A Political Upset Stuns Only the Most Dense of Canada's Absolutist Robber-Barons

Last night, Tory candidate Don Stewart routed Liberal favourite, Leslie Church, in the St. Paul by-election (a riding once held by the odious Carolyn Bennett).

No one saw that coming from a traditionally-held Liberal stronghold:

 

None more stunned than Justin the installed leader of the federal Liberals.

 

In typical fashion, he mouthed a standard and unsubstantive word salad that simply cannot hide the arrogance for which he is known:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his party still has a “lot of work to do” following a surprise Conservative victory in the byelection for the Toronto–St. Paul’s riding, which had been a Liberal stronghold for more than three decades.

 “This was obviously not the result we wanted, but I want to be clear that I hear people’s concerns and frustrations,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters during a June 25 press conference in B.C.

 “These are not easy times and it’s clear that I, and my entire Liberal team, have much more work to do to deliver tangible real progress that Canadians across the country can see and feel.”

 

Is that so, Justin?

Let's take a look at the "progress" so far:

This is likely a simple function of Canadian productivity taking a nosedive under Trudeau. The amount of investment per worker — a key indicator of productivity — plummeted almost immediately after Trudeau’s 2015 election and hasn’t recovered. Just last week, former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge warned that Trudeau hasn’t once prioritized productivity in his economic policy, and Canadians are now feeling the consequences. ...

Opaque governance was one of the leading criticisms against Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper. Government scientists were “muzzled,” ministers rarely deviated from scripted talking points and Harper himself would go weeks without a single press conference.

“Government and its information must be open by default,” declared Trudeau in an “open letter to Canadians” issued soon after his 2015 swearing-in.

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But a damning 2023 report by Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard concluded that the Canadian access-to-information system had only gotten worse, leading her to conclude that transparency was “not a priority” for the Liberal government.

Also, the scientists still feel muzzled. A 2023 survey of 741 environmental researchers found that 92 per cent felt they had experienced some form of “interference” in their research and public communications. ...

But while those predecessors mostly ignored the issue of rising home prices, Trudeau made “affordable housing” an explicit plank of his 2015 campaign. “Trudeau promises affordable housing for Canadians,” reads the headline from one campaign statement at the time.

Instead, Canadian real estate now charts as the most unaffordable on Earth, raw housing prices have spiked by about 50 per cent in just the last nine years, and rents have effectively doubled.

  

One could go on.

This by-election (which could be spun as insignificant by the wags who were sure that Leslie Church was going to pull this off) could spur one of two things: ramped-up efforts by the Liberals to "win" (SEE: Dong, Han - we know damn well what really happened) or that other ridings will see voter turn-outs to turf the Liberals.