COLUMN: On Parliament Hill – Trudeau’s G20 fantasy

This week, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau is meeting with other world leaders at the annual G20 gathering in Brazil.

It is important for Canada to be represented at these summits and have a seat at the table. However, given the current state of affairs at home—inflation, a falling Loonie, a massive decline in the standard of living, rampant crime, inadequate housing, multiple corruption scandals, the list goes on—one could hardly blame the PM for staying home, but then Mr. Trudeau never was one for passing up a taxpayer-funded trip to the tropics.

The many pressing issues at this year’s summit include the ongoing concerns of wars in Ukraine and Israel, inflation, global poverty and hunger, the environment etc.

Never one for self-recrimination, Trudeau is reported to be in full Trudeau mode, lecturing other world leaders, touting his own policies.

The fact that these policies have been an abject failure doesn’t seem to matter to the Prime Minister.

While other world leaders are taking a cautious approach to issues, particularly with the impending change in leadership in the United States, Mr. Trudeau has been using his latest trip to double down on and calling for others to adopt the left-wing policies that have left Canadians out in the cold.

At a forum on global hunger, Trudeau had the audacity to spend his time complaining about how his beloved carbon tax had been the victim of “propaganda, misinformation, disinformation and flat-out lies.”

The obvious irony of Trudeau speaking at a forum on hunger when two million Canadians are forced to use food banks—a direct result of the disastrous economic policies of his Liberal Government, including his beloved carbon tax—aside, for Trudeau to accuse anyone else of spreading “propaganda, misinformation, disinformation and flat-out lies” is the height of hypocrisy.

Everything he and his government have said about their carbon tax has been false.

It is not revenue neutral, the carbon tax costs families more than they get back, and it has done nothing to demonstrably reduce emissions.

Despite these falsehoods, the Liberals continue using the same tired (and debunked) talking points. I can only guess Team Trudeau figures the folks in Brazil have never heard them before and would prove a more receptive audience than his own people who can’t afford to eat, heat, and house themselves as a result.

Trudeau’s other contribution, his insistence that “gender equality” must be the “top priority” in any discussion on global poverty and hunger, is further evidence that Canada’s Prime Minster is far too blinded by the ideology of identity politics to be able to make a substantive contribution to what is an increasingly critical conversation at home and abroad.

In another split from the pack, the Prime Minister criticized the group statement on the ongoing Ukraine war, calling it “not strong enough”. He also quickly backed the Biden administration’s 11th hour decision to allow Ukraine to fire U.S. supplied long range missiles into Russia. There is little doubt this move will escalate and prolong the conflict rather than bring it to an end.

Justin Trudeau and President Biden have embraced and doubled down on so called “progressive” policies that have done untold damage to the economic and social fabric of their respective nations.

Both men’s leadership and policies have been roundly rejected by the citizens of their respective countries.

Trudeau can enjoy his fantasy of relevance while he’s in Brazil, but the reckoning of reality is coming as he returns to a Canada, where his failures are all too obvious to a country that has long ceased to buy what he’s selling.