goldstein: trudeau and biden are lame ducks and it’s a problem
there are downsides to having national political leaders in canada and the u.s. whose days in office are numbered
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canadians and americans are in the unusual position of having both of their countries being led by lame ducks. that’s not good for either country.
u.s. president joe biden’s term of office officially ends jan. 20, 2025, when he’ll be replaced by republican president-elect donald trump.
prime minister justin trudeau’s best before date is oct. 20, 2025, by which time there has to be a federal election – unless there’s a snap election before that – with all indications pointing to his minority liberal government being replaced by a conservative majority government led by pierre poilievre.
while acknowledging, in trudeau’s case, that a week is a lifetime in politics and that anything can happen in an election, the liberals have been so deep underwater for so long in so many polls, that a revival of their fortunes seems highly unlikely at this point.
given that, there are downsides to having national political leaders in canada and the u.s. facing the reality that everyone knows their days in office are numbered.
for one thing, leaders of other countries know that when negotiating with the biden and trudeau administrations.
trump knows that it’s likely he’ll be dealing with a conservative prime minister when the canada, u.s., mexico free trade agreement comes up for re-negotiation in 2026, with talks expected to start in 2025.
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he knows right now that trudeau is a lame duck leader on the issue of his threatened 25% tariff on all canadian goods coming into the u.s., which violates the free trade deal he approved, but which he says he’ll enact through executive orders on day one of his presidency.
we should of course support our government on this issue – trump’s tariffs would be devastating to our economy – but we should also acknowledge reality.
in biden’s case, his shameless pardoning of his son, hunter biden, for convictions on illegal gun possession and tax fraud, for which he was about to be sentenced – as well as, bizarrely, for any crimes he may have committed going back to jan. 1, 2014 – was a decision made by a president knowing he’d be gone jan. 20, and therefore not having to deal with or care about its political consequences.
while parents can sympathize with a father wanting to keep his son out of prison, it was inexcusable that biden and his spokespeople repeatedly denied for months that biden would pardon his son, prior to his last-minute reversal – only after trump defeated democratic vice president nominee, kamala harris, in the nov. 5 presidential election.
it all raises the reasonable suspicion that biden was lying to the american people for months on this issue, up to the moment of his alleged change of heart he said he had after discussing it with his family over the u.s. thanksgiving holiday.
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in the case of trudeau and the liberals, they’re so desperate to curry favour with voters in the face of their impending political demise that it has inevitably led to bad and ineffective legislation, such as their two-month gst holiday.
the whole thing sounds like it was written on the back of a napkin with the liberals’ explanation of what’s included in the gst holiday and what isn’t, so confusing that’s it’s going to be a nightmare for businesses to administer.
it’s a gimmick that does nothing to address the underlying economic issues canadians are facing, including the high cost of living, rising unemployment and canada’s shrinking economy on a per-capita basis.
to be sure, there’s nothing wrong with canadians taking the tax break given by the liberals and then voting against them in the next election, reminiscent of the advice of the late jesse unruh, speaker of the california state assembly, who famously quipped about politics that:
“if you can’t take their money, drink their booze, eat their food … and vote against them, you don’t belong here.”
(i’m leaving out another example in this famous quote because this is a family newspaper but it’s easy to google it.)
the other issue, in canada, is how seriously should we take any new promises by the trudeau government given that it’s very unlikely they’ll be around to implement them?
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then they can say that they were about to do all these great things for canadians until they were defeated by the conservatives, which is one of the oldest political tricks in the book when a governing party knows it’s heading for the opposition benches.
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