Conrad Black to Bay Street: Justin can be trusted

[Joe Shlabotnik]

"Trudeau seems to be regaining enough of the old Liberal dexterity of being just far enough to the left of the Conservatives as not to seem like tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum to voters of the centre-left, and adequately to the right of the NDP not to frighten the cautious Canadian bourgeoisie." [italics added]
-- Conrad Black
National Post, October 2, 2015

For weeks, the Liberals have been managing to rebrand themselves as progressives on the grounds that Justin Trudeau would run deficits. Trudeau's pledge in late August to run deficits -- a dramatic reversal of his fierce pledge six weeks earlier not to run deficits -- isn't really hard to figure out. Trailing in the polls, the Liberal leader took a well-used page out of the Liberal playbook: feign left during an election campaign in order to court the progressive vote.

Black, like other members of the Canadian establishment, undoubtedly recalls the Liberals winning the 1993 federal election by posing as progressives -- promising huge new investments in housing and child care -- only to have Liberal finance minister Paul Martin do an about-face, tossing those commitments aside and embarking on a messianic, Bay Street-pleasing crusade of cutbacks to eliminate the deficit "come hell or high water." How much easier even to imagine Justin Trudeau -- younger and more impressionable than Paul Martin -- falling into line with corporate Canada, after the votes are counted, of course.

It also seems significant that Justin Trudeau didn't even bother to attend the big annual Labour Day parade in Toronto. NDP leader Tom Mulcair marched at the very front, arm in arm with national labour leaders, signalling his party's longstanding support for working people and the fight for greater equality.

So perhaps it's not surprising that Conrad Black, a class warrior on behalf of the business set, is uncomfortable about Mulcair.

But Trudeau is another matter. That's why Black is signalling to his conservative National Post readers: Don't be fooled by the left-wing posturing. Justin can be trusted.

Written by renown author, and NDP candidate Linda McQuaig; the rest, in better context at: http://rabble.ca/columnists/2015/10/conrad-black-to-bay-street-justin-can-be-trusted

[laundry_queen]

1. Interesting article

I have a lot to say about this but it's late and I have work tomorrow...perhaps I will be back to comment tomorrow after work.

[alcina]

2. Good -- though unsurprising -- article

Thanks for posting.

Is that his mug shot in the article???

[CanSocDem]

3. It's Conrad Black who can't be trusted...

He's a swindler and a thief. An endorsement from him should be' the kiss of death'.



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