Justin Trudeau. Canada’s young, hip Prime Minister is all the rage with the far left. He was appointed on exceptionally progressive campaigning, and his party’s victory was considered a major upset. Since taking office, he has regularly made public statements shaming any world leaders who stand against the progressive front, and he is the ultimate darling for the young political crowd.
In his mid-40s, he still seems in touch with Canada’s youth, and he has a long potential career ahead of him. Despite all of this, his 2017 is off to a rough start, and while many progressives are loath to admit his shortcomings, he is finally taking some flak for his decisions this year.
Environmental Policy
Trudeau campaigned on the far left, and he made big promises about reducing Canada’s carbon footprint. He has even pushed legislation that, on the surface, looks like a carbon tax and progressive in nature.
Behind closed doors, the actions are very different. Trudeau has recently revitalized the Keystone XL project with the help of Donald Trump. Originally shut down by Obama, this pipeline will take crude resources from the Canadian tar sands and pump them to Texas refineries.
If you aren’t an over sensitive environmentalist, then this is good news. It will create jobs, bolster Canada’s economy and provide competitive sources for crude oil.
If you are an environmentalist, then this is an option far worse than fracking. Pound for pound, tar sands are the most carbon unfriendly way to produce oil products. The Keystone pipeline will create total emissions equivalent to 5.6 million new cars in excess to any common oil alternatives.
It doesn’t stop there. Trudeau also made big promises in regards to coal-based power production. On the campaign, he promised to rid Canada of coal power by 2030.
Now, his promise has changed considerably: all coal power plants will have carbon capture technology by 2030. As most climate change alarmists are staunchly against carbon capture methodologies, this is a big loss. It will be interesting to see how these promises change in another year or two.
Immigration
Displeasing environmentalists is an easy thing to do. Even if Trudeau had lived up to his promises, he would still receive harsh criticism from that crowd. His backpedaling on immigration is harder to dismiss. When Trump revealed his first travel pause, Trudeau was among the most outspoken against it. He publicly proclaimed that Canada would keep its borders open.
By mid-March, he had reneged. Trudeau fell into a classic progressive trap: he formed an opinion around what sounded nice rather than the reality of the situation. In response to Trump’s early crackdown on illegal immigration, thousands flocked to Canada. They saw an unprecedented spike in illegal crossings of their own borders, and having no experience in the matter, they panicked.
In the face of an immigration crises that is only one-fiftieth as bad as in the U.S., Canada cut their refugee numbers in half and completely stalled the acceptance process for Syrian and other “Trump-banned” refugees. Trudeau has been at the forefront of these changes, largely because his approval rating dropped below 50 percent for the first time when Canadians were faced with this challenge.
Foreign Policy
Promoting job growth and protecting the borders is already bad enough in the eyes of progressives, but Trudeau’s foreign policy is eerily similar to Obama’s. Like Obama, he promised to reduce Canada’s interventionism and scale back their involvement in foreign conflict.
Also like Obama, the statistics show he has done the complete opposite. Under Trudeau’s leadership, Canada has risen in the ranks to become the number two supplier of arms to the entire Middle East. That’s no small accomplishment.
While Trudeau makes proclamations about the importance of feminism, he supplies weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, where oppressive governments threaten the safety of women daily.
He has also raised the total number of Canadian soldiers on foreign deployment. Increasing presence in Iraq and Western Europe, Trudeau has pulled a full Obama and rationalized every military decision. Also eerily similar to Obama, the left has been largely silent in criticizing these militaristic decisions.
Overall, Trudeau has behaved very predictably. Progressive platforms never withstand the true tests of office because they are destructive at best. Trudeau is still far left of what would be best for Canada and their allies, but he is a far cry from the progressive darling he was supposed to be. When faced with the hard decisions of his position, he will continue to be pushed into rational choices, and that will forever peel him farther away from the progressive agenda.
Regards,
Ethan Warrick
Editor
Wealth Authority
