What to Do about Trudeau?

 

What can we do about Justin Trudeau?

Voting him out of office, if we ever again get that opportunity, is not enough. 

Uniquely among all prime ministers, he has damaged our democracy, our civil society, and our civil peace. He has militarized the police. He has subverted the media. He has censored opposition. We must get rid of the subsidy paid to media, we must get rid of his censorship of the internet, we must get rid of his ban on hunting rifles, we must get rid of legalized euthanasia, we must get rid of back-door subsidies to big corporations, we must make sure the Emergencies Act can never be used frivolously again, we must get rid of ArriveCan. But that too is not enough.

Speaking of ArriveCan, there may be a reason more sinister than simple graft that an app that, according to specs, should have cost a few hundred thousand dollars, cost $54 million. And the government will not reveal who got the money, and for what. 

It may be that ArriveCan was designed to do more than acknowledged. The extra cost may have been to install the hidden necessities for a social credit system like China’s. We have every reason to suspect this.

At the same time that he has done all this , Trudeau has destroyed Canada’s reputation around the world. This was for generations Canada’s great advantage in the world, our supposed “soft power.” This was the work of generations. Now we are largely held in contempt: by Americans, India, China, Russia, the Arabs, much of the rest of the English-speaking world. While two Western province are passing “sovereignty laws” threatening to split the country.

Given how far Trudeau has gone, voting him out of office is not enough. A friend of mine insists on assassination, which would be the worst thing—but that is how angry people have become, and something must be done now to restore civil harmony. After all, most federal governments get voted out anyway by about their third or fourth election. So it looks like no punishment at all. The next government, or the government after that, might well still be tempted to try the same tactics.

Yet it is unwise to prosecute. The problem with prosecuting those who have left office for being unscrupulous is that, given they are inclined to break the rules in the first place, this gives them every reason to refuse to leave office, or at least try to seize power and hold on.

So what can we do?

One possibility is to pass a resolution in the next parliament censuring Trudeau, and requiring that no official portrait be commissioned. By tradition, each former prime minister gets a portrait, displayed in the House of Commons. Trudeau’s can be missing or all black to express history’s disapproval. It would be an insult to the others honoured there to feature him in the same lineup.

Other official commemorations of any kind might also be prohibited. It would at least send a message.