Former Liberal MP calls Trudeau a ‘fool’ unconcerned with increasing costs

“There was a time when Liberals actually did give a damn about the cost of living and they don’t today,” said McTeague, who once chaired a government task force on gasoline pricing and is now president of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

By 2030, Trudeau’s Clean Fuel Standard is expected to add another 11 cents per litre to the cost of gasoline, while the hike in carbon taxes will increase gas prices by another 36 cents per litre.

“We’re being led down this path of high costs, less jobs, all to be brought even into this fear, the aura of wokeness on the belief in the green climate front,” said McTeague in an interview with the Western Standard.

McTeague insists Trudeau’s “climate alarmism…has gripped the country at a time which would have the most devastating impact.” He also expressed concerns with Trudeau’s “virtue signalling” and “preachy” approach to government.

“It’s left a good number of Canadians without them knowing whether it’s a party that has their back, that has their interests. It’s really about top-down lecturing, moralizing about the new [climate] cult, and conform or be cast out. And that’s really the divide and conquer that I think has unfortunately gripped the nation beyond its economic woes, beyond its lack of accountability in terms of representation, beyond its dangerous move towards a fiscal collapse,” said McTeague.

“It’s important to have a strong energy sector to be able to pay for the social programs – you start messing with those as this Prime Minister has done, and his gang, you start cutting away the very economic and social underpinnings of this country.”

The 18-year Liberal MP believes the Trudeau government has deeply divided Canadians.

“We’re looking at really an undeniable collapse in our democracy and it’s unfortunate, but it’s created significant divides that I never thought would be ones a country could withstand – regional divides, city versus rural, West versus East, have and have nots versus haves, and…public servants versus those who work in the private sector.

“All these things tend to demonstrate there is no common purpose. The goal of government to make everyone work together and to get all the cylinders firing up and are rolling in the same direction has all been thrown out in favour of one or two handpicked issues in which you, your opposition, each either track or stand or fall.”

McTeague interned on Parliament Hill in 1981-82 when the first Trudeau was in power, and says the elder was more tolerant of debate and disagreement.

“The Liberal Party was far more tolerant and far more objective about future of Canada and everyone had a role. And that was true under Pierre Trudeau, whether we liked him or not. That guy could stand up to people in a good debate unlike his son who can’t tolerate anybody who is opposed to him. And that would not be like Paul Martin or Jean Chretien or Bill Graham or Stephane Dion or Michael Ignatieff.

“If you had something to say, you could say it. You could say it publicly, you could disagree with him, you could disagree with him on the floor of the House of Commons. At the end of the day, we were all Liberals. That is no longer the case. It’s an intolerant, academically intolerant group of people whose whole purpose is to divide and conquer and win by the narrowest of pluralities.”

McTeague believes Canada is on a path toward greater authoritarianism and that “this prime minister and the technocrats who dictated this policy to him are really only interested in attaining their woke objective, getting their carbon offset markets up and running, and enrichening their friends.”

“Every Canadian should be prepared to throw these bums to the side…these guys are not Liberals, they’re pretenders – and dangerous ones at that.”