GUNTER: Trudeau blaming Canadians for standing up to his incompetence

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Published Sep 17, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives at Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick /THE CANADIAN PRESS

There is one conclusion that stands out from Monday’s byelections in Montreal and Winnipeg: Justin Trudeau is political poison.

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It’s bad enough that Trudeau’s Liberals failed to hold on to a safe seat in the very Anglo southwest corner of the Island of Montreal.

Not only did they lose to the Bloc Quebecois, who have seldom had success so deep in Montreal’s core, they lost with a candidate who had been hand-picked by the prime minister. Trudeau suspended the democratic nomination process in the riding so he could appoint Montreal city councillor Laura Palestini as the Liberal nominee. He dismissed three local candidates who had already been selling memberships and seeking support because he was sure Palestini gave his Liberals their best chance at victory.

He was wrong, obviously. But because he intervened so openly, Monday’s loss in LaSalle–Emard–Verdun is his to wear personally.

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Trudeau’s electoral toxicity was obvious even before Monday night’s vote. Last weekend, Palestini insisted the race was “not about the PM.” She said she should be “the prime focus of this election.”

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When the Trudeau name can’t even buy you a win in Montreal, you know just how tarnished the prime minister has become.

My favourite numbers from Monday’s votes come from the riding of Elmwood–Transcona in Winnipeg.

Long an NDP stronghold, the New Democrats retained much of their vote from the last general election. In 2021, the NDP won the riding with 50% of the ballots. On Monday, they won with 48%.

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The big shift was in favour of the Conservative candidate, a unionized electrician named Colin Reynolds. In 2021, the Conservatives earned 28% of the ballots cast in Elmwood–Transcona. This time, Reynolds garnered 44%, just four percentage points shy of the New Democrat winner Leila Dance.

And it is entirely likely that had NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh not torn up his confidence agreement with the Liberals two weeks ago, guilt by association with Trudeau would have dragged down the NDP in Elmwood–Transcona, too. Trudeau’s poison spreads that far.

In Monday’s byelection, the Liberal earned less than 5% of the vote in Winnipeg, and Winnipeg has long been one of the Libs’ two power bases in the West along with Vancouver.

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The Liberals are headed for their worst national showing ever. Their previous low was in the 2011 election in which they won just 34 seats under then-leader Michael Ignatieff. They are at or below that level in current polls.

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A man with any sense of shame, decency or concern for his party would resign as leader and let someone — anyone — else try to save Liberal fortunes. (Perhaps a remote-controlled traffic cone.)

But Trudeau is a massive narcissist. Nothing is ever his fault; he and he alone is capable of turning the ship around.

Following Monday’s embarrassing losses, Trudeau said the setbacks were the fault of Canadians. They weren’t engaged enough. They didn’t understand the issues or what is at stake in the next election.

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He needed to stick around, he added, presumably so he can lead us out of our ignorance.

This is the same man who blamed his repeated use of blackface on white privilege and systemic racism white Canadians engage in. The SNC-Lavalin scandal was a “learning moment” for all of us. The concern over foreign influence in our elections and over the origins of COVID were the result of “racism.”

The failure of reconciliation, especially over bodies at Indigenous residential schools, was the result of “denialism” in the country as a whole. And the “Freedom Convoy” was a white nationalist attack on our democracy.

On issue after issue, scandal after scandal, Trudeau never believes himself to be the cause. So it is no surprise he blames voters for the very clear rejection of him contained in Monday’s byelection results.

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