GUNTER: Trudeau travels the world, while ordinary Canadians struggle

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In Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film, Catch Me If You CanLeonardo DiCaprio plays a con man who flies around the world scamming money from unsuspecting people while posing as an airline pilot.

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Sound familiar? Like perhaps Justin Trudeau who has been doing an inordinate amount of global fluttering lately while posing as a serious national leader.

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For the past two weeks, Trudeau has traveled to England for the Queen’s funeral and then to New York for the annual heads of government globefest at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.

Home for a few days. Perhaps condescending to attend a session of the House of Commons. Then head to Japan for the state funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Clearly the Liberal strategists believe all this wavering shows their man as a man of the world, someone respected by his international peers.

“Take this Pierre Poilievre,” the Liberal backroom seems to be saying. « I bet you can’t match our guy’s global reach. »

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In that vein, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a press release Sept. 21 stating that during his time abroad thus far, Trudeau « has worked closely with our global partners to address the world’s greatest challenges. world and improve people’s lives ».

Well, Trudeau came in to see the presidents of Moldova and Suriname (Ooo!), who were also in New York. The three agreed on a joint effort to combat forest loss.

As if reversing the “unregulated defalcation of charms” in Codrii Plonini’s Moldavian forest matters to a Hamilton or Grande Prairie family struggling to pay for food and gas while Trudeau’s runaway inflation renders difficult to balance between rising mortgage interest payments and dinner. the table and drive the kids to school.

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There are undoubtedly voters in the urban Liberal base who are impressed by the stamps on the Prime Minister’s passport, but I predict that the Liberals’ efforts to portray their man as a sophisticated internationalist will backfire on ordinary Canadian voters. who increasingly see Trudeau as an unserious and independent man. enlarging dilettante.

Statistics Canada released 2021 census data this week showing homeownership levels in Canada at their lowest level in 20 years. And poll after poll, a majority of Canadians under 40, who don’t yet own a home, have given up on that dream.

Instead of being in his office to deal with this, Trudeau was in New York throwing candy to the crowd from the World Affairs float at the UN parade (not literally, of course): $1 billion in new funding for AIDS, $100 million (more) to fight COVID, $245 million for food security in the developing world, and just under $2 million « to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online,” plus $10 million for “affordable child care in low- and middle-income countries.”

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I know that it is very important to Liberal voters that Canada be seen as an important player on the international scene. But, rightly or wrongly, most Canadians don’t care what the federal government does in multilateral institutions or international summits. Thus, the domestic political value of Trudeau’s present gallantries is doubtful.

Moreover, the Trudeau government has been abysmal when it comes to foreign affairs, and the prime minister himself has been embarrassing more often than not. (Think Bohemian Rhapsody at the Queen’s funeral and Bollywood costumes in India.)

After bragging that he would restore what he saw as Canada’s tarnished reputation under the Harper government, Trudeau failed to win us a seat on the UN Security Council, failed to succeeded in sending us back to international peacekeeping missions and undermined the confidence of our closest allies so much that the United States, United Kingdom and Australia excluded us from a new alliance (AUKUS) to counter Chinese aggression in the Pacific.

The Liberals give the victory to the new Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.