A Broken Home

 

 

It's been quite awhile since I did a longform piece for the blog. Six months, in fact. But now that summer is on its way out, and our friends in Ottawa are scheduled to go back to school, I decided to hit up the home page again —and talk about some repairs that need to be made in the House...

. . .

The tenants are restless and threatening eviction

The Liberals' poll numbers went from middling but competitive this spring, even outperforming in a series of by-elections, to all of a sudden a total pit over the summer. And it is causing your Miss Fuddle Duddle to panic to the point of borderline suicidality. While the unexpected plummet isn't necessarily a permanent doldrum, there are some important things that need to be fixed in order to climb out of the basement.

Priority number one: doing something (and then letting people know about it) to balance out the housing market that has benefited some while pricing out the bulk of young up-and-comers and new arrivals looking for a homestead.

And if the Liberals don't do that, then they're headed for eviction themselves.

I don't want this to happen. I am in fact terrified that this will happen.

I want to believe, however, that they do recognize the necessity and are going to move on it. Justin Trudeau did some renovations of his own this summer, and remodeled his cabinet. The handyman in charge of the housing file is a strapping young Maritimer by the name of Sean Fraser, who seems to be a go-getter and recognizes the imminent need.

Whether the reno job of the general real estate market shows enough progress in the span of less than two years, however, remains to be seen.

If there's anything hopeful to hang onto, however: it's that they are still putting the finishing touches on a new set of blueprints, to be unveiled this fall, and that they invited some expert repair guys to give some advice on how to actually do the job. For what it's worth, their junior sidekick in Parliament, Jagmeet Singh, is keen to impress upon the Liberals what he would like to see get done.

And hopefully that lays a good foundation and some "good bones" to build back better.

FUBAR to fabulous? (Well, maybe not)

The other "gut" reno that needs to be talked about is the incomprehensible fakeover of the otherwise detestible Pierre the Putz Poilievre. Now I have had several back-and-forth dialogues with folks who say that he, himself, is not the source of his own appeal (or whatever you might call it), but clearly, whatever his "team" is doing to give him the phony appearance of a Potemkin family man with Bill Clinton "feel your pain" empathy is effective, to some extent.

A poll out this week will claim to show that, beyond voting intentions obviously favouring the CPC (at this moment), his personal approval ratings are in the net positives, for the first time since he rode the convoy all the way through to become the latest rat king of the Con Artist Party.

How could this be happening? This man is on record in the chamber as implying that the prime minister was a pedophile. He brought coffee and pastries to unlawful insurrectionists who are soon to go on trial, and became the star of their psycho circus. He used a racist slur on the floor of Parliament. Now all of a sudden he's peachy keen, he's father of the year, he's a nice guy and he "gets" the "ordinary people"?

How could people forget?

I will say first and foremost that the Liberals are in dire need of an upgrade (massive overhaul, really) of their messaging apparatus, because to say it's not working is an understatement. (It's AWOL.)

But I will say also that within these same recent back-and-forth dialogues, I have been told that right now is "not the time" for people to be reminded of just how awful Skippy really is (because they'll just forget again in a couple of years) — but that they will be, and not a moment too soon.

Home is where the heart... was

But perhaps the saddest news to come out of the Liberal woes this summer was the announcement that after eighteen years of marriage, Justin and Sophie Trudeau have decided to separate. Tongues wagged and the couple's most vicious haters expressed all kinds of schadenfreude and conspiracy theories, but it doesn't seem to have deterred them from maintaining a different kind of close relationship — as the old saying goes, to stay together for the kids.

My friend Simon wrote endearingly of them in a recent post, and how tragic and disturbing the environment in which they tried their best to keep a positive outlook and a sense of semblance as a family. But at some point the pressures just got to be too great, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. Sophie has spoken about trying to shield her children from the viciousness of the convoy crew. In back and forth dialogues, friends of mine who follow her on social media have expressed concern that she, herself, was being bullied online, that her own posts were growing increasingly worrisome over her mental health and that some of the responses had veered into sexual harassment.

What a horrible thing to have to live through when all you want is to help people who may be struggling with their own psychological woes, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic and amid the converging disasters of a financial crunch, a seemingly endless war, and climate catastrophe that is only going to get worse.

Sophie deserved better, and Justin does too. The silver lining is that the separation was amicable and they will remain close, and that Justin no longer has the weight of his marital strife on his mind as he prepares to head back to work for what is undoubtedly going to be the most challenging headwinds he has faced over the course of his whole career. Sophie is back to posting on social media, but seems to be taking it slow — and probably has more leeway to use the block button, now that she's not an official functionary of government.

The other silver lining is that Justin still is in good spirits, and knows how to trigger the cons.

 

 

A haunted house of demons and ghosts

The housing market, the House of Commons, and the Trudeau family domestic life aren't the only houses facing cracks in the façade. So too, is the official residence that Justin Trudeau grew up in, where Pierre Trudeau lived as prime minister, and where Margaret Trudeau once termed "the crown jewel of Canada's penitentiary system." The house on 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa is often compared to 10 Downing Street in London or the White House in Washington D.C., in that it is considered the official residence of the head of government and shorthand for the office itself.

But Justin Trudeau has never lived there while prime minister, because a bizarre quirk of Canadian culture has ensured that it remains unlivable. Canadians are humble to a fault, expect their leaders to be as well, and find the idea of their prime ministers spending money to repair the official residence to be a selfish indulgence. They do not tend to hold such items as "heritage buildings" in high regard, sentimentality or a hallmark of the landscape.

This prime minister in particular is often thought vulnerable to accusations and depictions that he is an out-of-touch elitist who lives extravagantly on the public dime. Never mind that it is conservatives who do that with wild abandon, and face almost no repercussions from their pet press or cognitively dissonant voter base. That same parsimonious conservative press begrudges Justin Trudeau the amenities that the leader of a modern, Western, G7 nation ought to have, because they have partnered with the conservatives to push a framing that these are "his" luxuries, rather than amenities for any occupant of the office.

So 24 Sussex has been rendered permanently uninhabitable, and continues to sit in a sad state of limbo. The prime minister's plane dates to the 1980s and is probably held together with so much duct tape that Red Green would be saying it's time to get a new one. No such "Air Force One" is permitted for a "proper" Canadian PM, especially this one, who is expected to live in a tent city or a trailer park because he's "somebody" and needs to be brought down a peg.

And all the more so now because Canada (like other countries) is in the midst of a post-COVID housing crunch and because the populist prick living in luxuriant Stornoway has the nerve to lean into this absurd framing just to score votes among the irrational and ill-informed.

Tall poppy syndrome is pathological in the Canadian psyche. It destroyed a marriage and continues to deprive a humanitarian leader of a proper home befitting the office he represents. No matter, say angry people responding to push polls and the pet press that juices their unfounded opinions borne of jealousy. If he wants to live in a nice house, they say, then he can by all means do so as a private citizen, and we'll evict him from office so that he can go house hunting elsewhere out of his own damn pockets.

But they won't say boo about Pierre Poilievre building himself a pigeon coop made of gold.

It's been said that Justin Trudeau himself bears no personal attachment to the home he grew up in. That may be true, at least while it still stands. And Canadians themselves at the moment may be expressing ambivalence or outright hostility to him and to his government.

But will that still be the case if one or both are gone?

I would rather not find out!

When all else fails, break glass

I'm just going to say it one more time. Because I have said it innumerable times on the Twitter-X app, and in back-and-forth dialogues with pen pals I have met through the Twitter-X app, some who I have grown very close with and consider to be friends even though we have not met in person.

Justin Trudeau, please, fix whatever needs to be fixed as a priority to be fixed.

Because as the old song says: I can't live, if living is without you.

And if the worst should happen... then I'm on my way, I'm on my way...  

Home sweet home.

Willful Blindness

I haven't posted here in awhile because I've been fatigued by personal matters. It's been a longer while since I wrote for my media criticism blog (and boy, does #cdnmedia deserve a fish-slapping). But I was so angry about the coverage of another fake nontroversy, "ChinaGhazi," that I wrote to the CBC...

. . .

The following is a letter that I emailed to CBC ombudsman Jack Nagler (ombud@cbc.ca if anyone else wishes to contact), regarding many issues of "willful blindness" in their breathless, nonstop coverage of this chow mein sandwich of a nothingburger. I can't do much about the far worse coverage being dealt out by the CBC's private sector competitors, but at the very least I can urge the national broadcaster to do better.

. . .

To whom it may concern:

 

I am writing to express dismay about several issues with the coverage that your network has demonstrated with regards to allegations of influence (or “interference,” the words incorrectly interchanged) by the government of China or suspected “proxies” in Canadian elections.

 

First, I would like to draw your attention to a tweet made by CBC reporter Janyce McGregor on March 2, 2023, in response to testimony by David Morrison, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Ms. McGregor stated, “‘Intelligence is not truth’ is a heck of a thing for GAC’s DM David Morrison to say at this point in the conversation around foreign interference.” A screenshot of the tweet is included in this email.

 

 

I find Ms. McGregor’s hostile and dismissive tone ("a heck of a thing") towards the Deputy Minister to be disrespectful as well as inaccurate. Several other national security experts, including Stephanie Carvin, Mubin Shaikh, and Jess Marin Davis, have said the same thing: intelligence is not evidence, and mere allegations should not be treated as fact. Ms. McGregor’s comments on her social media page make it seem as though her personal views are coloring her ability to be impartial and objective when covering this story. The government is entitled to a fair hearing in the court of public opinion, as is any defendant in a courtroom, which they have not gotten thus far.

 

Second, I would like to express my disgust that the CBC continues to address a matter which has significance to the Chinese Canadian population, through reporting and political “pundit panels” that have for the most part excluded Chinese Canadians from the discussion. A notable exception is the dialogue between Power & Politics presenter David Cochrane (an excellent overall choice for this program) and activist Cherie Wong, on the episode dated March 3, 2023. But nearly every other political discussion program, from the “At Issue” panel on The National, to CBC Sunday and Rosemary Barton Live, has omitted or sidelined the voices of Chinese Canadians, which are not a monolith on this issue any more than Indigenous people were a monolith on the Wet'suwet'en matter or the media circus centred around Ms. Wilson-Raybould. Instead, these programs have chosen the “comfortable” path of enlisting the same half-dozen or so white commentators and columnists the network apparently has on speed dial, rather than inviting people from affected communities to offer differing perspectives on issues which affect them personally. Yet no story regarding the federal government's environmental policies' supposed impact upon western Canada is bereft of a perspective from western Canadians (and usually one representing interests of the legacy energy sector). No story about Quebec is bereft of Quebecers on the panel. Yet coverage of an issue pertinent to Chinese Canadians has been practically devoid of Chinese Canadians?

 

As part of CBC’s stated commitment to diversity in the form of representation, I urge you to consider the impact that your reporting is having on the Chinese Canadian community, and to actively seek out members and give them space to discuss matters which are important to them. A good place to start would be through the journalistic collective NuVoices (NuVoices.com; @NuVoices on Twitter). Please do not only seek out those voices which are supportive of the prevailing and simplistic narrative that the federal Liberals are “guilty” of something, but a diversity of opinions representative of a broad sample of this community. Please also consider the likelihood that the narrative in and of itself being presented carries with it racist assumptions of “dual loyalty” that places a target upon Chinese Canadians, who have faced unprecedented vitriol stemming from conspiracy theories surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ramping up of McCarthyite smears as Western countries sleepwalk into a new Cold War. This thread, by Simrath Grewal, a senior consultant with Earnscliffe Strategies, gives an excellent explanation of why calling out these kind of smears (as the prime minister recently did) is not “playing the race card.”

 

https://twitter.com/simrath/status/1630415248250531840

 

Third, I would like to state how frustrated I am that the “narrative” surrounding this story rests upon the unproven allegations leaked — in violation of Canadian law, at that — to just two journalists whose reporting has been historically suspect, yet who nevertheless have an outsized level of “respect” in Canadian political journalism to the point that their credulous and “torqued” reporting gets taken at face value as inerrant fact. Global News’ Sam Cooper appears to have made it his entire beat to focus entirely on this kind of “yellow peril” campaign that has at times seen him playing fast and loose with the facts and unfounded assumptions. The Globe & Mail’s Robert Fife, meanwhile, most notoriously and infamously relied on credulous intelligence leaks in the case of Maher Arar, an innocent Muslim Canadian who ended up facing imprisonment and torture at Guantanamo Bay, largely based upon outright untruths which were leaked to Mr. Fife at the height of the Bush administration’s blanket targeting of Muslims. It is imperative that media literacy, as a function of informing Canadians and presenting fairness and balance on important subjects, includes critical thinking about the individuals a media outlet chooses to platform, which also includes examining their track record and, if necessary, taking their claims (which are still “claims”; again, intelligence is not evidence) with a grain of salt.

 

Mr. Cooper’s own Wikipedia page indicates that he made similar, and unproven, allegations of “Beijing influence” against Canadian senator Yuen Pau Woo and Simon Fraser University professor Andy Yan, allegations which the individuals in question have strongly denied, and indeed rebuked Mr. Cooper for, as they have stated, failing to seek comment from them so as to defend against these allegations on record. Recently, in a tweet, he accused former provincial member of the Ontario parliament, Michael Chan, of being a “kingmaker” in the Liberal Party, and heavily insinuated that there was something suspicious behind prime minister Justin Trudeau inviting him to a rally for his then-leadership bid — in Mr. Chan’s riding of Markham, which has a large Chinese Canadian constituency. The idea that a member of parliament campaigning in his own riding is somehow suspect is so credulous as to be absurd; the idea that it is suspect when a politician from a particular ethnic background does it is implicitly racist. That Mr. Cooper has now made these same unproven allegations against federal Liberal MP Han Dong is again a continuation of this dual loyalty smear. The prime minister's riding of Papineau in Quebec is home to many Haitian Canadians; it would be equally credulous, absurd, and racist to suspect a Haitian Canadian organizer within the Liberal Party to be a "kingmaker" acting on behalf of, say, loyalists to the Duvalier regime. One recalls also the ugly smears of former Liberal MP Maryam Monsef as being a covert agent of Iran.

 

Mr. Cooper appears to be pushing this story so hard so as to generate publicity for his book Willful Blindness; if Mr. Cooper wishes to advertise for his material (which arguably rises to the level of conspiracy theories, and are indeed feeding quite a few of them in the Wild West world of online disinformation), he should not be using the national broadcaster as a billboard to generate sales. Perhaps he should check his own willful blindness as to how his breathless and sloppy reportage is placing a target on innocent people and a community that has already suffered so much through no fault of their own. One hopes that the CBC would not have the same willful blindness towards Jewish people being accused of “foreign influence” or any other marginalized group for that matter. It is imperative, particularly at a time of rising extremism, that journalists use the lessons of history to inform their reporting in the here and now.

 

As for Mr. Fife, his abhorrent record of being the receptacle for credulous “leaks” that damage the reputations of innocent people has been making the rounds on social media this weekend. I do not believe the CBC should be platforming Mr. Fife without heavy pushback and questioning of his allegations, considering how this same pattern affected Maher Arar nearly twenty years ago. Mr. Fife was never held accountable for his role in what Mr. Arar endured as a result of sloppy reporting and taking unfounded allegations at face value. As a refresher on Mr. Fife's track record I would refer you to this excellent article published in The Walrus in 2006, "Hear No Evil, Write No Lies."

 

https://thewalrus.ca/hear-no-evil-write-no-lies/

 

Mr. Fife also admitted in a 2019 interview with Vassy Kapelos the the has a history of “torquing” his reporting; the video has since been deleted from the CBC website, but was salvaged by a viewer and has made the rounds on social media (I believe it should be put back on CBC's website in the interest of transparency, because to delete this clip makes the network's own motives in covering for Mr. Fife highly suspect). I also believe that the CBC should bring up this case if Mr. Fife is mentioned as the publisher of these allegations. Again this goes back to Ms. McGregor’s comments regarding intelligence vs. evidence, and what the actual national security community defines as the former vs. the latter. Time and time again innocent people have been convicted in actual courts, as well as the court of public opinion, over mere allegations that turn out to be untrue.

 

Fourth, and finally, and again getting back to the issue of willful blindness and placing a target upon the backs of marginalized communities, I would also like to express disappointment in the fact that the meeting between members of the Conservative Party with a far-right member of the European Parliament, Christine Anderson, herself a member of the “Alternative for Germany” party that has been linked to terrorism plots in that country, and incorporated neo-Nazi ideology and imagery in its campaigning, has all but dropped off the radar, while repetitive coverage of this China affair continues to blanket the airwaves. The fact that mere allegations, and vague ones at that, of “foreign influence” by and upon Liberal politicians who are not white, remains top of the headlines and the subject of countless “pundit panels,” while the Conservative Party’s continued dalliances with white nationalist elements continue to be buried and ignored, is in fact horrifying.

 

It feels to many observers that the national broadcaster does not take seriously the threat of far-right influence and the increasing radicalization of the Conservative Party in near-lockstep with its Republican cousins in the United States. At least it does not appear to be taken as seriously as stories of “exotic” threats supposedly worming their way through the Liberal Party of Canada or even its junior partners, the New Democrats. As an example, I will point to this Toronto Star article which denounces the double standard applied to NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s supposed sympathies toward the Khalistan separatist movement, versus the silence on former prime minister Harper’s history with the far-right “Northern Foundation” organization. Mr. Harper’s influence still looms large upon the Conservative Party. and it is perfectly fair to question Mr. Poilievre or any other Conservative MPs about where exactly their sympathies lie.

 

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2018/03/21/jagmeet-singh-coverage-an-extreme-double-standard-on-extremism.html

 

Where are the stories about Mr. Harper’s rubbing elbows through the IDU network with the likes of Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán of Hungary, who has become a darling of the American right-wing and even delivered keynote speeches at American conservative gatherings? Where is the blanket coverage of Russian involvement with the so-called "Freedom Convoy" (and Russia by way of the U.S. Republican Party), as documented extensively by independent investigative journalists such as Caroline Orr-Bueno, Luke LeBrun, and Justin Ling? Where are the pundit panels, the episodes of Fifth Estate, that talk about the influence that American acolytes of former president Trump such as Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Gosar, and Paul Alexander had on the convoy and its star attraction, the now opposition leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre?

 

Where are the endless panels of discussion condemning Conservative Party MPs for appearing upon Fox News political programs, which feature such luminaries of the movement as Tucker Carlson calling for an invasion of Canada from the United States? For that matter, where is the condemnation of foreign influence by American-owned news outlets, namely the PostMedia network, and calls to have it shuttered as being the "Yankeefied" equivalent to The Epoch Times? As one person phrased it on Twitter recently, drawing upon Pierre-Elliott Trudeau’s invocation of a large and looming beast in close proximity to a smaller neighbor (shades of Russia and Ukraine come to mind), are people so frightened of the paper dragon that they have forgotten about the elephant in the bed? In other words, is the press coverage in Canada, including by its national broadcaster, exhibiting such “willful blindness” to the threat of foreign influence by the United States because it is from an “allied” country rather than an “adversary,” or because the perpetrators and their beneficiaries are primarily white?

 

In closing, I urge the CBC to do better than its private-sector counterparts, and to live up to its stated values and really make an undertaking to correct the record and address these glaring issues with its coverage. It would be tragic to do a disservice to Canadians by not reporting the whole story of foreign encroachment upon its political discourse simply because there are bandwagons to jump on and narratives to maintain.

 

I thank you for your attention to all of these matters and I hope you will take these concerns under consideration.

 

. . .

There, I've said my piece; I feel better. It's up to them whether they choose to care.

Horse Race of the Apocalypse

Another reminder that polls are for dogs and horse races are full of road apples. You know the old clichés: campaigns matter, the only poll that matters is election day, and so on. Those clichés are actually true, so in case the received wisdom didn't stick the first few thousand times, here it is again...

. . .

Last week (or maybe it was a couple weeks by now?), all of #cdnpoli twitter was, well, a-twitter about a poll from CTV's resident malakas, Nik Nanos, declaring that the Conservatives were in the lead by a whopping seven points. This week, that same firm has a statistical tie, Quebec's own Léger shows roughly the same, and (cough) *Calgary's own* Abacus Data claims to be showing what Nanos did then. (Might be worth taking into account this little tidbit provided by a commenter reacting to these juiced results.)

Really don't know how relevant this is however Abacus Polling is owned and operated by David Coletto who is a poli sci grad of the University of Calgary who was attending the school while Barry Cooper was/is the poli sci professor. Barry Copper is one of the chief advisors of Danielle Smith, the infamous Premier of Alberta. 

Predictably, Ezra Levant's former bicycle messenger David Coletto fed the firm's February doom and gloom to the ToryStar, to manufacture a narrative of Justin Trudeau's "shelf life" rapidly approaching its expiry date.

Guess what: This poll matters just as much for the final outcome of an election in two years as Nanos, Léger, or spaghetti thrown at a wall, and I'm not the only one to say so. Evan Scrimshaw, Canada's political wunderkind, said pretty much the same thing, and it still sticks. Just replace Nanos with Abacus (or whichever agency you're directing your ire at this week), in his recent piece about the ups and downs of the "poller-coaster."

Nothing happening in the polls right now matters fuck all for the next election. It might be fun to watch anyways, but it’s not important, it’s just fun. Just don’t pretend it actually matters.

And he would be right (which is understandably why he retweeted it today, in response to that Star article and the attendant "exclusive poll," which shows a total reversal of their previous numbers, as does Nanos in the opposite direction, which is why I find it hard to believe any of this movement one way or the other is attributable to anything but random bouncing noise and media barons cooking the books).

Abacus Léger this week shows essentially no change from 2021, but shock of all shocks, the media is running with Nanos Abacus, because of course they are. 

Go read that article on Scrimshaw Unscripted if you haven't already, then go read it again, and again. Perhaps Susan Delacourt and the rest of the tired pundits whose shelf lives expired decades ago, should go and read it, and so should the morally bankrupt pollsters themselves, who make a dishonest living feeding predetermined narratives to their partners in the equally decrepit public press.

 

 

I used to freak out about this poll or that poll until I started taking everything they had to say with a hefty heaping of salt. Oddly enough, all those grains of salt have lowered my blood pressure. 

I'm not going to panic about anything until the fall of 2025, and you shouldn't either. How'd the GOP red wave predictions turn out? All those junk polls pushed to hiveminded pundits, with the intent of voter suppression benefiting the party that would lower taxes on the media ownership class, didn't turn out the way they said they would, did they? When the pedal hits the metal, "Senator Herschel Walker" will go down in the long list of losers with "Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre."

 

Scrimshaw nails it:

If you think Justin Trudeau should be leading in the polls right now you have a shakier grasp on reality than you should. Inflation is high, interest rate hikes are squeezing homeowners, and we are all collectively still feeling the effects of a pandemic which, let’s be honest here, we have not properly reckoned with the toll of. Be it the grief of lost love ones, the regrets of missed moments, or the tragedy of isolation, the pandemic has our people, and our country, on edge. Expecting everyone to love their government right now is a bit much. ... Polls at midterm of a government are not often useful as a predictive metric, because polls at midterm tend to be referendums on the incumbents.

Key words: "right now." February always seems to be the cruelest month for this government, and at least Delacourt takes note of that: Trump's election, the ministerial temper tantrum heard around the world, vaccine kerfuffles, and yes, a convoy cavalcade of clown cars with a pigeon for the hood ornament. Did it mean anything at the end of the day? No. A temperature check is just that, not a forecast for the future. To extend the analogy, this coming weekend is supposed to hit a frigid chill of minus-five (in Yankee measurement) with "feels like" wind chills of twenty-five below. By Monday, it's going to be in the fifties. I can't translate Fahrenheit into Canadian centigrade, but you get the point: a temperature check for the time being is not a forecast for the future.

 

The only "perfect storm" worth worrying about is in the fall of 2025. Until then, you're better off hibernating like a groundhog, rather than fretting over six more weeks of riding the pollercoaster. Sunny ways will be here again. Right now your best bet is to settle down for a midwinter's nap.

Please, Hammer, Don't Hurt Him

New year, same old problems, even in once-friendly Canada—and they seem to be getting worse. Bigly. Fascism is on the rise again and it must be hammered out. Now is the time for all good peoplekind to come to the aid of their country. We have nothing to fear, but stupidity, apathy, and mendacity itself...

. . .

Parliament returns this week, after a much-needed winter break. 2022 was... not the best of times, but it was the worst of times, in a year that would live in infamy that saw an ornery pigeon lay his claim to the title of Leader of Her/His/Their/Heirself Majesty's (Dis)loyal Opposition, on the back of a great big convoy.

The pigeon is still there, but after Justin Trudeau invoked the spirit of his father, the convoy is gone, and it won't be coming back.

Or is it?

Much of the motivation behind last year’s mass protest — those vaccine mandates — are gone, which some supporters of the convoy regard as a victory of the Ottawa occupation and border blockades. That’s obviously an overreach. COVID isn’t gone, but Canada, like the rest of the world, seems to be learning to live with it without lockdowns.

One other big demand of the protesters — the ouster of Trudeau — obviously didn’t happen, and judging from the small demonstrations in Windsor and Hamilton the past couple of weeks, that’s still annoying an angry knot of Canadians. But is that sentiment rampant enough to paralyze a capital and a country again?

Hopefully not, but that doesn't mean there aren't determined (and dangerous) factions willing to try. As one such shit disturber from Rebel Not-News captured with his cell phone camera (and probably had a hand in stirring up, as his "publication" is wont to do).

The angry mob accosting Justin Trudeau outside the Liberal cabinet retreat in Hamilton, Ontario — a city known as "The Hammer" for its working-class demographics and steely grit — is just a fraction of what this prime minister has been faced with over the past seven, going on eight, years of his tenure. Aggressive populism is an exponentially worsening and spreading pandemic virus in its own right, and it is sweeping countries and toppling progressive leaders across the world.

Like Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, who unexpectedly resigned to look after her own wellbeing amid an excruciating onslaught of misogynistic and violent rhetoric coming from the same kind of far-right hate movements as spawned the Christchurch attack in 2019. (An attack which, it should be noted, was inspired by the Quebec City mosque massacre, which itself was fueled by the same kind of people currently attacking Justin Trudeau's newly appointed envoy to counteract anti-Muslim hatred.)

 

Or Paul Pelosi, the husband of now-retired former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. He was  literally attacked with a hammer, by a home intruder who planned to hold the then-Speaker hostage and force her to "tell the truth" about the 2020 election — in other words, force her to cop to Trump's "Big Lie."

Perhaps the most jarring element of this phenomenon is the stubborn unwillingness of mainstream news outlets to properly confront and identify its origins and its most troublesome instigators. In the name of "fairness and balance," we are treated to lofty op-eds in the national papers about why Liberal MPs are "nervous" ("policy gaffes," apparently, and the old "shelf life" canard, rather than death threats), and why Justin Trudeau and Pierre the Pyromaniac Poilievre are equally to blame for the coarsening of rhetoric (and, not, you know, the one guy from the one party who has been courting and playing footsie with violent terrorists for votes).

And of course, we are treated to the disconnected, depersonalized stats analysis of moneyball push pollsters. which in turn feeds into intellectually bankrupt horse-race coverage from the same decrepit fourth estate.

I, for one, am tired of it all, and I know I'm not alone.

The question is what, if anything, can be done about it.

Well, from my vantage point in the country long known as the meth lab from which this virus escaped, all I can say is: read widely, consider the source(s), and most importantly, talk to people in person (if you can) outside the black screen of an anonymous online handle. Good fences make good neighbours, and the best antidote to the lies and spin of political shysters and their bought media is a good old-fashioned face-to-face conversation.

(And the local police on speed dial, if — heaven forbid — diplomacy fails, and the folksy down-home conspiracy nut next door decides he wants to LARP as Lee Harvey Oswald.)

There's an old saying — well, a lot of old sayings, actually — that come to mind here: when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; some people aren't the sharpest tools in the toolbox; any way you look at it, everybody's getting screwed, etc. etc. I won't belabour tired clichés or catch phrases picked up at the local hardware store. But I will say that the prime minister has a way with words, and once more... he's hit the nail on the head:

A handful of angry people do not define what Hamilton is -- or what democracy is. ... We're going to continue to be out there. We're not going to let a handful of angry people interfere with the democratic processes that Canadians have always taken pride in.

Fascism must be hammered out everywhere it rears its ugly head. And so I think I'm going to stick with that heartfelt handyman, rather than the soft-head in a hard hat having problems with his wood.