vwcarmats:

Look guys, I appreciate the humour in the whole “our new PM Trudeau is hot ayy lmao” thing but he has a majority and a bad track record in delivering on promises for political convenience. (PS I make note of federal because the same party at federal and provincial/territorial levels can be shockingly different beasts.)

His most infamous flip flop is probably how he voted through C-51 with the promises of amendments, at a time his party was not even the opposition. Why did he do this?

“I do not want this government making political hay out of an issue … or trying to, out of an issue as important as security for Canadians,” Trudeau said. “This conversation might be different if we weren’t months from an election campaign, but we are,” he added. [source]

In other words, he sacrificed social rights of non-”Old Stock” Canadians, the privacy of all, and granted government law enforcement agencies unprecedented power, all so he wouldn’t face criticism over weak security in the elections. He should have know Harper would exercise the powers of this bill in the interim but it was of less import to him.

Probably his most famous promise leading up to this election is the decriminalization of marijuana. Yet when the Conservatives introduced Bill-15 which would make amendments meaning mandatory prison time for possession,

Quebec MP Justin Trudeau, now the front-runner in the race for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, voted in favour of the measure in 2009. [source]

Then, just in July this year,

“I’ve committed to continuing to run balanced budgets,” Trudeau told Liberal supporters at a rally in Markham, Ont. earlier this summer.  “In fact, it is Conservatives who run deficits, Liberals balance budgets. That’s what history has shown.” [source, as with quote in paragraph below]

But as he drove home in the debates to Canadians he knows are sick of austerity measures, “He’d run deficits of up to $10 billion a year until 2019.” What history has shown is that the federal Liberals campaign to the Left and act to the Right. They are widely considered Centrist but in practice, looking to the evidence, this is false and they are right of centre at best.

All this is to say, enjoy the afterglow of post-Harper Canada! Rejoice in the fact that our country’s leader will be the handsomest in the room at summits! But don’t give him slack for it either. Watch him just as hard as (or even harder than) you have with Harper.  Or if you weren’t a watcher of democracy before the gross vulgarities of the Harper regime came to light, now is a great time to start*. Trudeau has important promises to keep. He will probably have to meet the official Tory opposition halfway at times (bleh!) and you will have to decide whether these concessions are acceptable to you or not.

Best case scenario, he did what he had to to gain power and will now be honest and progressive because he can. I certainly hope so.

*I personally recommend The Tyee and the Council of Canadians’ Newsletters. Full disclosure, Tyee has a leftist bent that much of the time favours the NDP & Green parties.

ryanrambling:

cykthoughts:

I met Justin Trudeau just over 5 years ago, in April 2010. Still a student at Bishop Carroll High School, I was incredibly grateful to attend the Forum for Young Canadians in our nation’s capital, a week-long meeting of like-minded high school students from across Canada, taking part in some really cool stuff.


I was a man much younger than I am right now; fifteen years old, not terribly tall, and, judging by the side to side comparison with Justin’s glorious mane, not the best head of hair either. I was skeptical of Justin at the time, but very eager to get my picture with an up-and-coming MP who very well could be Prime Minister one day! Clearly, I was a modern-day Nostradamus.


Lining up to get my photo taken with him, I was highly skeptical of Justin Trudeau. Coming from a family affected by the elder Trudeau’s destructive and highly-anti-Alberta policies, I was curious what he would say when he heard I was from suburban Calgary.


Indeed, as soon Justin shook my hand and heard my answer to “where are you from,” he launched into quite the diatribe. “Oh, I LOVE Alberta! It’s just about my favorite part of the country, and I always love when I can get out there…” He added he was going to be in Lethbridge in a few weeks, which obviously convinced me he couldn’t have been serious. Mere months later, Justin was on Quebec television blasting Albertans as poor choices for Canadian leadership (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEyjgn6zD5Q). So much for that Trudeau warmth.


Of course, I’m a huge fan of the democracy and freedom we have in Canada, and I’m even more impressed that our voter turnout nationwide has managed to inch past the two-thirds mark for the first time in a while. We elected what we elected and, in its simplest sense, it’s a beautiful and wonderful thing. I can’ fault Canadians for electing a Liberal majority. But we’ll get what we voted for.


I know you can’t lay the sins of a father at the feet of a son, but I don’t take Justin’s pro-Alberta act on the campaign trail as legitimate. Albertans, and Western Canadians to a somewhat larger and/or lesser extent, don’t get a fair shake in this country. Period. Our new Prime Minister may talk a good game about how much Alberta and its people matter in the next four years, but it’s the exact same line that was spouted by Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, and Paul Martin. We all know how those national relationships worked out. Mr. Harper didn’t really do as much for the West as he could have, or should have.


Beyond that, will all Canadians really see REAL change?! Looking at the supporting cast of elected Liberals besides Justin, his future cabinet will likely just be a repeat of the Chretien and Martin-era old boys clubs. Stephane Dion, Ralph Goodale, Scott Brison, Andrew Leslie… so much for Justin’s fresh pitch. Don’t think for a second Kent Hehr or Darshan Kang will be a shoe-in for cabinet, either. The same corrupt bunch who got the Liberals turfed a decade ago, are back to run the store. The NDP, ideology aside, was the only party that offered a fresh slate of policymakers. Think about it…


Nenshi in City Hall, Notley in Edmonton, and Trudeau in Ottawa… buckle up Alberta! 2019 is a long ways off…

What an absolutely fascinating stance this young man has taken. 

Firstly I would like to admonish you of any guilt for style as a fifteen year old. We were all weird looking back then.

I think we all have a concern about the safety of Alberta with a different government, but you touched on my stance on this. So many uninformed right wing individuals tout what a great friend of the west Prime Minister Harper was, but has he really done all that much for us? Not really.

We have to consider it pragmatically: Ottawa doesn’t need the West. You can govern the country (with a majority) without a single seat in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. And that’s just how it is. 

I’m not a Liberal (full disclosure I’m actually an exec of the UCalgary NDP) but I think we can give them a chance. We’ve had a lot of change as Albertans, and specifically as young Albertans we’ve had the same provincial and federal government for all our teen years and before provincially. We’ll get used to this change. 

Regardless of the ideology of the original poster this is a good example of how two-faced and political Justin Trudeau can be.