Moral compass

Re: A lump of coal in Trudeau’s stocking — Dec. 22

An ethics breach that should stick — Dec. 22

The editorial and the lead opinion piece by Tim Harper suggest that Justin Trudeau seems out of touch with his country and is moving further away from the middle class.

I submit that Trudeau, as well as the provincial Liberals, are very much in touch with the middle class of our country. Both won handily in the last general elections

and both won the majority of the byelections since then. A great number of individuals in the middle class are public sector employees and as such they have excellent salaries, benefits, pensions, and job security. Repeated visits by Liberal politicians to favoured ridings with promises of more government spending and no mention of the increasing deficit create a sense of great optimism. Numerous speeches in foreign countries about Canada’s leadership in improving human rights and controlling climate change lead to a sense of national pride.

Most people love winners, even if self-proclaimed.

Sure, winners do make mistakes from time to time, but apologies, staged or otherwise, are readily accepted by the middle class. The ethics breach won’t stick.

Has money become a metaphor for life? Has Trudeau lost his moral compass? The prime minister knows perfectly well that it is we, the middle class, who have lost our way and he is happy to lead us further down that path.

Peter Durksen Breslau