Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a ready response to controversy or trouble: Leave Ottawa or better yet, leave the country. And that's why Trudeau has fled Canada again and is meeting with world leaders and the secretaries-general of organizations that you have probably never heard of. .Say what you will about his father, the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau — and I have criticized his legacy without fail over the years — at least usually had a larger purpose for global tours. During his last term of office, the elder Trudeau decided he could save the world from nuclear war by the very force of his personality. Obviously it was naïve and in some ways dangerous mission — because it challenged the nuclear deterrence strategy that had successfully contained both the Soviet Union and the threat of a third world war, but at least there was a point to it. .It’s not clear what Trudeau hopes to achieve with his latest globe-trotting odyssey. It is another pointless endeavour, fueled by narcissism and in the spirit of the sitcom Seinfeld, which billed itself as “a show about nothing.” .But it does put his handlers in high gear, generating a lot of news releases from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO.) .If you want to see horrible propaganda, go no further than the PMO where the flaks go full throttle in producing announcements that amount to much ado about nothing. .I refer to Exhibit 1, a release from Sunday that goes the limit. .“Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Dato Jock Hoi Lim, on the margins of the ASEAN Summit.".“Prime Minister Trudeau and Secretary-General Lim discussed ongoing efforts to strengthen engagement between Canada and ASEAN. Prime Minister Trudeau thanked Secretary-General Lim for his constructive role in supporting the Canada-ASEAN Strategic Partnership, as well as the launch of Canada-ASEAN free trade negotiations in November 2021. These steps will further deepen Canada’s ties with the Indo-Pacific, strengthen our trade diversification efforts and promote security and prosperity for the people of Canada and across ASEAN countries.” .Did notice the preponderance of weasel words in the text? Words like “strengthen,” “deepen” and “promote.” It reads like a car commercial. .During U.S. President Lyndon Johnson’s last year in office, with anti-war protests almost on the front door of the White House and angry protesters chanting, “LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Johnson spent much of his time visiting the troops in Vietnam and touring military bases in the United States. He surprised everybody by declaring his intention of NOT seeking the presidency in 1968. So he might have been thinking of his political legacy, but he was not promoting politics. .Trudeau, of course, has every intention of running again, despite a plethora of good reasons not to and Trudeau doesn’t need a reason to jump into a government jet and increase his carbon footprint with the same stark hypocrisy that defines much of his life and legacy. For Trudeau, politics is all about how the very force of his personality can impact history and just make life better for everyone. .Trudeau is still the acting teacher who has learned how to play a role effectively and do so in a manner that he hopes the audience is believing the masquerade too. And don't sell him short. Even if his blackface career is over, he has found new horizons: Now, he's showing an interest in drag queens and recently appeared on RuPaul's "Drag Race.".But the prime minister eventually has to return to reality and that reality is teetering on disaster in Canada. The post-pandemic “recovery” is weak and Trudeau is myopically threatening to bring back lockdown measures if we all don’t queue up for those COVID-19 booster shots. .It would be amusing to watch Trudeau sink deeper into catastrophe — except he could potentially bring the entire country with him.
