As we ring in the New Year, the baby of 2024 that entered with such high hopes has left battered and scuffed by a year of challenges—several of which have not yet even fully come to pass.
Much of the nation gasped in horror as our neighbours to the south chose the second coming of the Donald—even moreso when some of the first words out of his mouth were “tariff is the most beautiful word.” Followed up with a threat that he would impose a 25 percent tax hike on American consumers of Canadian and Mexican goods. We use the word “tax” because, contrary to the words of the incoming president, it is the American consumer who foots the bill when goods are made more expensive. Even if those goods are replaced with those of American manufacture, there is a reason that the US imports so many goods from outside its borders—others can produce them much cheaper.
Tariffs wind up becoming a “hidden” tax on the consumer—with what funds are collected on those goods still coming through go into the government coffers.
Worse still—if that is possible—is that the POTUS elect then slagged our nation, his country’s closest ally and largest trading partner, as being America’s 51st state, an appellation that could be taken as a threat given his countries skyrocketing water issues (currently nearly all of the US states are in some level of drought). He even took a poke at our Prime Minister, refering to him as “Governor Trudeau.”
With “friends” like these, one is left to wonder.
Prime Minister Trudeau was widely expected to step down this week and probably has by the time this editorial is in print—that means an election is coming sooner than later (one would happen in October in any event). The most politically astute option Prime Minister Trudeau has remaining in his party’s electoral toolbox is to prorogue (temporarily suspend) Parliament to allow for a short leadership convention to choose a new Liberal leader to take the party into an election.
This will, of course, send his rivals into political sound bite hysteria, but let’s be serious, Mr. Poilievre’s mentor Stephen Harper did that very thing when his Conservative government was teetering on the brink of losing power to a non-confidence motion invoked by a coalition of opposition parties. All of those opposition parties ranted in their turn when that happened—the ignominy of it all was simply unconscionable—as we can expect the Conservatives to do now. Hey, if you take a hypocritical stance in politics, where can you?
It remains to be seen whether the Conservatives will be able to leverage their “Axe the Tax” rhetoric to the same extent they have been able to channel Canadians’ personal rejection of Justin Trudeau into the same polling numbers. Many of the Liberal/NDP programs, such as affordable daycare, dental programs and national pharmacare, and a re-adjustment of our nation’s relationship with the First Nations, have proven popular amongst the voting public (even Conservatives watch CBC and believe in upholding the honour of the Crown) while what Tory proposals beyond conflating the carbon tax have been expressed, defunding the CBC, privatization of every more health care hold plenty of peril for a one-trick-pony Conservative electoral campaign—especially on the heels of a Liberal leadership convention bump.
Of course, at the writing of this editorial none of this has come to pass, but it is all seeming very likely.
No matter who resigns, or who is elected in the coming year, they will face a year chock full of that old English curse “may you live in interesting times” (Yes, we know that is an ironic curse apocryphally attributed to the Chinese) when the major economic, military and social disruptions promised by the incoming herd of overt oligarchical elephants to the south enter our collective room.
Not increasing our national defence budget is simply not an option, even without the Donald’s threats to the alliance that has kept us all safe from Armageddon for nearly a century, and the money to do so has to come from somewhere.
Hand onto your toque’s ladies and gentlemen (and non-binary folks too), 2025 is promising to be quite the ride.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation on Monday, January 6.
