Justin Trudeau: Why Can’t He Be Our President?” asks the cover of the latest edition of Rolling Stone.
.. Trudeau couldn’t even get the nomination of the Democratic party.
.. Trudeau’s idyllic northern paradise is actually the world’s seventh-largest oil producer, and even Boy Band Angela Merkel doesn’t seem particularly eager to destroy the country’s fossil-fuel industry. Sensibly enough, he’s a big proponent of the Keystone Pipeline and Canada’s Kinder Morgan pipeline, which transports hydrocarbons between the oil sands of Alberta (which are “pockmarked,” RS gravely informs us, “like a B-52 bombing range”) and British Columbia.
.. “One of the things that we have to realize is we cannot get off gas, we cannot get off oil, fossil fuels tomorrow — it’s going to take a few decades,” he tells RS. “Maybe we can shorten it, but there’s going to have to be a transition time.”
.. So here’s Rolling Stone’s politics: We’ll forgive you for turning Earth into a coal-black cinder as long as you keep cheering for identity politics in these final moments of suffering we share together.
.. But if you really do want to live in a country led by Justin Trudeau, given that people not born American can’t actually be president of the United States, why not do what Rolling Stone writer Stephen Rodrick suggests in the kicker of his piece: “At this moment, Justin Trudeau’s Canada looks like a beautiful place to ride out an American storm.” Why won’t Justin’s American acolytes do what they keep promising to do and take off to the Great White North?
.. Lena Dunham is still among us despite her highly specific vow, “I know a lot of people have been threatening to do this, but I really will. I know a lovely place in Vancouver.” Actor Keegan-Michael Key similarly indicated he had a northern escape route planned out when he said Canada is, “like, ten minutes from Detroit,” adding, “That’s where I’m from; my mom lives there. It’d make her happy too.” Key has given no indication lately that he is following up on that.
.. It might just be that there is more to a country than who happens to be head of state at any given moment.
.. Our progressive friends, who alternate between saying, “Ha-ha, Trump can’t do anything!” and dressing up like extras from The Handmaid’s Tale, are proving yet again that their alarmism is meaningless. If any professional lefty actually gives any indication of being serious about leaving America, I’d be happy to start a Kickstarter campaign to pay for their moving expenses.
Canada’s Trump Strategy: Go Around Him
Laid in the first days after Mr. Trump’s election win, the plan even enlists Brian Mulroney, a former Conservative prime minister and political nemesis of Mr. Trudeau’s father, who had also been prime minister. Mr. Mulroney knows Mr. Trump and his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, from social circuits in southern Florida, where all three keep vacation homes.
.. Though emphasizing the benefits of harmony, the Canadians are not above flexing muscle, with a provincial government at one point quietly threatening trade restrictions against New York State.
.. His new foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, a former journalist with long experience in the United States and an unapologetic champion of the global liberal order, is seen as able to coax the Americans when possible and defy them when necessary.
Ms. Freeland’s team of America-whisperers includes Andrew Leslie, a former lieutenant general and Afghanistan veteran who knows many of the American generals filling out Mr. Trump’s administration.
Mr. Trudeau established a “war room” dedicated to the United States, headed by Brian Clow
.. Ministers’ schedules resemble those of rock bands on summer tours. They travel armed with data on the precise dollar amount and number of jobs supported by Canadian firms and trade in that area.
.. when Mr. Trump announced that the United States would leave the Paris climate agreement. Canadian officials said they would instead seek climate deals with American states, many of which were already in progress.
Trudeau ‘Not Pleased’ With Bombardier Executive Pay Packages
Transport-equipment maker, recipient of over $1 billion in recent government aid, offers to defer partial 2016 compensation for executives after public rebuke
.. Mr. Trudeau said his Liberal government was “not pleased” with pay raises ranging from 36% to 93% that Bombardier’s board approved for the six top executives of the ailing Montreal transportation-equipment maker, which has gotten more than $1 billion in government funding over the course of 16 months from both the federal and the Quebec provincial governments.
Why are Conservatives drawn to Kevin O’Leary?
There are so many good reasons for Conservatives to laugh off the prospect of Kevin O’Leary as their leader.
He does not appear to be terribly conservative, other than on some fiscal matters. His knowledge of how this country’s government works appears rudimentary at best. He has been the only candidate to duck debates in which he might have to attempt both official languages. His commitment to their party is so minimal, he has not bothered to move back to Canada full-time while running for its leadership, and not committed to seek a seat in Parliament if he wins.
.. If anything, he seems the sort of candidate – from outside the party’s mainstream culture, contemptuous of other politicians and liable to quarrel with caucus – to which a party might turn if it’s fallen on such hard times that it’s ready to blow things up. But the Conservatives have lost one election, not in terribly devastating fashion, after holding power nearly a decade.
.. They think he’ll beat (or at least beat up) Justin Trudeau
The most common explanation for Mr. O’Leary’s appeal revolves around antipathy toward the current Prime Minister so great among some Conservatives that it outweighs any policy-related priorities for their own party.
.. Loud and brash, he’s fashioned himself a tough guy spoiling for a fight with a rival he portrays – and many Conservatives see – as soft and ineffectual.
.. To some Conservatives, there has been too much politeness toward Mr. Trudeau from their side of the aisle – and Mr. O’Leary’s caricaturing of the PM as an air-headed “surfer dude” who serves as a front for his nefarious best friend Gerald Butts suggests he’d at least kick Mr. Trudeau in the teeth the way they’d like to do themselves.
.. Canadians used to buy tickets to see Mr. O’Leary, famous for judging business pitches on the reality shows Dragons’ Den and Shark Tank, work the speaking circuit.
.. Even more helpful is a social-media following, including more than 600,000 Twitter users, that allowed him to enter the race with an usually large list of targets.
.. a rival campaign organizer pointed to Mr. O’Leary portraying himself as the sort of success story – a self-made, risk-taking millionaire – that plays especially well with fiscal conservatives.
.. And again, comparisons with Mr. Trudeau enter play, with some Conservatives believing the best way to counter a celebrity Prime Minister is with a celebrity of their own – and with his campaign casting him as someone able to break through with millennials the way other Tories can’t.
.. He’s able to cut through the drone
In a leadership campaign with an unprecedented number of candidates, standing out from the pack is a bigger challenge than usual.
.. Even without opening his mouth, he’s so different in image and experience as to be easily distinguishable. And when he does talk, Mr. O’Leary’s television skills – his confident, concise, catchphrase-heavy manner of presenting himself – pierces the noise.