Large Fierce Mammal

The title of today’s utterance is taken from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s favourite code phrase, and delivery, for signalling to his audience that they are being lectured to. From not enough physical distancing to people owning things he is ideologically opposed to, he’s used the term before and no doubt will again, hopefully at some point soon, in reference to himself. Until then, he really needs to stop writing his own lines.

I absolutely refuse to declare myself to the world as belonging to any particular school of political thought — something in these divided times that has come to be used as the yardstick by which may be measured the worth of anything one says, does, or may have ever done or come to do. To do so is to explain where no explanation is owed, permitting others to apply labels to their advantage and your detriment. Asked at election time if I intend to vote out of pure self-interest or, alternatively, with an eye to the Greater Goode, I will answer with a enthusiastic, “Absolutely!” Asked if I intend to vote for one party as opposed to another, my answer, accompanied by the appropriate Polish gesture, will be, “Is there a train running here?”

I have previously written on the topic of labels and my hatred of them as they have come to be used as a shortcut around, and absolution for, willful lack of understanding:

“Written words are visual guides to the making of sounds that, when uttered aloud, convey meaning. An example is the word “label”.

“A label can be a physical object that, when applied to another object, conveys important information about it. What it’s made of, how to use it, how long it may be kept, and the best means of storage before use or consumption. Things like that. These sorts of labels abound in today’s world and are vital to navigating the perils and pitfalls of acquiring and using the commodities we take for granted to feed ourselves and our families, clean our homes, ourselves, and possessions, and maintain our surroundings. To wipe our bums and blow our noses. Cure a headache.

“And then there’s the other kind of label. This kind also abounds in today’s world, but less as a means of conveying important information than as a short cut around understanding. Understanding requires a desire for knowledge, and a willingness to be observant. To think and draw conclusions. Unlike labels of any description, these attributes are not common in the world. If this type of label is applied to a controversial thing – a firearm for example – or worse yet, a person, the label alone comes to replace the true substance of that to which it’s applied. That’s how we get terms like “gun violence” for example, flying in the face of the fact that violence doesn’t come in flavours, and notwithstanding the implement that is used to bring it about, there is only violence, and it springs exclusively from the mind of its perpetrator

“Similarly, there is no “gay love” or “straight love”, there is only love. There is no ‘gay marriage’ or ‘mixed marriage’, there is only marriage. There are no ‘women’s rights’ or ‘gay rights’, there are only rights. In not one of these examples is there justification for tagging violence, love, marriage, or rights with a qualifying label branding it as something different from every other expression of it. The term ‘racial hatred’ doesn’t define a special brand of hatred. There is only hatred, and ‘racial’ is the excuse for its existence – a label. The same goes for ‘religious intolerance’.” ~ Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Beware of Labels

As I have watched Justin Trudeau flummox his way through his time as Prime Minister of Canada, now highlighted by his leadership of the government in the face of the current pandemic crisis, he has done nothing to change my impression of him as a creature of pure ego and ideology, at least insofar as his public life has intersected my private one. As such, he has shown himself ever willing to seize credit for a popular outcome in the moment, even as he defers the inevitably negative fallout for a time when getting re-elected is not going to be an option anyway.

In this latter behaviour he differs not at all from the general herd of politicians who know their tenure comes with an expiry date so there is no time to waste padding the nest before that happens. Where he does differ is in a way that seems endemic to him — his decisions clearly spring from the belief that as long as you and those under your command are convinced the cause is noble (meaning it fits their world view), then any act of policy is justified and not only can, but must, be pursued with utmost vigour, sidestepping as necessary any pesky entanglements with how things are supposed to be done. Questionable motives exposed, there is always the path of contrition, and I have never seen any politician, let alone a serving prime minister, so prone to self-absolution by disingenuous apology.

I have catalogued a growing portfolio of examples, but today we’ll wrap up with a singularly shining one. In this clip, we have Justin Trudeau’s answer to a press question in the wake of statements regarding his government’s emergency support funding for individuals and businesses gutted by the sudden government ordered shutdown of this nation’s economy. I do not believe that the Government of Canada, as represented by both “ruling” and opposition parties the way it was meant to be, had a lot of choice in taking the path being questioned here, and whether or not other options taken earlier may have facilitated avoidance or abbreviation of such a complete and screeching economic halt has no bearing on the point du jour. What I find objectionable is the typically Justin Trudeau framing of his government’s motives. Spoiler alert: He is offering no apologies here — yet — but I have faith in him. Rather, this is Justin Trudeau still surfing the wave of nobility with head held high, so convinced of the unassailability of his motives as to openly expose where his head really is.

“We took on debt so Canadians wouldn’t have to.”

Who is this “we” of whom you speak?

In 1983, Margaret Thatcher gave a speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Great Britain that, notwithstanding ideological leanings and how you or I, Goode Reader, may feel about her legacy, made a universal point all elected officials everywhere need to understand and cleave to their very marrow.

Sadly, I fear Trudeau the Younger rarely frequents these environs to a degree that would qualify him for the epithet “Goode Reader”, and if past history serves, one so obviously lacking an able Mentor is unlikely to find this Wisdom on his own.

In his time as Prime Minister of Canada since 2015, Justin Trudeau has spent a lot of time being caught behaving in ways divergent from his sermons and apologizing therefrom. I will close today with a clip from the late and lamented television series, Deadwood, which in one of its seasons portrayed the travails of a frontier mining camp in the face of a smallpox epidemic. The apologist here is a man of no great note, let alone a prime minister, and yet I have come to feel this small fragment of Art imitating Life beautifully encapsulates how I see the career of Justin Trudeau coming to a close.