The Weimar Dominion

 

Justin Trudeau is incompetent, corrupt, and with totalitarian and dictatorial intentions. This is apparent in a dozen ways to Sunday. It is therefore hard to accept that a large body of Canadians has voted for him in three elections, and, according to polls, a large body of Canadians would still vote for him. This does not speak well of the intelligence of Canadians.

It also condemns the Canadian elite. It has always been the Canadian way, unlike the American one, and like the British, to trust those at the top to keep things in good order: the police, the professions, the civil service, the media. In Canada democracy is seen more as a check against possible excess than the fundamental sovereign act.

Accordingly, Trudeau’s ascension to and persistence in power is disillusioning in what it says about the Canadian elites. They have not stopped him, nor pointed out how harmful he is for the nation. Following the Westminster system, there should have been a cabinet revolt long before now—as happened recently to Boris Johnson, or happened in his day to John Diefenbaker. Instead, when Jody Wilson Raybould resigned, only one cabinet member, shamefully, went with her. 

Had that not happened, there should have been a caucus revolt, as took down Erin O’Toole, or Liz Truss, or Theresa May. Prime ministers and party leaders, after all, are supposed to serve at the pleasure of their members.

Had that not happened, the big donors—Bay Street, Power Corp. and such—should have pulled the plug on Liberal Party finances. 

Had that not happened, the party brass, the backroom armies, the volunteers, should have pulled their services to force Trudeau out.

Had that not happened, the press and media mavens should have been pointing out on air and in print how irregular and improper Trudeau’s speeches and measures have been. A few have—Rex Murphy, Conrad Black, a brace in the new media. But where is Andrew Coyne, say, or Chantal Hebert? Even those who do speak out regularly against Trudeau, like John Ivison or Brian Lilley, seem to me on the whole to be soft-pedalling it.

All these systems seem to have failed. How come?

Each of these groups seems to have been acting in their own personal or class interests, in disregard of the greater public interest. If not positively and voluntarily benefitting from logrolling with the regime, everybody found it to their advantage to leave the battle to somebody else.

John Adams said, of the nation he had partly founded, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” This is probably true of any system of government: it succeeds or fails mostly on the morality of the people, and of the leadership in particular. The secret to British success over the last few centuries was the strict code of gentlemanliness and “fair play” that had been imbued in the upper classes. Such things are not instinctive, and cannot be presumed. They have to be carefully taught.

We have seen a collapse in morality in Canada and the rest of the West over recent generations—in “conventional morality,” as its opponents call it—and a collapse in moral education. Social collapse is bound to follow.

It can only be averted by a religious revival, which is then applied to the education system.