Let’s go back a bit. A couple of times before the election writ dropped, a pre-blackface Justin Trudeau was on TV throwing zingers at Ontario Premier Doug Ford and ex-Conservative PM Stephen Harper as if their names were actually on the coming election ballot.
The PM seemed to honestly believe he could scare Canadians with the spectre of a Big Bad Doug Ford blowing down their houses and the stone-cold Stephen Harper raiding the destroyed homes to kill off any survivors.
And that the evil far-right temptress Faith Goldy, who’s running in no riding, as toxic poison directly linked to the Conservatives.
These scare-the-bejeebers tactics appeared to be one of the Liberal war room’s main themes.
Remember, as the blackface shows, Trudeau is not the brightest light. His smarts are actually the intellectual property of Gerald Butts and Katie Telford, they respectively being the PM’s erstwhile principal secretary and chief of staff. They’re both policy wonks, and legitimate policy can lead a party to victory if they can rise upon the flak.
Trudeau, on the other hand, is just wonky.
Before this blackface scandal, which has him playing silly bugger at least three times (once in a video), the theory was that keeping Ford demonized, and Harper equally slandered, and throwing in Goldy as a pot spoiler, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer would get hurt as well.
But, even before the blackface scandal, there was really only one ballot question.
Just one.
Do you trust Justin Trudeau enough after his first four years as PM to give him a second term in power? Think about it.
Let’s be honest. Trudeau’s now an established international embarrassment, and amply fits the definition of “wonky” as someone who is “unreliable, wobbly and unpredictable.”
How else can one explain Trudeau’s decision to visit India and dress up as if he were a manic star in some high-end Bollywood movie, and forcing his wife and kids to be as equally flamboyant and dippy?
Surely Butts, his university pal and then main aide, didn’t think he was serious until it was too late.
Or maybe Butts convinced Trudeau to at least not brown up his face, too.
It matters naught now, of course, because the international embarrassment of Trudeau dressing up like an affected poseur is now months in the rear-view mirror, and the damage has been done.
But you can’t unsee what we saw. And you can’t unsee the blackface images. Jeeez-uz, he even painted his arms and hands and silently hoped for years that no one would find out.
Those images, however, are now seared in our brains forever, and it should not be forgotten when we step into the polling booth on Oct. 21.
Does Trudeau deserve a second term as PM?
We already know he’s prone to being a Pinocchio, which should translate into the question of whether we can ever again take him at his word.
We already know, too, through a retired judge and various constitutional experts, that Trudeau is also a little footloose with truth, and could have fully waived cabinet confidentiality to help the RCMP’s investigation into the SNC-Lavalin cockup.
The fact that he will not more than suggests he has something to hide, and that “something” casts the shadow of a criminal prosecution possibly ensuing.
Now, wouldn’t that take the cake if he were re-elected as PM?
It would surely turn his blackface a deep shade of pale, and all to the delight of untold millions who saw through his hypocrisy.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
