When so-called progressive parties like the Liberals promise and then don't deliver, it unfortunately opens the door for the right-wing parties.
Where is a comprehensive housing program for Canadians?
Where is the national pharmacare program for Canadians?
Why was Jody Wilson-Raybould — the first Indigenous Canadian to hold the justice portfolio, demoted if you believe in Reconciliation?
Why did Trudeau take the low road by not giving Jagmeet Singh the professional courtesy he deserved running in Burnaby South?
And the issue probably most Canadians are presently upset about - why is Ms Wanzhou under house arrrest in her own multi-million dollar home in the tony West side of Vancouver while several Canadians are now languishing in Chinese jails!
Federal Liberal’s missteps have put their pre-election advantage at risk
Even before the opposition parties had the opportunity to fire their first question period shot of the year on Monday, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were walking wounded.
From a cabinet shuffle that raised questions in many quarters about the prime minister’s commitment to Indigenous reconciliation to the firing of Trudeau’s handpicked envoy to China in the midst of a major dispute and including a byelection mess in Burnaby South, the first three weeks of 2019 have been bruising ones for the ruling party.
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/politics/political-opinion/2019/01/28/federal-liberals-missteps-have-put-their-pre-election-advantage-at-risk/justin_trudeau.jpg)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes his way through the foyer of the House of Commons in the West Block of Parliament Hill as he arrives for question period in Ottawa on Jan. 28, 2019. In addition to concerns about the party’s recent blunders, Liberals worry that the prime minister may be aligning himself too closely with President Donald Trump, Chantal Hébert writes. (SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Remarkably all the hits the Liberals have been taking since the New Year have been self-inflicted.
- The shuffle was meant to ensure the cabinet was battle-ready and, ideally, more bulletproof as the ruling party enters an election year.
But Trudeau’s decision to move Jody Wilson-Raybould — the first Indigenous Canadian to hold the justice portfolio — to the lower-profile post of veterans’ affairs AND the replacement of one of his top cabinet performers with an less-than-overwhelming one at Indigenous services stole the show.
It was predictably seen as a negative signal on the reconciliation front.
- From the start, the Burnaby South byelection saga did not feature the Liberals at their best.
They looked cynical when they declined to give NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh an early opportunity to run for the seat last fall only to then have to replace candidate Karen Wang almost overnight after she appealed to the Chinese community to vote along ethnic lines in the Feb. 25 vote.
- Coming as it did in the midst of a serious dispute with China over American demands that Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou be held until she can be extradited to the U.S., the firing this weekend of John McCallum as ambassador to Beijing has made the government look inept in its handling of a top-of-mind foreign policy file. It compounded a week of mixed federal messages on the issue.
The sum of the accumulated blunders is the increasingly widespread perception that the government is flying by the seat of its pants on the policy front and going into an election year on little more than a wing and a prayer.
https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2019/01/28/federal-li...
