CORY'S RANT： Justin Trudeau is a pale shadow of his father in gumption and intellect.
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Summary
As I saw protesters gathered outside the Palliser Hotel in Calgary railing against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, I noted the parallels between the political scene today and that of the early 1980s. During the 1970s and 80s, Pierre Trudeau was greeted by protests wherever he went in Western Canada.
Transcript
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As I saw protesters, you know, images of a group of protesters gathered outside the Palliser Hotel
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in Calgary last night and railing against Prime Minister Trudeau, I noted the parallels between
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the political scene right now and that of the early 1980s, and they were both striking and
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chilling. I mean, during the 1970s and 80s, Pierre Trudeau was greeted by protests wherever he went
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in Western Canada, and his favorite haunt during his rare Western visits was at Calgary's Palliser
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Hotel as well. Well, it's a luxurious spot, so you can see why the Trudeaus like it.
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And protesters would gather outside of there when Pierre Trudeau was there every time, as you can
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see in that picture. Now, while legacy media and defenders of the Canadian establishment like to
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pretend that vitriolic, heated protests are some sort of new development, they've happened many
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times in Canada, and they were clearly happening 40, 50 years ago during Pierre Trudeau's tenure as
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Prime Minister as well. Here, Trudeau never lost an opportunity to display his contempt for Western
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Canada. In 1982, protesters were waiting for Trudeau at Salmon Arm BC, and Pierre responded to them as
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they protested by smiling, giving them the middle finger, and then pulling down the shade on his
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luxury train car. It's henceforth been known as the Trudeau salute. More protesters waited down the line,
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and they hurled tomatoes at Trudeau's train as it passed into a tunnel under Rogers Pass BC. So again,
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let's not pretend that this sort of kind of protest is new or anything. It just seems that it always
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only comes about really when we got a Trudeau in power, and we've had them in too too many times
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already. In the late early 80s, Canada was an economic basket case. Inflation was running rampant,
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interest rates were constantly being raised by the Bank of Canada, and energy prices were going through
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the roof. Sound familiar? Here, Trudeau was coming off of the dismal failure of his wage and price
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control policies in the late 1970s, and he was desperate to find a way to ease the economic
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suffering in central Canada. So, Trudeau turned his eyes towards the West's oil and gas, and while
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the Trudeau government prior had traditionally been indifferent to Canadian oil and basically said,
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hey, it's Alberta's oil, sell your own stuff, they preferred to import it from Saudi Arabia to serve
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central Canada. Sound familiar? With world oil prices skyrocketing, Trudeau suddenly declared Alberta's
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oil to be Canada's oil, and he imposed the National Energy Program. Now, that NEP imposed a massive tax
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on Western oil, and it applied the funds from those purchases to Eastern Canada so they could keep
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buying foreign oil at a discount that way, and it also forced Western producers to sell at a grossly
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discounted made-in-Canada price to the rest of the country. The effect was immediate and devastating for
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Western Canadians, and so despite high world prices, the industry ground to a halt as producers fled
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Canada's intrusive regime. The government-owned Petro-Canada was inept and incapable of filling
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the void. Unemployment spiked, and many bankrupted Westerners literally had to abandon their homes
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as they couldn't keep up with the high interest rates of the time. When oil prices did later drop,
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the NEP was actually supposed to provide a floor for Western producers. A minimum price was supposed
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to be paid by Canadians when the costs got low. That, of course, never happened. Prime Minister Mo Rooney
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did scrap the NEP, but only when it was clear that it was now going to cost Central Canadians
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rather than benefit them. He kept it in place for a couple of years after he got elected. People
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forget that sometimes. Alberta had been drained of somewhere between 50 and 100 billion dollars
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in that short period of time, and that's a lot of money in those days. Well, it's a lot of money now.
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We'd been ridden hard and put away wet by the Central Canadian leadership. We were left with a broken
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economy, half-built buildings in downtown Calgary, and a loathing for the Liberal Party that remains even now.
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Fast forward to today, and we see rising interest rates, unchecked inflation, and high energy prices
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while a Trudeau is Prime Minister. Guess what's going to happen soon? Justin Trudeau is a pale shadow
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of his father in gumption and intellect. His insecurity considering this, though, has led to an
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increasingly authoritarian approach to governing. He wants to be respected, but he doesn't know how to be.
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He desperately wants a legacy that would make his dear departed dad proud. And in crunching a new
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national energy program would give him that. Justin's invocation to the Emergencies Act is
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proving to be an embarrassment, as opposed to his father's invocation to the War Measures Act,
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which was applauded by many people. He needs something else. Justin, I think, could try to
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succeed where his father failed in pinning down those uppity Western Canadians and their oil.
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And Jagmeet Singh, of course, would happily support him in such a move. Never mind that the last NEP was a
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complete catastrophe and failure, and nationalizing oil is always economically disastrous.
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Justin Trudeau is the Prime Minister who said budgets will balance themselves. He won't understand
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nuances of economic policies anytime soon. He's driven by spite and desperation for a legacy,
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and is painting a big red target on the back of Westerners right now.
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Rest assured, he won't sit by and let the West continue to generate budget surpluses through oil and
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gas while Central Canada slides deeper into the hole. Hold on to your hats, folks. The West's oil is
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soon going to become Canada's oil again under another Trudeau. History is repeating. This time,
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though, when it happens, we'd best be ready to use the only tool that can defend us,
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and that will be an eventual referendum on independence.