EDITORIAL: A dumb attempt to kill the King

Published Oct 12, 2024  •  Last updated 5 minutes ago  •  2 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to a question during a news conference in Vientiane, Laos, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo by Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press

The federal Liberals are so incompetent that if they’re really planning a regicide of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as reported in recent days, they’re doing it in the dumbest way possible.

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It was the brilliant Florentine diplomat and political strategist Niccolo Machiavelli who advised courtiers five centuries ago in his famous political treatise, “The Prince”, that if they wanted to kill the King, they best not miss in their first attempt.

As Machiavelli warned:

“Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot.

“Therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.”

By contrast, according to reports that first appeared in the Toronto Star, whoever in the Liberal caucus is behind this attempt to force Trudeau to resign as PM, is already terrified of what Trudeau and the Prime Minister’s Office will do to them.

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That’s why no one’s talking on the record. It’s all anonymous Liberals worried about losing their jobs in the next election given their dismal standing in the polls compared to Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives..

Liberal sources told the Star, CBC and other media that so far, 20 to 40 Liberal MPs are willing to put their names on a pledge calling on Trudeau to quit, following confidential meetings within the Liberal caucus, while Trudeau and his advisors were in Laos attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

That’s far less than half the Liberal caucus of 153 MPs, many loyal to Trudeau because he put them in his cabinet.

Having organizers of a potential coup talking to the media about the coup before they’re ready to trigger it, helps the PMO figure out how to kill it.

The Liberals still don’t have a national campaign director after the last one quit, despite the fact an election could come at any time and they’ve done nothing to reboot themselves since their two shock byelection defeats in Toronto and Montreal.

Finally. after nine years in power, they face the most difficult challenge for any incumbent government — most voters say it’s time for a change.

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