the Canadian dollar fell sharply, bottoming eventually at 63.11 cents US;During the interim, between the Trudeau's there were four essentially abortive premierships, two Conservative (Joe Clarke and Kim Campbell) and two Liberal (John Turner and Paul Martin) and three significant governments, those of Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien and Steven Harper.
there was a general recognition among Canadian women that economic security is to be found not in the hard task of raising children, but in the pursuit of higher education and a career;
and, for the first time ever, the national fertility rate dipped below the replacement rate, and has continued falling ever since.
Brian Mulroney, let the Trudeau deficit ride, leaving it to the subsequent Liberal administration of Jean Chrétien to clean up, while signing the Free Trade Agreement with Canada's largest (by far) trading partner, the US, and later the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which included Mexico, and introducing the GST, a consumption tax with a rebate to low income earners.
Jean Chrétien brought the Federal budget deficit under control, while allowing the Canadian dollar to slump against the greenback, making Canadian manufacturing more competitive than it would otherwise have been in the face of low-wage competition from Mexico. Nevertheless, following the NAFTA agreement Canada lost out to Mexico as the largest supplier of autoparts to the United States.
Stephen Harper's administration promoted oil sands development, thereby greatly boosting the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan and strengthening the Canadian dollar, which returned to parity with the US dollar by the time Harper left office. The downside to increased oil exports and a strong dollar was a decline in Canada's international competitiveness in manufacturing, with the result that Ontario, formerly a manufacturing power house, is now a have-not province and the recipient of "equalization payments".
But if not all has gone well under administrations since that of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, at no time have things gone as disastrously and unnecessarily badly as under Trudeau the Second. For example, in handling relations with the United States — Canada's most important trade partner by far, with China — the world's largest economy and Canada's third largest trade partner, and India — the World's most populous nation, Justin Trudeau has managed to give offence to all.
With respect to the US, Canada has, throughout the 2016 US Presidential election campaign and ever since, used the state-controlled Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to run a daily smear and jeer campaign directed at president Donald Trump. The result? Tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and a contemptuous American disregard for Canadian interests in the negotiation of a still unsigned (with Canada) Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement.
With respect to China, Justin Trudeau, in search of a trade agreement, went to Beijing to demand, as a condition, that China introduce workplace gender-equity laws. The result, naturally, was zero Chinese interest in a trade deal with Canada, a country with whom China has a massive trade surplus. Not unconnected with the imbecility of Trudeau's effort to interfere in China's domestic arrangements, China has banned the import of Canadian Canola seed and oil, heretofore Canada's second largest agricultural export.
With respect to India, Trudeau made his absurd and notorious fancy dress tour, adding injury to insult not only by taking with him his own Indian chef, but a Sikh nationalist convicted of attempting to murder an Indian cabinet minister. Surely not unconnected, India has since banned the import of Canadian pulse crops.
Domestically, Trudeau's chief accomplishments have been to put a stranglehold on oil exports through failure to permit construction of new pipelines. As a result, Canada, the World's fourth largest oil exporter, is reduced to the necessity of transporting oil to tidewater by rail, which is expensive, dangerous, and environmentally harmful.
And by far the greatest cause for concern, Trudeau has repeatedly demonstrated a contempt for the rule of law.
He did so when:
breaching the Federal Conflict of Interest Law by accepting the gift of a free family vacation from a registered government lobbyist, and sticking the Canadian taxpayer for several hundred thousand dollars in travel costs.Which last point raises an interesting question. Why, exactly, did Dr. Jane Philpott, generally regarded as one of the most competent ministers in Trudeau's government, resign. At the time of her resignation, Dr. Philpott said that there was much that remained to come out concerning Trudeau's firing of the Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould.
Pressuring the Attorney General to grant a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal-based corporation convicted of bribery and corruption on a massive scale both at home abroad.
Booting his fired Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould and former Treasury Board Minister, Dr. Jame Philpott from the Liberal Party caucus without, as required by law (albeit unenforceable), a caucus vote.
But was that all there was to Dr. Philpott's decision? Perhaps not. Jane Philpott is a medical doctor with wide experience of public health issues, which raises this question: does she interpret Justin Trudeau's lawless behavior differently from other political spectators? In particular, does she interpret Trudeau's conduct as evidence of mental illness?
In short, does Jane Philpott see in the behavior of Justin Trudeau evidence of paranoid megalomania, an understandable risk in the son of Margaret Trudeau, a victim of bipolar schizophrenia, and the son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, whose political heroes were among the world's most tyrannical dictators, Hitler (during his youth and before the collapse of the Nazi empire), Mao Tse Tung, responsible for the greatest state-organized slaughter of civilians during the Twentieth Century, and the comparatively small-time but ruthless killer and Commie, Fidel Castro.
Yes, in Justin Trudeau, Dr. Jame Philpott may well have diagnosed a madman capable of limitless harm to the Canadian nation, the non-existence of which he has already asserted.
Related:
Toronto Sun: Trudeau plays politics with terrorism
