[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]
Dear Dr. Steve,
Trump is back in power, Poilievre is leading the polls by double digits, and the Liberals are leaderless. As we enter a new year, I fear for the political leadership of Canada and the United States. Who will guide us toward a better future?
Signed,
Apprehensive
Dear Appy,
Plenty of people! Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, for example. As wildfires devastate Los Angeles, Smith's government has passed legislation that, when officially proclaimed, will levy a $200 tax on registering electric vehicles.
This from a government that has already punished provincial clean energy projects. What next from the Smith government? Tax credits for idling pickups? Fox hunts? Fur subsidies? Funding for gas-powered toasters? Free weenie roasts in Jasper? Flying monkeys attacking Greta Thunberg, and her little dog too?
You have to hand it to Smith — unlike her soulmate Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., she managed to craft her policy positions without the benefit of a brain worm.
Lately Smith has been making Doug Ford look like a statesman. While Smith was down at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, schmoozing and perhaps putting forth her candidacy as gauleiter of the new Canadian state, Ford appeared on Fox News and elsewhere, making the point to trained seals like Fox's Jesse Watters that Canada is not for sale.
What kind of nadir have we reached when we feel inclined to rally behind the Ontario premier? But it's “choose your fighter” time, and Ford looks like the kind of scrapper one pits against Donald Trump. In a skid row bar fight with a drunken slob waving a broken bottle, you don't want a chess grandmaster.
As inauguration day approaches, Trump has been behaving like, not to put too fine a point on it, a drooling lunatic. When presidents Clinton, Obama and Trump gathered for Jimmy Carter's funeral last week, they could have swapped out “Abide with Me” for the Sesame Street song “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.”
At any rate, whatever your beliefs about the afterlife, it is absolutely certain that Donald Trump will never see Jimmy Carter again.
Would that we could say the same about Trump himself. Our collective pre-election dream was that visions of Trump would come only via fictional portrayals in movies with names like Downfall.
But no. In 2025 Trump will once again be the most powerful man in the world — at least, if Elon lets him.
Trump responded to Justin Trudeau's resignation with all the class of the manure-fed toadstool he so resembles. “Many Canadians LOVE being the 51st state,” he posted. “Justin Trudeau knew this and resigned.” The Canada-U.S. border, he said, is an “artificially drawn line.”
It figures. That Trump has no respect for boundaries is well known to almost any woman who has had the misfortune to be alone in an elevator with him.
Not just Canada, either. Having said that NATO countries should contribute more to defence, Trump then said he reserved the right to invade the territory of Denmark, a NATO country. Basically, “Stop me before I molest again.”
Meanwhile in Canada the Liberals must pick a new leader, which at this point looks like buying new sheets for a back-alley mattress. Christy Clark appears set to rush in where angels, or more credible candidates, fear to tread. Not a great start for Clark. She first denied having once joined the federal Conservatives and then, when documentary proof was produced, issued an official “Oops.” There are almost certainly photos of Clark as B.C. premier, in case she denies it.
Some believe this incident hurt her leadership chances, but did it? Maybe it helped. It's not like there were a lot of candidates anxious to replace Frodo on his mission to Mount Doom. Whoever it turns out to be, the next Liberal leader might well be referred to as “Patsy.”
Which brings us to Pierre Poilievre. The Conservative leader and currently presumptive next prime minister recently sat down for a long, cosy interview with Jordan Peterson. Peterson is the beloved right-wing philosopher whose nuggets of wisdom include telling Elmo — yes, Sesame Street Elmo — “Go fuck yourself for wanting to discriminate against white people,” saying “There is no such thing as climate,” calling Kamala Harris a “DEI Barbie” who speaks to “retarded children” and claiming feminists have “an unconscious wish for brutal male domination.”
So, the natural choice to interview was Poilievre. The results did not disappoint.
Poilievre on housing: “It should be dirt cheap because we have the most dirt. We just need to get the government out of the way.”
Parse that one, pundits. Apparently private enterprise is panting after the opportunity to build low-income housing somewhere north of Grumbler, Northwest Territories? Dirt-based units, perhaps?
Poilievre also echoed local pundit Chip Wilson in characterizing his political opponents as crypto-commies. But it was the curse of “wokeism” that inspired the most memorable quotes. Poilievre insists people come to Canada to escape “this horrendous, utopian wokeism.” It may be news to recent Syrian and Ukrainian refugees to discover why they came to this country. Hope they are grateful for their escape from political correctness.
More importantly, Peterson and Poilievre helpfully white-splained the issue of racism. “We imported and invented racism in Canada,” Peterson said.
Poilievre picked up the theme. “Wokeism seeks to divide people into different groups and subgroups,” he replied. “We see the results in a 250 per cent increase in hate crimes.”
There you have it, friends, straight from our next prime minister — hate crimes are not the result of attacks by homophobes, neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, white supremacists and the like. Hate crimes are caused by people who talk about hate crimes. Your average Nazi or Proud Boy didn't even see colour until woke liberals invented identity politics. But under Poilievre, no more of that. He even quoted Abraham Lincoln, saying he will destroy wokeism “to bind up the nation's wounds.”
That's good, because after listening to that interview the nation is probably stabbing itself in the eardrums right about now.
Who will lead us to a better future? At this point, it feels like we are strapped into the back seat of a driverless Tesla. It's scary. And if you live in Alberta, an extra $200.
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