Trudeau’s landslide Liberal Party victory in Canada portends for Conservatives in US 2016 presidential election
Eric LaMont Gregory Msc Oxon
Justin Trudeau
The election of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada ends slightly less than a decade of Conservative Party rule and brings a sudden and dramatic halt to its leader, Stephen Harper, attempts to shift Canada to the right.
The landslide victory by Canada’s national Liberal Party has far-reaching consequences, not the least of which concerns its effect on the prospects of conservatives south of Canada’s extensive border with its largest trading partner, the United States of America.
Whereas, there has been much written in the Canadian press and spoken of on its broadcast media about the likely lack of any profound change in relation to the Conservative/Harper agenda with the US as relates to the Keystone pipeline and the Pacific Rim trade agreements, that coverage has, for the most part, been superficial and without much in the way of any weighty in-depth analysis.
That is to say, the sudden and dramatic nature of the Trudeau victory has left the Canadian press and broadcast media with nearly a decade of Harper spin and sound bites on which to draw, but having been caught unaware of the shift in Canadian popular opinion which resulted in the landslide Trudeau/Liberal Party victory, they lack what they would have had, had they had the slightest idea that Canadian popular opinion had shifted as much as it had shifted to the center left.
Even a cursory review of the press and broadcast media coverage of the election up and until the election results began to become available (the day before the election, the Ottawa Citizenpredicted a Conservative win), bears witness to the truth and the accuracy of the aforementioned statement.
And now, what presents as news coverage …
Let me put it this way.
At a time now known to be the latter days of the American Revolutionary War, when it was rather obvious that the newly declared United States was in the assent in that campaign, King George V gave a speech to the British Parliament in which he outlined the course and inevitable victory of the British Forces.
Thomas Paine, writing from Philadelphia (5 March 1782) summed the meaning of the king’s speech as, “… words which impress nothing but the ear, and are calculated only for the sound.”