OTTAWA -- The thrill is clearly gone in having Justin Trudeau as Canada’s 23rd prime minister.
Now, at best, there is passive enthusiasm for Trudeau to remain in power and that is tainted by widespread fury-driven loathing of the Liberal leader on this campaign, which is hard to fathom given his two difficult years in the pandemic hot seat.
But while there are good reasons to grant Trudeau an extension to his six years as prime minister, there are equally strong justifications to vote against giving him a third term in office.
For Canadians on the fence, consider these the best reasons to vote FOR Justin Trudeau’s Liberals:
The rollout of federally subsidized daycare will be a godsend for young parents and parents-to-be, a ballot box bonus that could save them thousands of dollars in child-care costs far into the future. The concept of $10-a-day kiddie care could and should, once entrenched by the provinces, join Medicare as a sacred Canadian birthright.
The Liberal COVID-19 vaccination procurement was a world-leading effort that deserves a reward. While secretive and undoubtedly premium-priced, it got the jabs done for all who wanted it.
Trudeau’s carbon-priced climate change fight is, by some expert opinion, the best and most realistic route to cranking down emissions to start morphing Canada from a laggard into a leader in this global effort to stop the planet from warming.
Indigenous reconciliation is gradually happening with billions of dollars flowing in the right directions. It was never a one-, two- or even three-term political project to erase the stark inequalities endured by Indigenous peoples. Incremental progress is noted and welcomed under Liberal rule.
And, finally, by all means vote for Trudeau if you believe he must have a majority mandate to govern effectively into our post-pandemic future. Strangely, though, he never suffered a single major legislative failure or even a bill-passing slowdown while leading a minority government for the last two years. So maybe that’s not a very good reason to vote Liberal.
Now, here are some reasons why Canadians should consider voting AGAINST Justin Trudeau’s bid for a hat-trick of election victories.
He called a superspreader election during a pandemic that’s likely to end with little or no change in the status quo, a flagrant waste of about $500 million in his rush to secure a majority while ignoring Elections Canada’s plea for more time to organize a safe vote.
Despite having years to plan for the evacuation of key allies, aid workers and activists from the avenging clutches of the terrorist Taliban, Trudeau’s government foot-dragged until it was too late and our Afghan friendlies were abandoned. Hundreds of lives now hang in the balance as the price for his inaction. This while Canada has all but disappeared from global peacekeeping leaving our military in mission limbo.
Trudeau’s been deficit-spending Canada into an eyewatering trillion-dollar inheritance of debt for generations of taxpayers who aren’t yet in high school. While balancing the budget in a decade seems a mission impossible, surely our kids and grandkids deserve a prudent effort to avoid wasting billions on pandemic stay-at-home safety nets while the economy is hobbled by labour shortages.
You might want to vote against Trudeau for his character flaws. Be it groping allegations, his shabby ouster of two key cabinet female ministers for challenging his authority, his overlooking of sexual misconduct allegations in senior military ranks and in his own caucus, the infamous blackface photos or that threepeat of ethical violations, it adds up to conduct unbecoming for an alleged feminist who constantly preaches while claiming to stand on the high moral ground.
You also might want to vote against what he’s become – a judgmental, excessively-partisan, top-down, heavily-scripted, cheap-shot-shooting leader who will do or say anything to win (not that he’s unique there). Far from being the fresh-faced flip side of the brass-knuckled Stephen Harper style he campaigned against in 2015, Trudeau has become the smiling magnified mirror image of his control freakish predecessor. So sad.
And finally, you should vote against the Liberals if you want Trudeau gone. And gone he will be, possibly resigning the morning after the election, if the Conservatives eke out a minority government from Trudeau’s vanity vote.
But the best reason to vote for or against Justin Trudeau is to participate in a Canadian election in a world where democracies are under siege. So don’t forget to vote on Monday. Please.
And that’s the bottom line.
