While America roils in the dynamics of a Woke retreat, Andrew Kaufman points out that Canada remains entirely in the thrall of the feminized morality introduced by Justin Trudeau’s election ten years ago this month. “Liberals: Stop importing U.S. politics into Canada. Also Liberals: Hey look, the U.S is holding a 'No Kings' protest. Let do it too.” To stop Woke rejection Mark Carney wants to make Canada more European.

What to do? A Canadian city mortified that its coolest kid was leaving. Being successor to the hockey humility gene McDavid chose to halve the baby, taking a preposterous $12.5 M a year for two years in Edmonton while making it obvious he’s gone should the Oil again fail to win the Stanley Cup.

A Bill Davis Ontario would never tell another province to cripple its economy to suit climate obsessions in his own province. A Bill Davis Ontario would support nation-building projects like trans-Canada pipelines not forcing Alberta to sell their oil at a discount to the U.S. A Bill Davis Ontario would never support gun seizures from law-abiding owners. But those days are done.

The classic teaching model once was the erudite John Houseman as the Harvard law legend in the Paper Chase movie in the 1980s. “You teach yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush; you leave thinking like a lawyer.” Houseman’s rigourous professor inspired dread in his students,. At the same time he earned a measure of hero worship for forcing them to think.

It was mostly American social media that outed odious Canadian comments online, forcing employers to take action against loons they’ve harboured up till now. The reaction to this culling was predictable in the mainstream media. “TorontoStar After Charlie Kirk’s death, workers learn the limits of free speech in and out of their jobs”  The hysteria over Jimmy Kimmel’s banishment dwarfed even that.

No doubt Charlie Kirk’s death will be mobilized by both sides in their appeals for the loyalty of the military should a civil war break out in the U.S. Perhaps it will again be dodged. But wiggle room is fast disappearing. Get your generals in a row. MSNBC’s Jen Psaki has declared Trump’s tribute to Kirk “an escalation" Says legal expert Jonathan Turley, “We are already at political assassinations, so I am not sure how much more room for escalation there may be for Psaki or MSNBC.”

The West’s privileged elites— particularly in Canada— refuse to acknowledge reality, preferring the dewey dawn of the Clinton or Obama presidencies. They toss around terms like tyrant to distract from the cliff they’ve built.  They pose. They primp. As security expert Mike Benz notes, “The vast majority of stock leftists are not true believers, they have strong beliefs, loosely held.” How loosely we are about to find out.

Perhaps the best example of bureaucratic waste is tucked into the line “Applications are encouraged from members of groups that are historically disadvantaged and underrepresented.” (*Translation: DEI) And “as a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT), you are expected to promote an inclusive leadership style that values equity, diversity, inclusion, and ensures psychological and physical safety.” IOW you are urged to promote inclusion while the vast majority of taxpaying white male citizens are excluded from consideration.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the security blanket Western progressives count on to save them is, as Yeats said, “a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick”. An equation based on keeping their hands clean while others die. Only luck will determine if they must finally make a commitment or keep skating by with mere contributions. 

General society is now one big wrestling scam with no one believing the plot lines. Instead they revel in heel turns, outlandish characters and fake blood. Authenticity is dead.

Such is the Elbows Up trance in Canada that few have any idea of Carney’s true agenda, because it’s not what his paid wordsmiths in the media are pitching. For them it’s all fighting Trump, all the time. (Aided by his Robin, Doug Ford.) But here are three major policies we will talk about five years from now, saying “Wha’ happened?”

Across the nation far-left big-city mayors— elected by vote splitting in many cases— are now protected by anti-hate speech laws that translate public criticism into hate crime. The people who called cops “pigs” in the past generation  are now content to use cops to suppress their perceived enemies. 

The problem was that Greg Gutfeld, Colbert’s competition on FOX News, was getting 3.289 M a night. But this is still a business, and Colbert’s act was getting tired with advertisers as DEI, CRT and ESG hurt the bottom line. When Colbert ripped CBS last week for settling a libel suit with Trump it was over-and-out for Colbert. 

Like all people addicted, CDN Boomers don't want the truth. They want performance theatre, T-shirts and hockey games. They blame Trump for their predicament, caught between grim realities. Will they take the 12 steps? Or will their kids have to tell them the facts as they escort them to the home?” 

Rick Mercer. Don Cherry. Both brilliant masters of the craft of holding eyeballs. But they represented polar opposites. Mercer was the glib political voice of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. There was never any doubt in CBC’s upper reaches about whose side he was on in the culture war. Cherry was the unpredictable voice of Hockey Night in Canada. Who scared CBC/ Rogers to death.

Mercer was worshipped by the folks in the C suite.

Both these leaders, for better or worse, changed politics irrevocably. Trump’s audacity and pitiless style— thought to be political poison— have re-written the book on what works. Politics will never ever be the same down south. The same can be said for the style of Justin Trudeau. He defined a style of politics for Boomer Canada, long on Woke platitudes, short on concrete policy. It worked. Three times.

Canadians dozed when Trump made clear in his election campaign that the American economy is the greatest in the world. If you want to fish in that pond it’s not going to be free. That means tariffs. Now they’re shocked.

Nowhere is victimhood more bizarre— and dangerous— than the Hamas infatuation. “Terrorists, criminals, psychopaths, and fantasists from every part of the globe have grafted themselves on to the Palestinian cause,” writes Lee Smith in Tablet. “(It) gives hope to each of these groups—hope that their own nihilistic and murderous ambitions could win world favour as well. And they have.”