Trudeau says Albertans ‘fooled’ into disliking him

Prime minister pleads his case to podcaster

In a brief trip to Alberta on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau popped into the studio of Edmonton podcast host Ryan Jespersen.

The appearance generated a lengthy response from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who used to be Jespersen’s co-host when they both worked for Corus Entertainment. Smith pointed out that the prime minister avoided any contact with members of the provincial government while in Alberta, but managed to find time for a 30-minute sitdown interview on a podcast.

“Instead of attacking our province, Mr. Trudeau could have informed our government about his visit to Alberta,” she wrote.

For Albertans, the parts of the interview that got the most play on social media was when Trudeau embarked on lengthy explanations of how he is the province’s true economic saviour, and that Smith’s government is “fooling” Albertans into thinking otherwise. Below, those and other take-aways from Trudeau’s appearance on Real Talk With Ryan Jespersen.

Trudeau absolutely refuses to acknowledge that voters don’t like him

It would be weird to expect a Canadian prime minister to admit that his government is in its final months, but he will generally acknowledge when people don’t like him. When Quebec Premier François Legault saw his approval ratings plummet last year, he said, “I am very aware Quebecers are angry with me.”

Trudeau is facing poll numbers so catastrophic that there’s been few precedents in his lifetime. For months, every sit-down interview with Trudeau has begun with a battery of questions as to why he’s even bothering to remain prime minister — and Jespersen’s was no exception.

The host was careful to note that not only are the Liberals facing a “bloodbath” at the next election, but that Trudeau’s personal likability is in free fall. Against all this, Trudeau did not once concede that the polls might have a point, or that his government should change course.

The surveys were either wrong (“polls had me behind in 2015,” he said), or they were driven by partisan ignorance. Said Trudeau: “people have realized it is easy to instrumentalize anger and outrage, and get people to vote in ways that are not necessarily in their best interest.”

He said Albertans are being ‘fooled’ into not supporting him

It’s not unusual that a Liberal prime minister would be at odds with Alberta. But when the likes of Pierre Trudeau or Jean Chrétien got into it with the province, it was usually over an issue that they acknowledged was intended to prioritize the national interest at Albertan expense.

But Justin Trudeau argued at length that he is more attuned to Alberta interests than its own industries or even its own government.

“I don’t think the oil industry has had the back of oilsands workers,” he said. He also accused Smith’s government of “ideological opposition against doing things that are good for workers.”

The gist of Trudeau’s claim is that oil is fast becoming an unprofitable commodity, and that Alberta won’t have a prosperous future unless it signs onto his vision of net-zero. “It’s not a plot by eastern bastards, it’s a focus on, ‘where are the investors coming from, what are they looking at?’” he said.

The prime minister also implied that Albertans would voluntarily be abandoning oil extraction for alternative energy if not for their provincial government standing in the way. “Governments should get out of the way of Albertans innovating and creating that better future. If you can build a pipeline for oilsands oil, you can build a pipeline for hydrogen,” he said.

EVERYONE OUT THERE IS BLAMING US FOR EVERYTHING.

Trudeau also noted that he “took a lot of grief” for buying the Trans Mountain Pipeline in 2018, but that he needed to do it because to fund the green energy revolution “we need to get the best possible price for our oil products now.”

The Canadian media is under attack by conspiracy theorists

A running theme in the interview was that Canadians oppose Trudeau or his government largely due to misinformation. “Everyone out there is blaming us for everything that’s going wrong, including Putin deciding to invade Ukraine, or climate change or what have you,” he said at the interview’s outset, before blaming right-wing politicians who are getting people “riled up.”

In the interview’s final minutes, Trudeau spoke of a “deliberate undermining of mainstream media” by “conspiracy theorists” who are out to “prevent people from agreeing on a common set of facts.”

The prime minister didn’t go into details about the common facts, but he said his government was unwittingly “compromising” the mainstream media by constantly representing the “mainstream” fact-based view. As such, when the media repeats these views, they look like government “mouthpieces.”

“There are massive changes that need to take place in our media landscape, and government can create conditions and incentives for it to happen,” he said.