asked him why he hadn’t released more coronavirus data, like Doug Ford had done.

Trudeau responded: “Highlighting the range isn’t as important as getting an analysis of what we’re likely to face. It’s all directly linked to how people behave today. That’s why it’s so important that people stay home and continue with social distancing and stay two metres apart and minimize movement so we can get through this in the best way possible.”

See that? “Stay home and continue with social distancing and stay two meters apart.” He said that sort of thing a lot.

And then he showed up a gathering of thousands of people. Him, Prime Minister Coronavirus Blackface.

At times like this, it is fair to wonder what Justin Trudeau is thinking. Does he think he should take a knee for black people, after having been caught repeatedly defaming them? Does he think he should use a crowd of people as a photo op, after having told them all to “stay home and continue with social distancing and stay two meters apart”?

Does he think about how profoundly, irretrievably hypocritical he looks? Does he even think at all?

On the very day that Justin Trudeau had his Black Lives Matter For Photo-Ops, I went to see my mother in Toronto.  She was behind a fence, wearing a mask. I have not been able to hug her for three months.  She has not been able to hug any of us. She is often sad and lonely.

My mother likes Justin Trudeau, but not on this day. She asked me if I had seen Trudeau at the protest. I nodded.

“I am so disappointed in him,” she said. “Why should young people listen to him now? He looks like a hypocrite.”

And that is what he will always be, too.

A hypocrite.

56 Comments

  1. Gilbert says:

    I’m curious. Why does your mother like Justin Trudeau? Is it because she liked his father or because she likes the Liberal Party? My mother also likes Justin Trudeau. Unlike me, she’s not a Conservative.

  2. Paula Harris says:

    Spot on. Thank you for writing this. It takes ppl like yourself, well known, respected and with experience In the political world, to expose the truth, the hypocrisy of Trudeau. The media certainly will not, save for a few journalists who have maintained professional integrity. Sadly too many Cdns have been gaslighted into believing that JT and his cabal are doing a good job have their best interests At heart. They don’t know that this liberal govt is not the liberal party of their parents and grandparents.

  3. RKJ says:

    Thanks for your succinct summary of “prime minister c-19 blackface” and his behaviors. I am hopelessly naive, but, what are the chances Rosemary Barton & the CBC crowd will turn their attention to this? Sadly, they lap up all the drivel justin can send them.

    But, the Conservatives have a responsibility to provide a credible alternative. Scheer has been an inept embarrassment. He should resign immediately and let the leadership campaign unfold. His continued presence is a distraction. As well, the nut-bar Sloan should have been turfed from caucus due to his comments questioning the loyalty to Canada of the Chief Medical Officer. Many Canadians want an alternative. The Conservatives have a duty to provide one that is credible.

    • Pedant says:

      Well, the Chief Medical Officer was spouting propaganda reminiscent of the CCP. Do you think public figures aren’t worthy of criticism?

      • RKJ says:

        It is fair game to question the competence of public officials. It is not proper to question their loyalty to Canada because of their ethnic background.

        I trust you understand the difference.

        • Pedant says:

          But it isn’t clear that the CMO’s ethnic background was a factor in the Conservative MP’s statement.

          Justin Trudeau has expressed great admiration for the China’s Communist government and he yanked medical supplies from the hands of ill Canadians to ship to China in March. Isn’t it logical that he would appoint likeminded individuals?

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            Pedant,

            Surely, if you’re thoroughly convinced, you have solid evidence to present to the rest of us? Supposition and conjecture is not evidence.

          • RKJ says:

            “Does she work for Canada or for China?” Sloan, the MP for Hastings–Lennox and Addington, asks in a video posted to his social media accounts on Tuesday.

            “Dr. Tam must go! Canada must remain sovereign over decisions,” the video caption read.

            …….Mr. Pedant – guess we all can decide what Sloan meant. if you want to replace Justin, it is not a good tactic to question, by association, the loyalty of millions of Canadian immigrants.

  4. Vote Quimby says:

    I empathize- I’m in the usa and am having a hard time hugging my mom too cause of the border restrictions.
    Bullocks Trudeau, stop being such a wanker.

  5. Miles Lunn says:

    I get the impression Trudeau wants to try to pretend he is something he is not. He tries to come across as a compassionate person who cares deeply about social justice when really he is just a spoiled rich kid with a famous last name.

  6. PJH says:

    I think this one may make a few Liberal minions in the PMO head’s explode. One of your best, I do believe, Sir.

  7. joe long says:

    “Does he even think at all?”

    Justin Trudeau is an actor. He doesn’t have to think.

    He has also realized he can lie with impunity. His loyal media will repeat and defend his lies, rather than call him to account.

    But for an actor these are not lies, they are just lines in a script spoken to an “adoring” audience.

  8. Joan Cole says:

    Well said and totally agreed upon.

  9. Dave says:

    No comments on this so far? I would think that someone would have an opinion.

  10. Fred J Pertanson says:

    Thanks, Warren.

    It’s about time you got back to calling out this two-faced liar.

    Cheers!

  11. One would have thought they would have backtracked by now with Trudeau giving a full explanation of why it was a serious mistake not to social distance. But I guess this PMO doesn’t believe they require a crisis unit specializing in damage control and more importantly, rapid response.

    This one’s like gangrene. You sure don’t want to let it fester.

  12. Ray says:

    Indeed.
    T2 has fractured Canada along existing fault lines & taken identity politics to levels I would never have thought possible.

  13. Ron Benn says:

    The PM’s security detail had to be there to protect him from physical threat. Take a bullet? Part of the job description. Catch COVID 19 because the PM wanted a photo-op?

    Add selfish to the list of character flaws exhibited by the PM.

  14. Max says:

    Any of the great, old broadsheets looking to win back some of its faithful readership that has moved on to social media and the internet might want to consider running this piece unedited on the front page. The G&M, Star, National Post, The Sun…. Warren is back on his A-Game!

  15. Terence says:

    Young people don’t care about caronavirus righ now. Cops killing black people and purging racist symbols from public life are more important. Today the scumbags in the Whitehouse levied sanctions agains indivudual members of the International Criminal Court… you know, the gusy investigating warm crimes in Afghanistan — America’s longest war in history, and as a pre-emptive strike against challenges to Israel’s annexation of territories in the West Bank recognized as Palestinian in international law. Hannah Arendt wrote about the banality of evil…the US and it’s poodles aren’t banal; they’re dangerous loudmouthed authoritarians.

  16. anne schretlen says:

    Right on, but the conservatives are in such a mess.
    My hair cutter states that due to covid emergency funding helping her family, she doesn’t know if she’ll vote liberal next time.

    Butts and team knew that CDNs are in debt and needed ‘bridge financing’ to make it through. So cynical and hypocritical!

    • Conservatives would have put just enough onerous requirements on the funding so that they could blame the victims when they starved.

      • Pedant says:

        40% of Canadians pay zero net taxes. I find that those wishing for more distribution (theft) from taxpayers usually fall into that group.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Pedant,

          Here again, I don’t necessarily agree that applying government aid in times of crisis is theft from taxpayers. If you’re not going to provide individual subsidies or benefits then you have to do the exact same thing to corporations and other so-called vital stakeholders that the government sees as worthwhile propping up. Even Harper was convinced to help GM in 2008 and if memory serves, the feds made a net profit on that deal.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Darwin,

        Putting aside that your comment is highly presumptive and not necessarily accurate, what’s the difference between a theoretical that and potentially clawing back most of the CERB after the fact? Same end result in my book.

    • Pedant says:

      For those of us who were responsible and put aside cash for a rainy day. What do we get out of this fire hose of OUR taxpayer dollars?

      Nobody in Canada will go hungry. People might have to do without a new car. That’s life.

      • Almost all of those 40% of people who pay zero net taxes are living paycheck to paycheck and aren’t in a position to do much saving.

        Doing without a new car also means the car manufacturers will start laying off people which means they will go without new clothes which causes the retail workers to be layed off again. So the cycle goes.

        Having savings doesn’t exclude you from any of the support programs.

        • Pedant says:

          Actually the middle class IS excluded from many of these goodies, the most lucrative ones anyway. The Liberals amended the Child Care Benefit so that the people actually paying for it get zilch in return. The TFSA was gutted to stick it further to middle class savers.

          Let me get this straight. You believe that the overtaxed middle class is supposed to transfer their hard earned money to irresponsible people who didn’t manage their finances properly so that they can buy new cars …. while the middle class themselves get nothing in return?

          Are you a net taxpayer Darwin? I assume no?

        • Thanks to unions, a lot of the people who make cars are middle class, but they won’t be for long if people can’t buy cars.

        • Pedant says:

          You didn’t answer the question Darwin. Are you a net taxpayer, or do you wish to toss confetti money on the irresponsible using Other People’s Money?

        • I didn’t want to address an ad hominem attack, but I am in the 40% club.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Pedant,

        Even before this crisis started, we were already seeing far more food bank demand than resources available to help people. Same thing for the number of children who required charitable help in order to have breakfast Monday through Friday. We have been collectively going to hell in a handbasket economically since at least 2019, so economic hardship has been with us for a considerable time. Trudeau did one thing right for sure in reducing substantially the number of people living in poverty. But unfortunately, the day will never come when living in poverty will have been completely eliminated in Canada or anywhere else in the western world.

      • Pedant says:

        Demanding oversight for a program ripe with fraud (its estimated that 2 million people got the CERB who are not eligible for it) makes one not a decent human being? Or believing OUR tax money should be spent on Canadians and not foreign nationals (foreign students and PRs in Canada are collecting the CERB)? It’s very easy to be a “decent human being” with Other People’s Money.

  17. anne schretlen says:

    See my comment above

  18. Walter says:

    Trudeau acts like someone who has the press in his pocket.

    It’s almost like the media have been bribed to report on Trudeau favourably, and he knows he can do anything and get away with it.

    PS. You missed Omer Aziz and the “Brown File” incident.

  19. Yet Another Calgarian says:

    Would JT have done the same if it was a protest about China’s actions in Hong Kong / Xianjiang / Tibet?

    Somehow I expect not.

  20. Walter says:

    Somehow, the biggest story of the week (month) was missed.
    The name is Charles Q. Brown.
    The first Black named to head a US Military Force.
    And Trump nominated him at beginning of March.
    That’s 10 weeks before the Democratic Police Chief in the Democratic City with a Democratic District Attorney and a Democratic Governor bungled the George Floyd investigation – until Trump sent in the FBI.
    When the spotlight was not on – Trump acted nobly.
    When the spotlight shone, Trudeau and the Democrat leadership pandered and virtue signaled, but accomplished nothing.
    I believe that is why they say Trump is the least racist President ever – who cares about Blacks as people, and not as a voting block.

    • Mark D says:

      Walter:

      Speaking as a longtime conservative… We need to stop with the “Democrat police chief in a Democrat city with a Democrat mayor…” line of argument.

      Read the local news for the past few years leading up to Mr Floyd’s death. The mayor, the city, and police chief were well aware of the reports of racism and heavy-handed policing.

      In fact, the current police chief is one of five black officers who had previously (prior to being chief) filed a legal complaint against the police department alleging racism and tolerance of a hostile work environment for racial minorities. Whereas the mayor and council had been elected on a promise to reform the police department and were actively trying to do so, but they met with public resistance from the police union and their president Bob Kroll.

      The police union president’s political affiliation is well known. I would invite you to google it.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Mark,

        The problem with police unions comes when they quite deliberately decide to defend the undefendable. In this case, not only should police be defunded and a new department built from the ground up, but the exact same thing needs to happen to the union and its unjust and biased executive. Those cops who know they are the problem always need to go, period.

        • Yet Another Calgarian says:

          This. Very much this.

          I would also go one further and say that if you want to talk about suboptimal outcomes the unions that handle school adminstrators in some of these cities also need to be broken given that 40 percent of American children cannnot read at grade level. Note that I’m saying admistrators not teachers here.

  21. Mike says:

    Those coronavirus rules are for you not Trudeau as he’s ignored every one of them, except the mask of course. His colour choice mimics some of his past antics.

    More disturbing is going to one knee to pay homage to protestors that have murdered 20 people in the US, no matter what their cause, noble or not. Truly disgraceful.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Mike,

      Nope. Rioters and anarchists allegedly murdered people — not peaceful protestors — who far and away outnumbered the former at demonstrations.

      • Mike says:

        How could you possibly know who the murderers were in various parts of the country?

        Sorry, but this peaceful protest was co-opted by the rioters and anarchists weeks ago. To pretend you’re attending a peaceful protest with the riots, looting, arson and murder going on beside you is naive.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Mike,

          That’s a fair point that some of the demonstrations have likely been coopted by rioters, looters and anarchists. But you have to look at each demonstration in each locality on an individual basis. You can’t project a logical argument on all demonstrations unless there is already overwhelming evidence that it is so. And I would suggest that anyone at a turned demonstration who sticks around is more than naïve, they are plain stupid as their own safety is being endangered in those cases.

    • Mike says:

      Sorry Mike, but I certainly didn’t insult you personally, you may not be the “nice Mike” you protray.

      No comment on Warrens column instead of the insult?

  22. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    I get the impression that a lot of people reflexively make presumptions about subtle racism that are not accurate. Some who do not regularly interact with minority communities have unintentional blinders on — you know, those famous twenty shades of grey and its alleged ambiguity about subtle racism.

    But the fact is that subtle racism exists in 2020 Canada and minorities face it every single day across this country and not just from law enforcement. People like Legault need to clue in to that and not reflexively default into illusionary nice sounding pleasing sound bites that in no way reflect the reality on the ground. No one is saying that everyone is deliberately racist but each of us has to examine our own conduct and presumptions as regards race.

    In my own case, I haven’t experienced racism that often. I will never forget a grocery store incident about thirty years ago: two men who know each other suddenly meet up in the line at the cash. One of them inquires how the other’s daughter “X” is. The father’s exasperated response was as follows: “[E]lle est encore avec son Christ d’anglais!” It took everything for me not to burst out laughing. Another time, we were walking in a mall as children with our mom and someone suddenly blurted out: “Parlez donc français!” My late Mom did, in her best choice French. Let’s just say it was memorable for that guy.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Just so you know, I was pleased with Legault’s statement made today. It is both far more honest and realistic in reflecting the racism problem in my province.

  23. RKJ says:

    It is fair game to criticize the competence of public figures. Questioning their loyalty to Canada because of their ethnic background is an entirely different matter.

    I trust you understand the difference.

    • Walter says:

      Has anybody had their loyalty to Canada questioned because of their ethnic background?

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Walter,

        I don’t know how anyone can’t see it that way. It was pretty clear the way Sloan phrased his sentences. Again, kudos to Rempel Garner and the other CPC MPs who called him out on it.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          I could add another paragraph stating the obvious, but the obvious has been glaringly obvious for some time now. I’ll leave it at that. I’m sure CPC members have already noticed. Wonder what most of them are thinking? I know what I’m thinking…

  24. Greg says:

    There are only two mysteries surrounding the fake and idiot, Trudeau, his complete incompetence, and lack of integrity:

    1. Why do people vote for him?
    2. Why does the media turn a blind eye?

    • Your partisanship has blinded you. His non-answers to questions and scandals are of similar magnitude to other politicians.

      Doug Ford had his daughters over for Mother’s Day when the lockdown was tighter, tried to manipulate the justice system by appointing a family friend as head of the OPP and may well had engaged in activities when young far more serious then blackface.

Leave a Reply to Ronald O'Dowd Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.