Rex Murphy Archives

Since Pierre Poilievre won the Conservative leadership race last year, he is proving he would make a great Prime Minister here in Canada. Actually, long before he won the leadership race. For five years prior, Poilievre served within the Conservative government (opposition) as the shadow minister for finance. In this role, he quickly became known for his bulldog-like perseverance in attempting to get answers. I loved (still do) listening to him grill, talk, argue, and explain things to voters, especially regarding wrong-doings featuring the Liberal government and our current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

No Longer an Affluent Country

Unless you are a high-paid member of the Liberal party, whose spending habits defy reason and transparency, it could be argued that Canada is no longer an affluent country. Perhaps compared to other countries around the world we appear to be but things have changed. Yes, we have our share of millionaires and a few billionaires in our midst, but the average family or citizen is penny-pinching, even struggling to make ends meet. High interest, mortgage, inflation rates, and taxes mean our earned dollars don’t go as far as they used to. Pension plans are not adjusted for inflation and investments have tanked, so many seniors who thought they could retire comfortably are now scratching their heads. More money is going out than is coming in; a basic accounting issue that continues to plague us. Couples are choosing to have fewer if any, children because of the astronomical cost of living.

These are just a few of the headlines:

In Q3 of last year, the Bank of Canada lost money for the first time in its history. Those losses are set to continue.
According to a new report, the Bank of Canada is set to lose up to $8.8 billion over the next 2-3 years.
Trudeau Campaigning Against Alberta Demonstrates His Unfitness For National Leadership
‘World Stage Trudeau’ Bears No Resemblance To The Trudeau Who Governs Canada
More Canadians Leaving Big Cities As Affordability Crisis Continues
Bank of Canada has to pay interest too on bonds held resulting in shortfall
Growing spending on consultants by ballooning public service is the real scandal

Many are putting their hopes in Pierre Poilievre to change this.

The following recent video shows Poilievre talking about the dire straits many Canadians are facing. He then gets into grilling Trudeau for numerous inappropriate contracts awarded to global consulting firm McKinsey over the years:

Support from Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper, former Canadian Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party supports Poilievre too and would like to see Trudeau ousted from his position.

I have watched with great concern as the Trudeau Liberals – in partnership with their NDP allies – have weakened our country through rampant inflation, slow growth, billions in new debt, lost job opportunities, an out-of-control housing market, and refusing to fix the institutions that have been failing Canadian families

I’ve seen Pierre in action. He served as my Parliamentary Secretary and was a strong Minister in my government. In recent years, he has been our Party’s most vocal and effective critic of the Trudeau Liberals.

Pierre is winning the support of Canadians because he’s talking about the issues – especially the economic issues – that matter to Canadian families. He is proposing sound, Conservative ideas, but ones adapted for the challenges of today. And, critically, he’s bringing a new generation of Canadians into our Party.

THAT is how we win the next election.

But, in the days and weeks to come, we can expect Pierre to face a barrage of attacks and criticisms from the Trudeau Liberals, the NDP, hostile voices in the news media, and left-wing special interests determined to derail his positive message of hope and freedom
Stephen Harper, former PM

Rex Murphy on the Conservatives of the Past

In the National Post, columnist Rex Murphy wonders whether Harper is doing Pierre Poilievre a favour by endorsing him or alienating and scaring off on-the-fence voters. This is due to Harper’s unpopularity when he was voted out. I for one like(d), respect(ed), and most importantly, trust(ed) the average-looking, non-flashy, down-to-earth, intelligent, qualified-for-the-job Stephen Harper and the fact that (in the words of Murphy) “he thinks, thinks well and deeply before he acts.” What a concept!

Unfortunately, things have changed drastically since Harper and the Conservatives were voted out:

Protests took place that didn’t bring down the Emergencies Act. When trying to stamp out bigotry, it was the custom not to fund bigots in the fight against it. The administration and distribution of public money in amounts close to a billion dollars to charity-entrepreneurs was not known, and finally, perhaps most extraordinary, Alberta’s oil industry was regarded as a national benefit.
Rex Murphy

Immigration Policies

Harper though had several policies that sunk him, especially his hard stance on immigration, a point Liberals were quick to capitalize on. Liberals plan to increase the arrival of immigrants to 500,000 per year by 2025. Does anyone else feel this is super-excessive, especially in such turbulent times? Poilievre recognizes Harper’s prior unpopularity in immigrant-rich communities like Toronto, so has adopted a promise:

We will maintain the same engagements and commitment for continuous discussions around immigration [including] immigration that is based on family reunification, the recognition of foreign certificates, the scrapping of the English test, as well as the removal of bottlenecks to improving the immigration process,”
current Conservative agenda

The problem is, as I see it anyway, that increased immigration and an economic crisis don’t meld well together. Higher cost of living, inflation rate, and housing costs are a nightmare for current citizens, how will immigrants fare? Canadian cities are already packed to the hilt. Although we do have lots of jobs available that immigrants might be more willing to fill than unemployed Canadians.

World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland

The WEF is happening right now. Don’t know about the WEF? Check out this information for specifics. Members of the Canadian Liberals love to attend, Conservatives not so much. That’s because of the controversy WEF is tainted with:

It began when an opinion article published in 2016 on the WEF’s website — entitled “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better” and intended, its author says, as “a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development” — started getting attention in 2020, after WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab wrote his own opinion piece arguing for something he called “the great reset.”…..The “great reset” has since morphed into a conspiracy theory claiming that a cabal of global elites is planning to remake society to eliminate private property and impose an authoritarian global government…..Last week, Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre told a crowd of applauding supporters that, as prime minister, he would ban cabinet ministers from attending “that big fancy conference of billionaires with the World Economic Forum” and vowed to remove them from cabinet should they attend.
CBC

Notable Canadians attending WEF in 2023 include Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, International Trade Minister Mary Ng, and former Bank of Canada and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.

Tipping the Scale

The problem with politics and politicians is that no one party or member can possibly tick all the boxes for voters, although Poilievre comes close. The current dismal economic state of our country, as well as repeated scandals from Liberals, with Justin Trudeau leading the way, are weighing him down.

My scales are tipped, and heavy is not good.

This is the Worst Canadian Government Ever: is a scathing (but accurate) article from Rex Murphy in the National Post. Not my words, but many of my thoughts and opinions!

Economics

The country is in an economic coma. The House of Commons is a movie set. We are shamed in the international community. And the list goes on.

It’s a mess. It’s a shambles. It’s an embarrassment. It is the worst ever by any reasonable measurement.

Judging by their performance on the most important files, the current bunch in Ottawa would need to hire a consultant to figure out how to get wet in a thunderstorm and set up a task force to study how to tie their own shoes.

Look around you. Canada is in the biggest, most persistent, and threatening crisis since — well since ever. The long-term care homes are under a blizzard of mortality. There is heartbreak in every small business in the country. The worry and anxiety level of most everyday citizens — especially those not shielded by uninterrupted cheques from provincial and federal governments, and those not serving as a member of a legislature — is at an all-time high.

On the Covid Nightmare

This government hoards any real details about what vaccines are here, how many are “secured” on paper only, and what they have promised to pay for them, as a miser hoards gold. Every press briefing on this most important of concerns is a dance of evasion, platitude, confused projection, and sometimes just pure ignorance of what is actually the case.

They are the most deliberately obfuscatory, opaque, access-of-information-allergic administration under the democratic sun.

One year into COVID our venerated House of Commons is a disemboweled, non-functioning, neglected wreck. The targeted disrespect of the absolute and central symbol and instrument of our democracy has no parallel. No “minority” government has ever operated with the smug insouciance and patented, virtue-perfumed arrogance towards the Commons as the Trudeau government. This is, when we step back, their biggest sin.

Shutdowns and Cabinet Shuffles

Since 1867 no prime minister has abandoned the House of Commons and downgraded its significance for so long a period and for such obviously self-centered and political opportunistic reasons. It is so much easier, so much safer, so much more convenient — to walk from the bedroom to the one-printer office and mail in platitudes and arias of evasion via Zoom

What other government has parted ways with a governor-general, and to top it off, a governor-general brought in by the world’s No. 1 “male feminist” as a role model for young women and girls? The same male-feminist who conveniently loses all his top-performing female ministers. Someone should do a “gender analytics” study on Justin Trudeau’s cabinet.

Not to worry. It has lost a finance minister over ethics charges during the mightiest spending binge since the Big Bang. An attorney general, the prime guardian of our rule of law, was hounded out because she would not bend the rule of law. The most qualified and respected woman, a doctor of medicine no less (in other words a real doctor) could not abide staying in so carelessly unethical a cabinet. Thus, at the very time Canada would have wished the most competent person to deal with a once-in-a-hundred years medical emergency, Dr. Jane Philpott is not even in the government.

Meantime Seamus O’Regan, the Trudeau cabinet’s favourite nomad — he takes up and puts down portfolios with the “greatest of ease,” leaving no impression behind as he goes — burbles on, during a pandemic, about planting two billion trees. Imagine, two billion. We only have about 300 billion already! Priorities I guess. Repeat after me the holy incantation: climate change, climate change, climate change. It’s better than a vaccine.

Hostages in Chinese Prisons

We have two hostages in the tyrannical torture houses of Chinese prisons. Those poor, suffering and tormented men must truly have been uplifted — if any news ever reaches them — to learn that their government, during a world pandemic, was collaborating with the Chinese government to “jointly develop a COVID-19 vaccine.” Remember the line from Casablanca — “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world …” — and Insert “countries” for gin joints. Of all the countries in all the world, why did the Trudeau government pick …. China? Incompetence can’t cover it. We need some term that speaks of dedicated and determined, merciless and staggering wrong-headedness: the purblind leading the purblind.

Budget

We have had no budget in two years. (Actually, we have one now, this article was penned pre-budget release, but unbelievably irresponsible) We have spent more than any other government, by far, in our history. We have no idea where all the money has gone. The auditor general has been denied the resources to even keep track of a portion of it. There is no coherence, or trust, between the majority of the premiers and the prime minister. We have been offered occasional delights, like the celebrated comic opera of the WE brothers and the (temporary) $43-million gift to them to administer half a billion dollars of your money.

Distractions

The Liberals have given far more time and dedicated energy to the Derek Sloan affair (whatever that was) than the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, and the emergent threat of Alberta leaving the Confederation. (Query for a serious panel discussion: Is Canada safe from Bidenism?) Alberta groans while the Trudeau government spends over $36 million for “stay-at-home chairs” for its civil service.

Conclusions

Is our present government the worst Canadian government ever. Can there be any question?

The country is in an economic coma. The House of Commons is a movie set. We are shamed in the international community. Contracts on COVID are all Top Secret. There is zero reliability on any projection made by a minister or the prime minister on where we are on vaccines and distribution. Rideau Hall is shortly to be listed on Airbnb. Farmers have been hit by fuel and carbon taxes. Newfoundland teeters on bankruptcy. The West has never felt so far out of things. I could go on.

Is this what was meant when the rosy words were first pronounced: Canada’s back?

To calm yourself, however, there is always this: Climate change.

Climate change. Climate change. Two billion trees. Two billion trees. Home chairs. Home chairs. Derek Sloan.