Canadians were robbed today of the election we wanted and which Pierre Poilievre had gambled on occurring.
His well-produced and blackly comedic short film, Wacko, released on December 31 and offering a devastating look at the most bizarre and troubling moments of Justin Trudeau’s near-decade reign, was not a guaranteed hit. Nor was the timing of the film’s release a guaranteed strategical win. It was meant to coincide with a long-awaited election. An election that would have required the NDP and Bloc Québécois to support Poilievre in a January non-confidence vote.
On Jan. 6, however, Trudeau announced he will step down and allow for a leadership race within the Liberal party. Parliament is prorogued until March 24.
There will be no January non-confidence vote. Canadians will not get the satisfaction of an election at the (likely) nadir of the Liberal party’s popularity. Or the satisfaction of voting Trudeau out of office.
Poilievre thought he could take down the Liberal government within the month. Wacko was not meant to hedge any bets. Unfortunately, he bet wrong.
Wacko opens to the sound of the famous Italian opera song O Mio Babbino Caro, an aria about a young woman who threatens to commit suicide — by throwing herself off of a bridge — if her father doesn’t give her what she wants. It’s from an opera based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, the epic poem in which the reader accompanies the author through hell, purgatory and finally, heaven. A metaphor for Canada since 2015 — replete with reference to Trudeau’s childish and petulant defiance in the face of his tanking public approval — perhaps?
Canada certainly has gone through some hellish years under the Liberals, and it’s not a stretch of the imagination to think that many of us now feel that the end of Trudeau’s reign is some sort of national purgatory: an interminable, torturous period during which we can only pray that a kamikaze Trudeau doesn’t take us over the proverbial bridge with him. His proroguing of parliament only adds to the feeling of a Canadian purgatory. When will this end?
It would be rather egomaniacal of Poilievre to insinuate that a transfer of power to a Conservative government could usher in a heaven-like state in Canada — but, compared to our status quo, the thought of removing a new Liberal leader and their proven-to-be dysfunctional cabinet does have a heavenly air to it.
Wacko showed us a compilation of the oddest and most shockingly unintelligent soundbites uttered by Trudeau and his cronies over the last decade. It reminded us of Trudeau’s profound thoughts on the economy: “The economy is not numbers. The economy is people”; “I have an inability to handle small numbers and little calculations”; “You’ll forgive me if I don’t think about monetary policy”; “I’m focused on Canadians; let the bankers worry about the economy”; Trudeau telling a gymnasium of citizens that racking up personal credit card debt is what builds “a strong economy”; and the classic Trudeau line, “The budget will balance itself.”
And then there were the ponderings of former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland: “Does capitalist democracy still work?”, “A lot of economists have been talking about the ‘vibe-cession,’” and her tone deaf, elitist take on our brutal cost-of-living crisis about which she suggested, “Let’s cut that Disney+ subscription.”
No way Poilievre wouldn’t include the ramblings of “summer road trips are for torturing children by withholding bathroom breaks and burning the planet” Mark Holland: “I was the first health minister, probably the first member of parliament, who talked about the importance of pleasure in sex. What does it mean if sex isn’t affirming of who you are and isn’t pleasurable? If you don’t have that as a family value?” (Should someone check this man’s hard drive? Yeesh.)
Catherine McKenna and Steven Guilbeault received honourable mentions for their extreme climate change activism and discourse.
And of course, Wacko also included Trudeau’s shameful and idiotic blackface party photos — plus the 2013 clip of Trudeau praising the “basic dictatorship” of the Chinese Communist Party. “There is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about: having a dictatorship where you can do whatever you wanted, that I find quite interesting,” Trudeau said at the time. In retrospect, no Canadian should have been surprised by the now prime minister’s perfervid clinging to office.
No doubt Wacko delighted a subset of the Conservative base — likely the younger ones, or the ones who have moved right, or entirely defected from the left, since 2015. Me included. But for longstanding, old school or older conservatives, and the conservatives who despise the more pompous and meant-for-entertainment American-style politics — which Wacko appeared at least partly inspired by — the film could very well result in their pinching their noses at the ballot box, possibly even wondering about Poilievre’s longevity as party leader.
At the same time, we cannot dismiss that Wacko may have been Poilievre’s best and most politically astute response to the Liberal’s feigned, dramatized offense over the “wacko” slur — a slur which the Conservatives have volleyed across the House of Commons floor for several years. Liberals tried to paint Poilievre as an immature name-caller. But it’s near impossible to argue that it’s something other than wacko — utterly, troublingly wacko — for our prime minister to flippantly proclaim that our economy has nothing to do with numbers. Or that he cannot perform simple math.
It’s evident that Wacko was pre-made and ready to launch at a moment’s notice. There was no mention of the betrayal of Trudeau’s closest-ally-turned-political-flotsam Chrystia Freeland in the video, for instance. As one of the millions of Canadians who want an election now — not in October, when it is scheduled — Wacko was also a rousing indicator that there could have been some unknown (to the public) political machinations about to make our wish come true. Sadly, not the case.
In the wake of Trudeau’s announced resignation, Poilievre hit the ground running with a new video announcement to remind Canadians that it was not merely Trudeau who was our problem. It was the entire party, including any would-be next leader, he argued. Wackos abound.
In a video posted to X, Poilievre framed the Liberal caucus revolt that triggered Trudeau’s stepping down as nothing more than greed and cunning. “Their only objection is that (Trudeau) is no longer popular enough to win an election and keep them in power. They want to protect their pensions and paycheque by sweeping their hated leader under the rug months before an election. To trick you, and then do it all over again,” said Poilievre. “Everything’s out of control. And now the government’s out of control.”
And thus we carry on in our tiresome, national political purgatory.
National Post