The Horrible Problem of Emptiness

Exemplified right here:

Look at the PM’s insipid Canada Day statement. After barbecue and outdoor clichés, he said “This year, we have a lot to celebrate. In the last four years, Canadians have created more than a million new jobs. The unemployment rate is at its lowest since the 1970s. And across the country, 825,000 Canadians have been lifted out of poverty.” So Trump isn’t the only leader who can’t tell a party political broadcast from a national celebration. (Even the Liberal-friendly Toronto Star called his actual spoken Canada Day remarks “a campaign-style speech”.)"

Yes, about that unemployment and poverty thing:

The unemployment rate is also supposedly at a record low of 5.4%. Again however, that is because 76,000 people simply gave up looking for work, and are no longer considered unemployed under the current system.

BNN also points out “The composition of the gains was not particularly robust, reflecting an increase of 61,500 among self-employed. The number of “employees’ in the economy actually declined.”

That ‘self-employed’ number is very important to look at.

In today’s economy, we are increasingly see people losing secure jobs with benefits, while then becoming self-employed in far more precarious positions. So, while there may technically be some jobs being created, the quality of those jobs is often worse, and leaves people far more vulnerable.

**

But a closer look at the numbers revealed that the country gained 82,000 less desirable, part-time positions last month — and it lost 28,000 full-time jobs. The public sector made the biggest contribution to the July increase with 49,600 new jobs, while the private sector added 5,200 positions.

But I digress ...

In a statement the immigration minister praised immigration and diversity and how “With the protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, people of every race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and cultural background share in the pride of being Canadian.” (This message is brought to you by the Liberal Party of Canada, which forgot there were other parties.) And the environment minister followed her own barbecue cliché with a relativistic “we each mark Canada Day in our own way,” before remembering to urge “more Canadians — particularly newcomers to our country — to experience the outdoors” then praising “diversity” (except the kind where you stay inside) “compassion and hard work.” Boooring.

You can say that again.

The PM served up even more burble. “We’re an example to the world because of the way we treat each other. Canadians are neighbours helping neighbours, ...

Yes, about that:

In total, 20.4% of Canadians claimed at least one charitable donation on their tax return in 2016 (the latest year of available data), down from 24.6% of tax-filers in 2006. In fact, if one quarter of tax-filers had donated in 2016, the number of Canadians who made charitable donations would have increased by more than one million people.

Canadians are also donating a smaller share of their income. Collectively, Canadians contributed 0.53% of their household income to registered charities in 2016 — the lowest percentage since 2006 — compared to 0.78% 10 years earlier, indicating that donations as a share of income declined by 32%.

With smaller donations by fewer tax-filers, the result has been a decline in the total dollar value for charitable giving in Canada.

**

... small businesses lifting communities up, ...

Ahem:

Capital flows dropped for a second year, and are down by more than half since 2015. The investment that did take place was from reinvested earnings of existing operations. Net foreign purchases of Canadian businesses turned negative for the first time in a decade, which means that foreign companies sold more Canadian businesses than they bought.

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... and men and women in uniform keeping us safe. 

We’re families opening hearts and homes to newcomers in need — and friends who might as well be family.” 

Again:

A city committee will be asked Wednesday to approve six contracts valued at $108 million to house refugee claimants for the next year.

Those contracts, on the agenda of the economic and community development committee, will provide 800 hotel rooms in Toronto, Brampton, Newmarket and Pickering from July 1, if needed, according to shelter, support and housing spokesman Greg Seraganian.

That doesn’t include the $24 million already spent to house and feed those in the Radisson Toronto East ($13 million), the Toronto Plaza hotel ($9-million) and the Comfort Hotel Airport North ($2 million) over the past six months.

**
 

“Not everyone benefits equally from Canada’s success. We need to change that …That means supporting Canada’s workers, creating more opportunity, and growing the middle class. And it means fighting climate change …”

Why does this sound familiar?

Oh, yes:

Middle-class shrinkage was sharper in Canada than the OECD average.

One could carry on with the omissions, half-truths and outright lies but the biggest fault in this boring campaign speech is the total lack of substance and meaning in it.


Further:

The problem isn’t just saccharine partisan vacuity. It’s a much deeper vacuity. Gibbons suggested we’re not feeling the burn because “Our country is being pushed around … We have become a global punching bag” for “the world’s bullies” and “We just don’t seem to have the backbone to fight back anymore.” Which is true. But, I think, this geopolitical fecklessness is just a symptom, albeit serious, of a revolt of the elites, political, cultural and academic who don’t think our heritage and culture worth fighting for.

There is one problem with this bloated bag of air that was meant to be a rousing and contemplative oration.

When the Fathers of Confederation were finalising the union that would become Canada, it wasn't simply that they knew who they weren't. Many believed that they were British subjects and many still felt that way one hundred years after the BNA Act was signed. By 1867, people already had an idea of who they were - a nation too new to have the Old World pretensions and affectations. Canada was a place where one could not only start anew but be it - be a self-made citizen in a land that allowed it.

Compare that with Justin contempt and ignorance of the post-modern Canadian citizen:

When Trudeau told an American publication Canada has “no core identity” and “is the world’s first post-national state” he wasn’t sorry. He was boasting. We finally dumped Harper the evil troll, Duplessis and the Grande Noirceur, and our racist, sexist, homophobic, individualist past. ...

How does one feel proud when one is told that he or she is nothing but a blank slate and a product of a poor past only to contradict that with equally empty leftist and accusatory platitudes?:

Compare the PM’s spontaneous joy at a Pride parade with his stilted Canada Day prose and you know his heart is in transvaluing not celebrating, in remaking Canada not making it an even better version of what it always was. And it’s hard to get enthusiastic about “We stink and always have, but if we’re worthy of Justin we might be redeemed.”

Redeemed? Into what?

Or does Justin mean one should be in his good estimation?

Of him?

Nope.


Also:

You should all feel free to think whatever you will about Justin Trudeau and his record — love, hate, indifference, whatever. But it is really, really weird for the Star’s editorialists to say that the prime minister needs to stand up and demonstrate that he has those key qualities after he’s already been in office almost four years. How long does the guy have to be in office before the Star’s ed board concludes that what we’ve all seen is basically what we’re going to get?

I believe it is more like distancing themselves from Justin. After stepping up to bat for someone as useless as he is, even the editors for the Toronto Star can't lie and omit enough to cover that.