We’ll all pay price for Trudeau’s grandstanding

Hopefully he bought five copies for his mother — as Dr. Hook famously sang — when Justin landed on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

Yes, our superstar prime minister graced this month’s edition of that iconic magazine in the latest example of public adoration of our top public servant.

“Why Can’t He Be Our President” drooled the frontpage headline. (“Because he was born in Canada and thereby ineligible according to your own Constitution” is likely too convoluted an answer for those now running that once glorious magazine).

Now it’s doubtful that reading Rolling Stone is high on the agenda of any of the hundreds of Haitian folk who’ve illegally flooded across our border lately. But undoubtedly they’ve heard of Trudeau.

After all, it was he who, responding to Donald Trump’s nasty, ham-fisted attempt at a Muslim travel ban six months ago, famously tweeted in response: “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #WelcometoCanada.”

Of course, this was pure showmanship. The buried truth was his own government, a bare month earlier, cut this year’s allowance of private refugee sponsorships to Canada to a mere thousand, even though various charitable and religious groups were ready to help settle many times that number fleeing the war zones of Syria and Iraq.

But by then, that hug-a-Syrian-refugee photo op was old. It was time to move on for our selfie king until the tweeter-in-chief across the border provided a golden chance to steal world headlines and burnish the PM’s image.

Hey, that’s politics — the federal Grits have played that game better and longer than any party in modern western civilization. Who cares if some of the most desperate people on the planet actually believe our prime minister and imagine Canada is waiting with open arms, along with a limitless budget.

So they started arriving, crossing the border in Manitoba and Quebec, not at the official checkpoints but following well-worn tracks across open fields so as not to be turned back.

It looked as though numbers arriving illegally might level off until the U.S. announced that the 50,000 Haitians living there under temporary protection following the 2010 earthquake might not have that status renewed. Social media lit up, as it tends to do these days, and the message went out — nip off sharpish to Canada. You’re welcome there. (Our caring, sharing government had already done what the U.S. was only threatening by voiding a similar temporary status for Haitians in our country.)

So what’s the result? Montreal has opened the “Big O” stadium — hopefully the roof’s finally fixed — as a makeshift shelter. The official number crossing is 150 a day, although the border guards’ union says it’s closer to 500.

Will these desperate people end up being absorbed into the Canadian mosaic? Well, last year, before this current influx got into high gear, there were 412 applications for permanent refugee status from Haitians. Only 207 were accepted.

Recently, The Canadian Press reported on an internal government report showing an increase in asylum claims like we’re now experiencing could lead to an 11-year wait for an actual refugee hearing. The bill for this could reach almost $3 billion through ongoing federal support costs for claimants.

In short, many of these folk now arriving in droves after getting the Twitter thumbs up from Trudeau will eventually be returned to Haiti after spending years in limbo: not allowed to work but existing on the fringes of Canadian society.

The emotional cost to them will be heartbreaking while the financial burden to us will be astronomical. Benefits will be infinitesimal.

But he made the cover of the Rolling Stone. Margaret, hopefully five copies to the good, must be a proud mom these days.