Some More Thoughts

I have not been paying too much attention to the Emergencies Act Inquiry because hanging on every word of peoples' testimony is pointless. The person who will have the final word is Justice Rouleau, in about four months. Until then trying to come up with conclusions based on a particular day's testimony is silly. That has not stopped Conservative commentators, both professional and amateur from doing so. However, it is interesting that Pierre Poilievre is not taking up the narrative being pushed by Conservative commentators. He is lying very low and I imagine the reason for that is he does not want to inspire, convince or compel Justice Rouleau to summon him to the Inquiry. I will let you decide on why that might be.

It is interesting that Mr. Trudeau had what can be described as a confrontation with Mr. Xi last week and Conservative commentators are condemning him for it, taking the side of Mr. Xi. I am old enough to remember when Conservatives made some political hay over some statements made by Mr. Trudeau before he became PM, where those very same Conservatives had nothing good to say about China. I am told that partisanship is supposed to end at the water's edge but I guess Conservatives no longer believe that.

Apparently around 11 candidates who ran for Parliament in 2019 received some support from the Chinese government. Now some people are demanding to know who these people are. Such silliness. First, if the Chinese did interfere in the 2019 election then the government would be investigating that and they will not make any findings public until that investigation is complete. That is just how things are done and I believe those braying for the name know that but they are counting on their followers not realizing that. The second thing is I cannot believe any candidate, of any political stripe, would knowingly accept support from agents of the Chinese government. It is not like some person went to these candidates and introduced themselves as an agent of China and then offered to provide them with funds and other supports for their campaign and then having those candidates accept. What probably happened is the funds or support looked like it came from legal and legitimate sources so the candidates accepted it. It was only after the fact that they would have found out the source. That is probably the focus of any investigation, with the candidates being targeted as being a secondary concern.

So Donald Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election, he cost the Republicans to lose the 2020 Senatorial elections in Georgia he probably cost the Republicans control of the Senate and big wins in the House in 2022. As I have stated in this space before he is just a gift that keeps on giving for the Democrats. Now he has announced his intentions to run for President which should help the Democrats in the Georgia run-off election for the Senate seat still up for grabs. As well, there are some rumblings that if Donald Trump does not win the nomination for the Republicans he will run as an independent. That would almost guarantee the Democrats retaining the presidency as many Trumplicans support Donald Trump and not the Republicans. If he runs as an independent millions of his supporters would follow him siphoning off voters from the Republicans in the swing states. Donald Trump knows this of course but he does not care. He is not a Republican and he has no loyalty to that Party. Then again they do not have any loyalty towards him either so it's all good.

Going around stating that Canada is broken is not a winning election strategy so please continue saying so Mr. Poilievre. Certainly, it might play well to the base but the last three elections have demonstrated that the Conservative base is not enough to win. They have to win over the non-aligned voters, who have voted for the Liberals for the last three elections, and they will not respond the same way the Conservative base responds to the Party's rhetoric.