Brad Wall is former Premier of Saskatchewan
Brad Wall at the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show on June 5, 2024. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
The undeniable truth is that Canada would be better off today had he decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Your mom likely told you what mine told me – if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. So maybe that’s why it has taken me a day to offer a few thoughts on Trudeau’s resignation announcement yesterday. I miss my Mom everyday but I’m not sure I will be able to follow her advice for this post. (On the other hand, remembering some of her comments during the Trudeau years – she might be fine with this!)
I truly believe that those who put their name forward for public office, no matter how much I might disagree with them personally and politically should be thanked for their willingness to wade into the increasingly toxic waters of politics.
But the undeniable truth is that Canada would be better off today had he decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps.
His Prime Ministership was manifestly the most divisive and economically damaging of any in our history … including the record of the elder Trudeau … who generationally knee-capped the economy of western Canada with the National Energy Program.
I dealt with this particular Trudeau in my old job at First Ministers’ Conferences, in bilateral relations and one on one discussions. He struck me as someone who was the product of an abiding central Canadian/Quebec world view with a focus on progressive trends rather than policy development or political and economic thought. That was my impression anyway.
Somewhere along the way he found and then clung to wokeism and an obsession with man-made climate change. They were very trendy things for those on the left. Shiny buttons that permanently distracted Trudeau.
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His government continues to risk our economy, our trade competitiveness and exacerbate affordability issues for all Canadians with his forced march to a carbon tax that in 4 years will be a debilitating $170.00 per tonne. All in the name of reducing Canada’s emissions that account for less than 2% of global emissions. Imagine – stubbornly pursuing a policy like his carbon tax that is that damaging – in the name of maybe, possibly reducing emissions by a quantum that will make no impact … no change on this thing you’ve sworn us all to fight – climate change. A leader shoving his citizens ahead of him into a winless fight, forcing them to pay for the costs of that fight and risking the competitiveness of the entire economy (at a time when we are now facing the threat of Trump’s tariffs).
The carbon tax is just one policy on a laundry list of damaging and often feckless policies that Trudeau has introduced in his 10 years as Prime Minister. He all but declared his disdain for the western Canadian resource sector. He never much liked how we made a living in the west; how we live by and rely on fossil fuels in rural Canada. He never respected the values that a majority of western or rural Canadians hold dear.
He, more than any PM in contemporary Canadian political history, was found wanting in ethics and third-party investigations. He chose to fire or force out strong female ministers rather than be held accountable for things he very much said … and very much did.
All this from a self-proclaimed feminist who would regularly lecture Canadians on the importance of his ‘feminist’ view.
He offered the same when it came to reconciliation, yet he failed to fulfill his promise for clean drinking water on First Nations reserves.
He demonized millions of Canadians who were represented by the Freedom Convoy or who had concerns about lock- downs and vaccine mandates – dismissing them as un-Canadian and fringe and much worse.
His fiscal record and tendencies were so bad that even the big spending, big government advocating Chrystia Freeland quit his cabinet.
People will observe that Canada has never had an NDP Prime Minister. I beg to differ.
He was unserious. He said things and believed things like “The budget will balance itself” and “I don’t think too much about monetary policy.”
Incredible.
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I recall when I was the lone Premier and Saskatchewan was the lone province opposing his carbon tax. I know the kinds of things he and his Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said about us … about Saskatchewan … behind closed doors and to some whom they believed had assured discretion.
And yet despite all of this – I did not feel as gratified as some did when the news broke yesterday. You see, yesterday was a good day for the Liberal Party of Canada. Or at least a better day than they have had in a long while. Granted the Liberals have huge hole from which to dig out but the digging could not begin until Trudeau quit.
I’d rather he had decided to lead his party into the next election. We would be much more assured of much needed change had that been the case.
Because make no mistake – with him or without him – this is a new Justin Trudeau-shaped leftwing, woke, anti-resource development Liberal party of Canada. Long gone is the pragmatism of the Chretien/Martin era. Trudeau policies for the most part will continue to be front and centre with the Liberal party long after he is gone.
I hope the Conservative Party of Canada keeps it head down, humbling asking Canadians to be their agents of much needed change, and running like they are 10 points behind – not 20 points ahead.
I believe that Canada as we have known it hangs in the balance of the next election. If somehow, we continue to have a federal government with the ghost-vestigial policies of the man who announced his departure plans yesterday … well, that would very bad for the west and not much better for the rest of the country.
So please, Conservatives – campaign like you are 10 points behind.
Have a great day.
Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on Wall’s Facebook page on Jan. 7, and by midnight it had been shared 9,400 times. Reproduced with permission.
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