The company you keep

It is pretty much an axiomatic saying that you can tell an awful lot about someone by the friends they keep. With that in mind, consider some of Justin Trudeau’s friends and you can get a better idea where his policies are coming from.

Gerald Butts is probably Trudeau’s closest political advisor. He is an old Trudeau university buddy who is now the senior political advisor to Trudeau and has had serious input into almost every policy Trudeau campaigned on before his election. Butts was the principal author of former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s bankrupting green energy policies. It was his idea for a “positive message” that helped McGuinty win in Ontario and Justin Trudeau throughout his own campaign borrowed McGuinty’s victory speech words that voters had “rejected the politics of division.”

Butts is an anti-energy environmental activist who is okay with running deficits which is why Ontario continues to struggle to reduce its debts and has been downgraded by Moody’s to “negative.” Trudeau campaigned on running “modest deficits” but the National Bank said the deficit could actually reach $90 billion by the end of Trudeau’s term.

Then there’s another of Trudeau’s friends, George Soros. Soros contributes billions to left-wing causes such as Planned Parenthood, Acorn and the National Organization for Women to name a few. Soros has tried to influence U.S. elections and once said that removing President George W. Bush from office in 2004 was the “central focus of my life.” He would like to curtail American sovereignty and see the U.S. become subservient to international bodies. Soros is a financial backer of Media Matters for America whose founder David Brock has openly declared war on Fox News. Soros also has a delusional side and once said “I admit that I have always harbored an exaggerated view of my self-importance – to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god.”

We would be remiss not to mention Stephen Bronfman, the very wealthy friend of Trudeau who just happens to be the chief revenue officer for the Liberal Party of Canada and was recently linked to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. Then there was the Christmas vacation at the Aga Khan’s private island all of which clearly illustrates this PM’s close proximity to the wealthy and elite.

Trudeau’s troubling policies are beginning to alarm thinking Canadians. It is becoming increasingly clear his priorities are out of synch with the majority of Canadians and the electorate needs to consider seriously making him and his government

Gerald Hall, Nanoose Bay growing problem for every level of government and Canada saw what happened in the housing sector in the U.S., Different scenario but same outcome. This problem now impacts balancing interest rates, the Canadian dollar, small businesses, homelessness and affordable living for working families throughout the province.

Farms are being lost to foreign interests and some are left vacant and in Richmond and the Fraser Valley, this land is being used to build mansions as big as 25,000 square feet (Richmond imposed a restriction). Site C has 30 per cent Chinese interest behind it. Every loophole is being used by foreign money while First Nations and fourth generation born Canadians are now experiencing what my ancestors did when colonization took place over 200 years ago. When the economy trumps the basic needs of people/environment, this is what happens. Containment will work in the short run but what will happen far in the future? The plights of First Nations is the crystal ball to all Canadians losing the land and resources. The future’s biggest challenge is food security.

Canada is looked to for our underdeveloped land to provide a way to supply the basic necessity to live, land, food and water. Shipping overseas is the biggest threat to our oceans, not just oil but our insatiable appetite for stuff and for other nations, the ability to feed their people.

It is said history repeats itself and we are standing witness to it. This is why Indigenous people still fight today – what is important to us, is what the land provides us, not what we can take from it. Jo-Anne Berezanski North Saanich