It’s no joke when PM loses the left
The biggest issue facing indigenous youth is the lack of sheds to store their canoes, says Romeo Saganash, the Cree NDP member of parliament for the Quebec riding of Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou. He has written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling for a National Canoe and Paddle Program to be included in the next budget.
It turns out that satire did not die when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, as Tom Lehrer maintained. The great explosion of burlesque sparked by the election of Donald Trump appears to be seeping across the border — and the joke is on our prime minister.
In the letter, also posted on Facebook, Saganash says he was convinced about the efficacy of this great national endeavour by comments the prime minister made recently, quoting Trudeau as saying he had spoken with chiefs who told him they needed youth centres and TVs for their young people.
“And when a chief says that to me, I pretty much know they haven’t actually talked to their young people because most young people I’ve talked to want a place to store their canoes and paddles, so they can connect back out on the land,” Saganash’s letter quotes Trudeau as saying.
Writes Saganash: “Who am I to argue with your recent comments that you know what is best for indigenous youth facing so many critical issues including a suicide epidemic?” The Cree MP then offers to paddle across the country to tell First Nations not to worry about the impact of projects like the Kinder Morgan pipeline that the Liberals have given the green light.
The right has long lampooned Trudeau for being too stupid, too callow, too entitled to be a successful prime minister. But Saganash’s attack is more devastating because it comes from the left, it mocks his arrogance, and it questions his principles.
Saganash writes, with dripping sarcasm, that he understands there may not be enough money for the federal government to meet its legal and moral obligation to indigenous youth. Despite Trudeau’s rhetoric that his primary relationship is with aboriginal Canadians, and the money committed in the last budget, the charge is clear — this prime minister is a promise- breaker who cannot be trusted to keep his word.
This loss of faith in Trudeau by voters on the left was also evident during this week’s visit to Iqaluit, where he was approached by a woman who asked him why he had killed his campaign promise on electoral reform.
“Proportional representation in any form would be bad for Canada,” he replied, to the consternation of the woman who said she “very respectfully” disagreed.
That de facto defence of the status quo strikes a very different tone than the one the prime minister adopted right up until he decided to be flexible in the application of his commitment to reform. Anyone remember him saying, “We can have an electoral system that does a better job of reflecting the voices of Canadians from coast to coast to coast?”
On the plane on the way back from witnessing the Conservatives lose the last election, I wrote a column suggesting elation would inevitably give way to letdown. In those heady times, when the mood in many quarters was a triumphant mix of VE-Day and the moon landing, it seemed scarcely possible. But finite resources and realpolitik mean that many on the left now hold our prime minister in the same contemptuous light as those on the right. That is evident in the opinion polls, where the NDP is gradually edging up from their doldrums by a point or two per month.
The prime minister comes across as a man of good intentions. Sadly for him, he is now being judged on results, not intentions.
These are strange, heady days. As the American wit Will Rogers said long before the advent of Donald Trump, people are now treating their comedians seriously and their politicians as a joke.