Global Courant 2023-05-11 19:51:00
It’s been there for 24 hours now, so the great controversy over the erasure of the passport and Canadian history is coming to an end in the Canadian news cycle.
Framing a few new illustrations on pages stuffed into a passport as evidence of a liberal plot to clear Canada’s historical record seems like a grueling effort.
Chalk-quality artwork? Sure. The end product of extensive public consultation? Doubtful. The predictable consequences that a few mostly shrewd cabinet ministers failed to notice in advance? Inexplicable.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilièvre had just one interview with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week. And he used most of it to accuse the Liberals of blotting out the memory of 3,500 Canadian soldiers who died at Vimy Ridge, while gesturing to the memory of Terry Fox.
Given that few Canadians noticed the existing passport images until yesterday, it’s clear that it’s best to move on and focus on dozens of much more serious federal concerns.
SOME POLITICAL SUB-PLOTS
But this farce did reveal a number of political subplots, including the Trudeau administration’s most questionable skill: their ability to turn positives into negatives.
Announcing a more protected passport with easier online renewals, only to see it become cannon fodder for the opposition like a Mao-level cultural purge is no small feat. Even more critical was watching above-average ministers Sean Fraser and Karina Gould struggle to unveil the new draft, accusing reporters of “creating a story.”
But turning good news into bad news is becoming a habit for the liberals.
For example, it took a week of dragging and telling Beijing they expected retaliation before a Chinese diplomat was expelled for threats to an MP’s family. The government was immediately slammed with the expected retaliation.
Declining polls suggest the public is unfazed by the slow Liberals, this after a very bad week in which the Michael Chong controversy became a classic textbook best-avoided example of a prime minister beaten down by shifting storylines.
There are other interesting sidebars that stem from the passport scandal.
For starters, it’s the start of shotgun season in the House of Commons.
This happens every May as the hot days lengthen and sitting times are extended well into the night to review the government’s legislative priorities vis-à-vis sleep-deprived MPs.
Sick at the thought of being saddled with 338 fellow MPs for the final push into summer recess means the rhetoric skyrockets as camaraderie collapses and political warfare flares up with little or no provocation.
In the coming days, this rite of parliamentary spring will turn into the inevitable prediction of a cabinet change and the guessing game for when Parliament will be adjourned for a Speech from the Throne in October, which will invariably be seen as the kick-off of an election campaign.
ELECTION EXAMPLE OF TRUDEAU’S CAMPAIGN LINES
The passport spat also provided an electoral taste of Trudeau’s campaign lines, as he furiously accused Poilièvre of being a combative, misogynist, anti-abortionist who prowls “the dark corners of the internet” to produce his social media feeds.
Now let’s consider for a moment that anyone looking at Donald Trump’s town hall on Wednesday night would immediately see Poilièvre as a little tadpole that has barely learned to swim in the slimy pond of politics. You never really appreciate our Canadian politicians more than after watching this former president engage in a rude, delusional, full-mouthed, outright lying diatribe for an eye-popping hour of don’t look away television.
But I digress.
Trudeau’s largely false shots at Poilièvre’s character sound even more desperate when he focuses on attacking the record of a Conservative government that has been out of power for three elections and is now under its third leader since becoming Prime Minister.
Unfortunately, the passport rage portends a soul-destroying, fiery, dirty tricks, character-killing campaign where perceptions will be reality and truth highly negotiable.
So, sigh, let the silly season begin.
And by the way, that big cabinet change is coming at the end of June and Trudeau will adjourn parliament in mid-September to call elections in the spring of 2024. You read it here first.
That’s the bottom line…
