2017 was not kind to the PM nor his government. And that last press conference? In Star Wars Yoda-tongue: Ill, it will bode for him.
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-justin-trudeaus-year-long-descent-from-celebrity-selfie-prince-to-typical-politician
What’s true about first impressions — that
you never get a second chance to make them — is logically symmetrical
with the truth about last ones. No do-overs for them either, by
definition. The last impression many Canadians have of Justin Trudeau in
this year of Our Lord, 2017, was of him, shock-faced, rattled and
babbling incoherently for a TV eternity of a minute and a half.
For
all the sense he made, he could have been speaking Njerep ( I have a
Masters in Google search) a language that survives only on the tongues
of four people in the entire world, the youngest of whom is already 60.
It’s
not because the question was tough, nor could it possibly have been
unforeseen. He had been found guilty by the ethics commissioner of, not
one, but four provisions of the conflict of interest law.
And,
naturally, he was asked, how could a prime minister not have known that
hopping on private helicopters on a “vacation” to the Aga Khan’s
private island, with buddies and Liberal party personnel in tow, was not
— to use a word much in favour at Wilfrid Laurier U — problematic?
This was not quantum mechanics. It
was a hot issue for the PMO for all of 2017. Yet there he was in the
Commons foyer, having been asked the inevitable question, looking
gobsmacked and wounded, stammering like an old outboard motor on the
last pint of gas, and stacking up enough non sequiturs and platitudes to
fill a Costco warehouse. How bad was he? For that 90 seconds, he made
George Bush look like the oratorical son of Martin Luther King Jr. and
Margaret Thatcher.
That
was the last impression for public view Mr. Trudeau left for the year
now gliding into its final hours. In the Star Wars Yoda-tongue: Ill, it
will bode for him. Not smart, it will seem.
The
year 2017 was not kind to the PM nor his government. It began with his
attempt to hide the Aga Khan vacation +and ended with a demonstration of
why he tried to hide it. The course of the year marked his descent from a
celebrity selfie-prince to an all too typical politician, equipped with
a genetic sense of entitlement and personal exceptionalism.
The press,
here and abroad, were no longer half-worshippers. His initiatives were
seen by all critics, and some friends, too, as less policies than
postures.
Next year's slogan will be more modest:
Can I take a rain cheque on that?
On NAFTA, for example, the eerie attempt to
inject his “feminist” proclivities and adoration of the green gods into
trade negotiations did nothing for trade, greenism or feminism. He
bungled mightily on trade with the Asian countries, too — not showing
up, embarrassing Japan and angering the members of the TPP. The
international press was starting to get a touch dismissive.
Rightly so.
After all, the “The world needs more Canada” sloganism, not showing up
at all and ticking off a half-dozen world leaders was a curious choice.
Next year’s slogan — “Can I take a rain cheque on that” — will be more
modest.
His Number 2, Finance Minister
Bill Morneau, made a perfect and protracted hash on the Trudeau tax
policy — the one that was supposed to win the hearts of Mr. T’s beloved
middle class.
That ticked off almost everyone in the middle class or
aspiring to it, from dentists to sales clerks. The finance minister’s
campaign to sell the policy was a disaster, the climactic moment of
which came with having the minister himself being, like his boss, under
investigation for conflict of interest from the ethics commissioner.
A
government that spent a fortune on deliverology (which I personally
think of as the Scientology of spin doctors) proved itself incapable of
getting cheques out to its employees. The Canada 150 celebrations were,
in the main, a dull bomb. There was more fervour and kick in the Chase
the Ace phenom in the small town of Goulds outside St. John’s.
The most sensitive cabinet position, the
minister for disabled persons, was filled by the most insensitive person
in the cabinet, Kent Hehr — a politician in the Don Rickles mode.
The
MMIW inquiry is on yet another reset. The Energy East pipeline was,
naturally, cancelled — another sacrifice to Mr. Trudeau’s woeful
attachment to the ignis fatuus of global warming.
Meantime,
south of us, the Trump kingdom is both more successful in reducing the
dreaded carbon dioxide emissions and simultaneously leading a revival in
the U.S. energy industry and putting a shredder to the EPA’s cat’s
cradle of over-reaching regulations.
And Trump has just passed a
monumental change in the U.S. tax code, which will inevitably — just as
his energy policies — place Canada at a massive industrial and economic
disadvantage.
And so Mr. Trudeau leaves
this year with a bundle of negotiations unsettled, wounded ministers,
pledges undelivered, in violation of the law governing conflict of
interest, at odds with the UN economy, and no single major policy
achievement.
He caps that with that parting press conference horror,
signalling a prime minister struggling, anxious and incoherent — an
image which, if it takes, will be fatal for an administration that has
made the prime minister’s image its only ace. Much like the Goulds, only
in reverse.
A bad year, it was.
