Justin Trudeau is taking a day off. It's his 55th personal day since the start of the year, and it comes on the heels of a day of meetings with the EU's Donald Tusk and the President of the European Council.
00:00:00.000Today, the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is taking another personal day.
00:00:16.000By my count, it's his 55th personal day since the start of the year.
00:00:20.000Yesterday he met with the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, in Montreal.
00:00:24.000Why he is pandering to the EU, given that with a pending Brexit the EU might just implode entirely, is anyone's guess.
00:00:32.000At a photo op afterwards, he gave a statement about increasing trade and other meaningless words.
00:00:38.000Then he flew to the west coast to make an announcement alongside BC Premier John Horgan.
00:00:44.000The flight was, by my count, his 120th since the start of the year.
00:00:50.000He was in BC to announce $79 million in funding to improve transit.
00:00:56.000Of this, he announced a plan to buy 118 new buses for Victoria and other BC communities.
00:01:02.000And after that busy day, he needed a day off.
00:01:06.000Whatever else you can say about this Prime Minister, you can say that he is well rested.
00:01:11.000It is unclear whether he remained in BC or flew back to Ottawa after the announcement.
00:01:16.000The PM's website is silent on that question.
00:01:20.000Also yesterday, social media blew up with the hashtag, Trudeau must go.
00:01:25.000The liberal political machine immediately jumped in with the hashtag, Trudeau must stay.
00:01:31.000But that really didn't get any traction.
00:01:33.000So they trotted out the likes of former cabinet minister, Sheila Copps, posting that it wasn't any sort of grassroots initiative, which it was, but the result of Twitter bots.
00:01:45.000The liberal compliant media even ran a news story echoing the Liberal Party position.
00:01:53.000For the record, the hashtag, Trudeau must go, was trending on Twitter for the second day in a row today, even though the liberal war machine had a number of accounts shut down.
00:02:07.000The press conference was barely covered in the local media.
00:02:11.000The province had a story on page 12 which referred to the announcement, but led with the answer Trudeau gave to a media question about building a refinery in BC.
00:02:21.000Why did he even bother to fly across the country for that?
00:02:25.000He could have simply issued an announcement jointly with the BC Premier and accomplished the same goal, and got as much attention, which was essentially nothing.
00:02:36.000Just before the House adjourned for the summer, the Liberals declared there was a climate emergency, quote unquote.
00:02:43.000Since then, Trudeau has been flying back and forth across the country making funding announcements.
00:02:49.000This is in a year that their budget showed a deficit of $22.8 billion.
00:02:54.000I should add that in the 2015 election, Trudeau promised to have a balanced budget in 2019.
00:03:02.000It should come as no surprise to anyone that the bulk of the spending is either in Liberal ridings or in ridings they think they can win in the coming election in October.
00:03:11.000I may be cynical about this government and their two-faced leader, and their don't-do-as-I-do, do-as-I-say leader, but my cynicism is firmly based in reality.
00:03:23.000Trudeau and the Liberals do not deserve another term in government.