Justin trudeau

Something is happening across the world right now, something that deserves more attention than it's getting. First, to the Netherlands, where farmers have been protesting, blockading roads with their tractors and staging enormous rallies. The demonstrations have been going on and off since 2019, when the Dutch legislature proposed a crackdown on nitrogen emissions. Nitrogen is heavily emitted by livestock and fertilizer, which means the regulations are hitting Dutch agriculture especially hard. But it wasn't until July that the protests garnered international attention. The Dutch government announced plans in compliance with a court order to cut nitrogen emissions by 50 percent.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the West was certain that its sanctions were worth the pain. But there always was a question as to whether this resolve would last once the domestic difficulties actually started. This week, western countries moved closer to admitting it might be too much to bear. At the time of the invasion in February, a massive Russian turbine was being repaired in Montreal. It was one of many turbines used to send gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany. When the Russians moved into Ukraine, it was kept in Canada as punishment. Over the next few weeks and months Russia replied, cutting off gas supplies to the continent.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s latest gun control legislation would restrict the sale and trading of many handguns. But it also does something else: it includes a substantial ban on toy guns and other functioning replicas, such as airsoft guns. This is an ignorant display of power, and far more petty than it is precautionary. If the government can control pseudo-guns, then what is safe from its interference? The actual text of the law itself states under the criminal code that (emphasis added): For the purposes of sections 99 to 101, 103 to 107 and 117.‍03, a firearm is deemed to be a prohibited device if...the firearm is designed or intended to exactly resemble, or to resemble with near precision, a firearm...

As Justin Trudeau waltzed through the UK, visiting Boris Johnson and the Queen, did anyone spare a thought for Canadians struggling under Trudeau’s authoritarian Covid power moves? In 2016, the British parliament debated whether Donald Trump, then running for the US presidency, ought to be banned from the UK for inflammatory 'hate speech'. When Trudeau announced his visit to the UK, did the House of Commons ask itself whether he should be made welcome?  Trudeau invoked the never-before-used Emergencies Act to resolve a parking problem Trudeau is no stranger to inflammatory language – having called the unvaccinated in Canada 'extremists', 'misogynists' and 'racists'. But it’s far worse than that.

The first report cards on democracy and economic freedom for 2021 are out and the results are not good. Economic Intelligence Unit, the sister company of The Economist magazine, found that last year’s Democracy Index had fallen by almost a tenth of a percent. That’s the biggest drop in the index’s 15-year history. The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, meanwhile, saw a similar albeit larger decline of 1.6 points out of 100. Heritage looked at economic policies and conditions in 177 countries while the Democracy Index looked at 167 countries. Both reports blame government-enforced COVID restrictions for the declines.

At last, Canada has been freed from the menacing threat of bouncy castles. The bouncy castles first appeared in Ottawa earlier this month, brought in by the truckers who were peacefully protesting Covid restrictions and who Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later compared to Nazis. And you can understand why. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a McDonald’s PlayPlace and felt the dark night of fascism descending all around me. That people don’t bring bouncy castles to violent insurrections — that there were no bouncy castles at, for example, the Beer Hall Putsch — has apparently been lost on Trudeau, that witless king in the north, who last weekend saw in the Ottawa police to flush out the truckers like they were an occupying militia.

We begin today in the Canadian Parliament, which has its own version of prime minister's questions. And while it isn't as entertaining as the famously unruly UK Parliament or the gem that is the Australian Parliament ("the honorable membah is a grub, Mistah Speakah!"), it can still get pretty rowdy. So it was that last week, Candice Bergen, the interim leader of the Canadian Conservative Party, rose to ask a simple question of the ruling Liberals: would they work with the truckers who have been protesting Covid restrictions in Ottawa to resolve the impasse? She may as well have been talking to a Speak & Spell. The Liberal minister Chrystia Freeland chided and patronized. She condemned swastikas and Confederate flags. What she never did was to answer the question.

Under pressure from the Canadian government, GoFundMe has decided to withhold $9 million of the funds raised by the truckers' Freedom Convoy ($1 million had already been withdrawn). Instead of automatically reimbursing the donors, though, GoFundMe is giving contributors until February 19 to request a refund. This seems unfair, since some people will lack the time, information or ability to put in their requests. Unclaimed cash is then to be donated to “established” and “credible” charities proposed by the convoy's organizers — assuming they obtain GoFundMe’s approval (we serfs need authorization before we’re allowed to spend our money). (UPDATE: GoFundMe has since announced they are "simplifying the process and automatically refunding donations.

Canada has just surpassed even its own previous records for absurd and boring elections yielding predictable and dreary results. Almost inexplicably, Trudeau called this election with the shortest possible campaign. He believed he could regain his majority as a recognition of what he imagined to be his distinguished leadership of the country through the coronavirus pandemic. Like Theresa May seeking a strong mandate to leave Europe and remain within it, Trudeau wanted a strong mandate to take the country on a drastic turn to the left which most people did not wish and Trudeau never seriously outlined. In fact, Trudeau's imposition of the Covid shutdown was far too severe and prolonged. He started negotiating with the Chinese for a vaccine which was soon shown to be ineffective.

Justin Trudeau's snap election has just gone from bad to worse. The incumbent Canadian Prime Minister decided last month to call a snap election to improve his parliamentary standing.  It was a contest no-one wanted (or expected) and the move seems to have backfired spectacularly. Hectored by anti-vaxxers, lambasted for his Covid record and lampooned as 'UnCanadian' for calling a contest in a pandemic, Trudeau is hoping to preserve his current number of seats, let alone dream of increasing it. Now just hours before the polls are due to open, a fresh photo has emerged of the hereditary premier grinning in blackface.

Oh dear. For years Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been at pains to prove his feminist credentials. Whether it's correcting a woman for using the word 'mankind' or promising to turn a 'she-cession' into a 'she-covery,' the hereditary premier has done his damnedest to prove he's the wokest leader in all the West. But now Tudeau has unwittingly followed in the footsteps of one woman whose example he would not want to follow: another onetime embattled PM Theresa May. A fortnight ago, Trudeau called a snap election to improve his precarious parliamentary majority but the move looks to have backfired spectacularly.

It came as no surprise to me to see activists ‘celebrating’ Canada Day by setting fire to churches and toppling statues of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, while chanting, ‘No pride in genocide.’ Canada has managed to cultivate a culture that is simultaneously self-hating and self-righteous. We have no pride in being Canadian. Yet we are confident we are better than everyone else. It is true that Canada has a shameful not-so-distant history. An estimated 751 unmarked graves were recently discovered at a former residential school site in Saskatchewan. This is not an imagined or non-serious issue. But calls to cancel Canada Day seem wholly misguided and typically Canadian, as did prime minister Justin Trudeau’s response to the protests.

A prime minister better known for his charisma than his policy achievements proroguing parliament to ride out a political storm. Sound familiar? No, it is not Boris Johnson, but the quintessential liberal heartthrob Justin Trudeau. Trudeau’s party promised not to use prorogation to ‘avoid difficult political circumstances’ When Johnson suspended parliament a year ago, Nicola Sturgeon immediately branded him a ‘tin-pot dictator’. Mr Steerpike will wait with bated breath for a similar SNP comment on the Canadian PM.