Northern View

The Northern View #52: Another Miss for Justin Trudeau

Nov 20, 2024 | 8:48 AM

Apparently, there’s still only one person in Canada who thinks Justin Trudeau can get re-elected as Prime Minister next year… and of course that person is Justin Trudeau himself.

Although his party has been in power for a decade and incumbent governments are falling like dominos across the globe, Trudeau seems to believe he can convince Canadians far and wide in the next few months that he can be something entirely different than he has been time and time again.

His latest Hail Mary to resurrect his political fortunes, and fight off calls from within his party to step down, is to take a sledgehammer to our immigration system that until just recently he hailed as a crowning achievement for the nation.

Once again, his personal political ambition is taking precedence over good public policy. Unlike our former BC Premier John Horgan who was a team player and governed more by consensus, this is the ‘Trudeau Show’ and if there’s a spotlight calling, he will be the one standing under it telling Canadians that this latest u-turn will fix everything.

So my question is, if immigration levels are too high, if there are too many international students in – lets be honest here, Ontario and Quebec – because problems in Prince George don’t even matter to this government – why doesn’t Trudeau, who has all those bureaucrats at his disposal take a realistic, dare I say, accurate assessment of the full economic consequences of this new direction, and take a more measured approach?

He could cut down the numbers by 20 percent so he could say he’s “doing something” and still keep all the restaurants, retail, big box stores, colleges and our entire economy treading above water.

But international students are low hanging fruit, they don’t vote and they have few rights in this country so for a Prime Minister who seems ready to sell his soul to get re-elected, they are an easy target.

When Justin Trudeau gets asked about our nation’s greatest challenges and he has the same response as Donald Trump does – blame it on the immigrants – it’s yet another flashing red light that it’s time for change in the Prime Minister’s Office.

I’m Chris Beach and this is the Northern View.

Editors note: The views expressed in this column do not necessarily represent the views of Pattison Media.

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