Is Trudeau Canadian enough?

" ... the Prime Minister was caught in a storm of controversy Wednesday afternoon when frustrations in the House of Commons saw Trudeau grabbing one lawmaker and then, accidentally elbowing another.  The altercation occurred when members had gathered for a vote on a controversial assisted-dying bill.  Trudeau, impatient to get the vote started, is seen on video striding over to Opposition whip Gordon Brown. He grabs Brown's arm to direct him to his seat. New Democrat Party (NDP) Parliament member Ruth Ellen Brosseau gets elbowed by Trudeau in the process."   CNN

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"What sort of man would elbow a woman!"  Evidently Trudeau is that sort of man, and on the floor of the House of Commons as well.  Trudeau became impatient with members not quick enough to do his will and waded into a group of them pushing and shoving a bit.  This doesn't sound like the Canada depicted in John Candy's comic masterpiece, "Canadian Bacon."

Seriously, sort of,  this is the kind of behavior to be expected in the 3rd World.  The last time we had something vaguely like this happen in the US Congress was an incident involving Dick Cheney Senator Leahy.  The "F" word was spoken in direct address. 

Of course in the 19th Century there were various parliamentary skirmishes like the occasion in which Senator Charles Sumner was beaten nearly to death at his desk in the senate chamber.  But then, perhaps he needed a good beating.

Poor Trudeau, he may have overestimated the potential power inherent in his position.  His nice wife is meeting resistance in her desire to have a couple more flunkies around the Prime Ministerial Lodge or whatever it is called.  How ungenerous!  What is it called?  pl  

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/asia/canada-trudeau-apology/

Comments

[rjj]

Gingrich? Trump might want someone more like a Dan Quayle.

[Fred]

Jack,

"...needs to raise over a billion dollars to compete with the big bucks..."

JEB! raised and spent 10% of a billion and it got him last place.

[wxrlly]

Ted Cruz did the same to his wife. Maybe its a Canadian thing after all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x0NP-hTxog

[kooshy]

Colonel, on this issue you can call me that suspicious man. I put my money on that , IMO The venetian king' money for Trump, just didn't come for his love of republicans.

[Nana2007]

What a bunch of nonsense. This twit Brown couldn't back up and go around? And how does one get to be PM and get baited by this simpleminded ninny hammer ambush? It all boggles the mind.

[kooshy]

A gambling man will risk/invest a !00 Million on the campaign of the only two possible individuals to become president, for a guaranteed return of 3 billion a year in form of taxpayer' payback to Israel, without the right to question what is the money spend on.

[Tyler]

Mr. Habbakuk,

The ADL fulfills so many negative Jewish stereotypes you think it would investigate itself.

[FkDahl]

I have met Trudeau (the younger) a couple of times, over ten years ago. I said it then, and I stand behind it today, that is not a man I would like to share a foxhole with. He is much more a politician than an infantryman.
There are several on this site I would consider myself honored to share on with (if I was unlucky enough to be in that situation)...

[Paul Escobar]

To all,

I wrote here some time ago that the Canadian political parties misunderstood the nature of Justin Trudeau's candidacy. The conservatives & socialists treated him as a child, not realizing that he was regarded by the population as the NATIONAL CHILD. They attacked his laziness, ignorance, & femininity...to no avail. In effect, this just reinforced national support for him.

When I was a kid browsing through the public library, I came across a comic book character called Li'l Abner. My mind has always drawn a connection between the media portrayal of Trudeau, and this character.

Today I look up the Wikipedia entry on Abner, and it describes him thus: "Abner was 6'3 and perpetually 19 years old. A naïve, simpleminded, gullible and sweet-natured hillbilly. A paragon of innocence in a sardonically dark and cynical world. Abner typically had no visible means of support..."

This description, in the key aspects, tracks well with Trudeau's portrayal. He is tall & handsome - but balances it out with a certain simpleton charm that disarms men. Women (in their quiet thoughts, or physically as one HuffPo reporter did lol!) pursue him the way Daisy Mae does. Despite his wealth & storied last name, he barely has a working life to speak of. From his mouth, drips nothing but sweet & comforting honey.

But what happens when such a character shows his ugly side? We allow this in modern characters. But Justin Trudeau, like Abner, is a throwback. The story is supposed to be: the world is ugly, he isn't. Yet...what that video shows, on the most basic & superficial level...is an impatient, rough, and inconsiderate person. It's as if Abner suddenly looked at the audience with The Joker's purposeful smile.

Is Trudeau losing his job today? No. But the seed that could grow to be his demise has been planted.

The problem for Trudeau, IMO, is the woman he elbowed in the chest. It's not just any random woman. She is a sort of national character herself.

Ruth-Ellen is her name. A single mother & barmaid, who put herself up for election because no one else would represent the socialist party in her riding. Her party was a perpetual loser in the province. So it was nothing for her to be on one of the rare vacations she could afford to take...at the time of the election. Turns out that was the exact moment history decided to elevate the socialist party to never-before seen heights. She won her riding...and earned national media ridicule. They portrayed her as an undeserving ditz, symbolic of some temporary psychosis that had come over the nation.

Time & familiarity redeemed her. She did her work quietly & locally. Made no gaffes nationally. The media came around. She made such an impression, that while the Trudeau's "red tide" swept across the country & knocked off most of her socialist colleagues...she remained standing.

Here is where the story could become interesting. The socialist party (known as the "NDP" in Canada) is to hold a leadership election in 2017. For their entire existence, they have purported to be a party of the working class. Yet their leadership has always been affluent.

Ruth-Ellen Brosseau, to my knowledge, is the first working class female (if not person) ever elected to parliament. She has endured the unjust ridicule & condescension of the political class...and now an elbow the chest by the Prime Minister.

What I see in her is a potential phenomena, something quite similar to Justin Trudeau. Though less manufactured, and more genuine.

Today alone, you can see the problem she poses for Trudeau. While Trudeau parades himself as THE international icon of "feminism"...his supporters have set upon this woman for "exaggerating" & "lying". The cognitive dissonance is jarring.

This woman is no Sarah Palin. She is quiet & sincere. Is she an expert on all the issues? Does she have a photographic memory? No. But that does not matter. What Trudeau's candidacy established was that innocence & sweetness could defeat those other virtues. And with her on the stage, the nation will have a jarring reminder that Trudeau is not really that innocent or sweet.

Best,
Paul Escobar

[Shadow]

@ Paul Escobar:
"Ruth-Ellen Brosseau, to my knowledge, is the first working class female (if not person) ever elected to parliament. She has endured the unjust ridicule & condescension of the political class...and now an elbow the chest by the Prime Minister."
Ms. Brosseau grew up in Hudson, Quebec.
Here's a little about Hudson from Wikipedia:
Hudson is a municipality within the Greater Montreal. … A relatively wealthy town, Hudson is known for its large, turn-of-the century houses, many of which border the Lake of Two Mountains. ...
Hudson has been dubbed "the leafy Anglo-enclave", as, unlike the surrounding mainly French-speaking municipalities, Hudson has a majority English-speaking population (65% according to 2001 Census), although many residents speak both languages.
Hudson is near the edge of suburban Montreal to the east, but also surrounded by substantial farming and forest areas to the west. Large lot sizes, enforced by town by-laws, contribute to the relatively large number of trees in the residential areas.
...
The town is largely upper-middle class and includes professionals, artists and artisans, corporate executives, and a wide variety of entrepreneurs as residents. There are some 140 businesses in town, 50% of which are of an arts and crafts nature.
...
Another working-class bloke who grew up in Hudson was Jack Layton, the late head of the NDP. Here's what his Wikipedia entry has to say about him and by inference Hudson:
John Gilbert "Jack" Layton was born in Montreal and raised in nearby Hudson, Quebec, a comfortable and largely Anglophone community. His parents were Doris Elizabeth (Steeves), a grand-niece of William Steeves, a Father of Confederation, and Progressive Conservative MP Robert Layton.
The kind of people that live in Hudson are United Empire Loyalists (the Americans who in the American Revolution remained loyal to the British Crown and fled to Canada). Others are doctors. Others are graduate students who take their tennis racket along to the local tavern for a cold one.
Hudson is much closer to Marin County than it is to Wigan Pier.
Although Ms. Brosseau has a French name, she went to French immersion school. She studied advertising and marketing. More give-aways that she's working-class (irony alert).
The fact that Ms. Brosseau worked as a bartender in a university bar doesn't make her working class; given her background it suggests she comes out of the “hippy” wing of the NDP.
The NDP is not per se a worker's party. To a large extent it's a coalition of unions and middle-class left-wing intellectuals. There's what we might call a “hippy” wing—more socially liberal than socialist in the economic sense.
In this regard we might look at what happened in the episode in Parliament. Ms. Brosseau along with the out-going leader of the NDP and someone else had surrounded the Conservative “whip” to prevent him from taking his seat, thus preventing a vote from proceeding to limit debate on an assisted suicide bill. Trudeau got angry and broke the blockade, dragging the “whip” to his seat. While executing his “liberation” manoeuvre, Trudeau accidentally elbowed Ms. Brosseau. The whole episode makes sense as an episode in a high-school mock Parliament. It suggests a certain immaturity all round.
No one is paying it any attention on the street. Maybe the media—the ownership of which is at least as highly concentrated in Canada as in the United States—is milking it for what it's worth to discredit Trudeau because they want him out.
As for Trudeau as L'il Abner. The guy has a degree in drama. He knows how to handle himself. His father was the Prime Minister of Canada for years, loved by some, hated by others. The young Trudeau is politically correct. Except, it appears, when he loses his temper. Of course, none of this has any effect on arms sales to Saudi. They go ahead.
And so what was the brouhaha all about? Basically the Supreme Court of Canada ordered suicide on demand (think Roe vs Wade) and gave the government some months to draft a bill to regulate it. This was the bill. The bill was contentious, in part because it has restrictions on the availability of suicide. No one is talking about the wisdom of instituting suicide on demand and it would appear that Canada is headed the way of Switzerland in this regard.

[Paul Escobar]

Shadow,

A quibbling response. Indicative of the problem Trudeau will face, should he face her.

What were HER circumstances? What the national mind remembers is widespread (mostly Liberal) condemnation that an undeserving pub worker would receive the salary & perks of an elected official.

The Liberals would have to spend considerably to correct that bit of zeitgeist. And if they pursued the line of argument you have forwarded...oh boy.

But I did err, factually, in one regard. I failed to point out Brosseau was a teen mother...and a vegetarian. This, in the nation that produced the "Degrassi" TV series.

There is no doubt, she is Canadian enough.

Mark my words,
Paul Escobar