A cautionary tale of ‘woke’ politics gone wrong – Firstpost
As whispers of Justin Trudeau’s resignation as Canadian Prime Minister grow louder, one cannot help but marvel at his astounding and embarrassing fall from grace. Once touted as the epitome of a modern-day “woke” and liberal leader, he now finds himself at the centre of several humiliating international diplomatic fumbles, including his ongoing tussle with India, becoming the butt of many a joke.
His harshest critics will attribute this as an obvious ending to a career that was largely driven by a need for a certain kind of optics and powered by a certain lobby for the sole purpose of virtue signalling.
On Monday, he became the first Canadian Prime Minister since 1920 to resign without losing an election or officially retiring. So, how did things go so wrong for the oft-hailed “crown prince of woke politics”?
By 2021, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada found itself in serious trouble, losing a significant number of seats in Parliament due to multiple scandals. These losses compelled Trudeau to form alliances with Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party.
In recent times, the departure of several key political supporters and allies, coupled with mounting cost-of-living pressures in Canada, has created a wave of negative publicity and discontent among Trudeau’s countrymen.
The resignation of Chrystia Freeland, his deputy prime minister and finance minister, proved to be a pivotal moment in Trudeau’s political decline. Her abrupt departure stemmed from a dispute over how to respond to the incoming Trump administration and its policies.
US President-elect Donald Trump announced plans to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian products, further escalating tensions. Trump even went so far as to suggest that Canada could become the 51st state of the United States, referring to Justin Trudeau as “Governor Justin Trudeau.” Strong words for a weak man?
The fallout between Freeland and Trudeau over how to address this looming threat was significant. Adding to the damage, Freeland, in her resignation speech, criticised the government’s recently announced tax holiday and its plan to issue $CA250 cheques to millions of families, calling it a “costly gimmick that Canada can ill afford.”
Prior to Freeland’s exit, Canada’s former housing minister Sean Fraser had also announced his resignation, further compounding Trudeau’s challenges.
Trudeau’s leadership has been marred by multiple ethics scandals that Canadian citizens have not forgotten. On 14 August 2019, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion released a damning report on the SNC-Lavalin affair, which led to the ousting of two Cabinet members, key aides to Justin Trudeau, and widespread calls for his resignation at the time.
SNC-Lavalin, a Canadian engineering company, faced charges of corruption and fraud involving nearly $48 million in payments to the Libyan government. It was alleged that Justin Trudeau and his aides pressured Jody Wilson-Raybould, the then Attorney General, to intervene in the case to spare SNC-Lavalin from prosecution.
In 2020, Trudeau and the Liberal Party faced further scrutiny over a conflict of interest concerning their contract with WE Charity to manage a $900 million student grant programme. Allegations surfaced that WE Charity was favoured due to Trudeau’s close personal ties to the organisation. It was later revealed that several of Trudeau’s family members, including his mother Margaret and then-wife Sophie, were paid six-figure sums by WE Charity for appearances.
These ethical scandals not only damaged Trudeau’s reputation but also led to several high profile resignations of his close aides. It eroded the public’s confidence in his leadership and his true intentions.
Of course, the disintegration of his marriage and his image as a devoted family man and faithful husband did not help matters either.
Adding to the embarrassment were his clumsy attempts to showcase multiculturalism. In 2019, photographs emerged of Trudeau at a 2001 party wearing “blackface”—a deeply offensive act where a light-skinned individual paints their face black to imitate African Americans or darker-skinned individuals. These images caused widespread outrage and further undermined his credibility.
He was forced to publicly apologise, and of course, he blamed his privilege. As a self-proclaimed champion of human rights and equality, his hypocrisy was exposed to Canadians and the world.
Outside these domestic tensions, who can forget his ridiculous standoff with the Indian government for several months now, after the Canadian government launched a criminal investigation against India over the alleged assassination of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Apart from expelling top Indian diplomats from Canada—an action that led to an almost complete breakdown of diplomatic relations between the former allies—Trudeau’s actions were widely perceived as being influenced by his party’s financial and political reliance on a lobby known for supporting Khalistani separatist terrorism in India.
To make matters worse, Trudeau went on to indulge in several whiny complaints against India to other world leaders, including the Jordanian King and the UAE President, a move that was viewed as laughably petty and desperate by most of the world.
By announcing his resignation on Monday, Justin Trudeau will be leaving his party without a leader before elections scheduled to take place later in the year. His party, the Liberal Party, will be forced to appoint an interim leader to take over as Prime Minister while they scramble to set up a special leadership convention. This convention could take months to arrange, and if no election occurs before then, Canada could end up with a leader who has not been directly elected by the people.
Alternatively, the Canadian government will need to prove it has the confidence of the House of Commons. If confidence measures come into play, such as votes on budgets, and the government loses even one, it will fall.
One might assume that in the event of an untimely resignation, an election campaign would commence almost immediately. What can we expect from Trudeau now? A lucrative book deal, perhaps? Soon enough, we may know the story of a man who fell victim to his own follies, and of a country left in a far worse condition than when it first placed its trust in him as its leader.
The author is a freelance journalist and features writer based out of Delhi. Her main areas of focus are politics, social issues, climate change and lifestyle-related topics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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