Diane Francis: Time to toss out the pretty boy and make Erin O’Toole our prime minister
The contrast between O’Toole and Trudeau couldn’t be any starker and is why the Conservative leader is overtaking the prime minister
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This federal election is about replacing a boy as Prime Minister with a man.
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The contrast between Erin O’Toole and Justin Trudeau couldn’t be any starker and is why the Conservative leader is overtaking the prime minister. The biographies explain the difference — O’Toole is a man who served in the Canadian military for years then put himself through law school and became a successful lawyer then politician. Trudeau is a trust fund kid whose principal domain “expertise” was his father’s name and network.
The fact that Trudeau called an election, costing $600 million in the middle of the fourth wave of a pandemic has upset Canadians, and for good reason. He did so because he thought he could win a majority. Even worse, he said in the recent TVA French debate that if he wins another minority there will be another election in 18 months time. In other words he will spend us poor simply to get what he wants.
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His ineptitude is catching up to him. I have many Liberal friends who confess they are going to vote Conservative. I’m hearing that critically important regions — like Ontario’s 905 and Vancouver suburbs — are swinging blue to be rid of this bunch in Ottawa.
As advance polls kick off this weekend and we head to another election, here’s what is becoming obvious to most Canadians:
A Prime Minister Erin O’Toole would never have made a deal with the Chinese to provide Canada with vaccines, causing delays that locked down Canadians for many months. O’Toole this year was one of the first leaders in the Western world to lead a motion in parliament demanding that the 2022 Winter Olympics be relocated outside China in protest against its genocide against Uighurs. Trudeau and his cabinet abstained from the vote.
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Prime Minister O’Toole would have represented Canada with distinction at international gatherings such as the G7 and NATO because he is educated, well-informed, and experienced. He wouldn’t have huddled with others cracking juvenile jokes about the President of another country.
Prime Minister O’Toole would have provided Canadians with moderate policies, not radical ones based on suggestions by green zealot Greta Thunberg or Davos press releases or whims concocted inside Ottawa’s Liberal bubble like the Muskoka brain trust that cooked up a scheme to bring in 400,000 people a year from around the world without justification.
This is another turning point which is why those considering voting for fringe parties like the Maverick Party or the People’s Party must vote Conservative to rid the country of the Liberals. O’Toole has created a big tent party to accommodate blue and white collar workers, French and English, East and West, and social liberals who are economic conservatives.
Trudeau, if he squeaks back in, will double-down with the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh, on a socialist, statist, and elitist agenda in order to fix our teeth, not our economy, and pile on more debt, not reduce the burden.
The choice, as O’Toole has said, is vote for the Conservative Party of Canada or vote for more of the same delivered by two pretty boys who should simply find another line of work.