After 10 years of Liberal misrule, Canadians are by now unfortunately familiar with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s unique fusion of incoherence and hubris. Every mistake he makes is an opportunity for Canadians to learn; when he groped a female reporter, Canadians could learn about misogyny; when he used blackface more times than he could remember, we could all reflect, together, on our collective racism. The gaping chasm between Trudeau’s public progressivism and his private behavior has never put the slightest dent in his commitment to self-righteously hectoring Canadians. The man has turned hypocrisy into an art form.
Canadians are tiring of this, and every poll indicates that most are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to bid him au revoir for good. That, of course, means that Trudeau has pivoted to his favorite strategy: championing abortion and the LGBT movement while accusing his opponents of being insufficiently enthusiastic about feticide and “sex changes” for kids. On May 15, he traveled to New Brunswick to condemn Premier Blaine Higgs for Policy 713, a policy that requires schools to acquire parental consent before “socially transitioning” children who are under the age of 16.
It is still the practice of most Canadian public schools to “socially transition” – that is, refer to transgender-identifying girls as boys and transgender-identifying boys as girls – without telling their parents. The U.K.’s National Health Service recently released the Cass Report, which condemns “social transitioning” “because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning and longer-term outcomes.” None of these facts, however, have given the Liberals the slightest pause – presumably, they believe that the NHS has been infiltrated by far-right American MAGA body-snatchers.
In a statement that was more bewildering than usual, Trudeau took aim at Blaine Higgs. “I trust parents,” he said obliviously. “I trust schools. And I don’t think we should be trying to score political points off of kids who are incredibly vulnerable, who should be targeted by political parties wanting to get elected or to get re-elected.” Of course, he doesn’t “trust parents” – he is insisting that it is “targeting” kids to tell parents what schools are up to with their children. Incidentally, Higgs isn’t targeting kids at all. He is following the best research on this issue and respecting that parents care the most about their children.
It is Trudeau, of course, who trots out “trans kids” whenever he has the opportunity, because he needs the LGBT movement to get elected. The LGBT movement is perhaps the only thing he has ever been faithful to, and, as with abortion, he appears to be genuinely passionate about it. Indeed, Trudeau announced in New Brunswick that he is concerned that “we’re not further vulnerablizing our most vulnerable kids.” That’s not a word, of course, but to be fair, the rest of the statement makes no sense, either.
Speaking of “our most vulnerable kids,” Trudeau also took the opportunity to excoriate Premier Higgs for not championing abortion enough. He claims that the Higgs government is “not respecting women’s rights [sic] to choose.” Why? Because in January, an independent abortion center in Frederiction – Clinic 554 – closed because New Brunswick declined to pay for abortions at the facility through Medicare (although abortions are paid for at two hospitals in Moncton and the Chaleur Hospital in Bathurst). Keen observers will note that “choice” has nothing to do with this state of affairs.
Trudeau, however, is not a keen observer. “The shutting down of health and reproductive services offered by Clinic 554, the unwillingness to engage in allowing women to actually choose what happens to their future and their bodies is a disgrace,” he bloviated, as if abortion is not legal in Canada up until birth. “So we know it’s not that Roe vs. Wade couldn’t happen in Canada, it’s that it’s more likely to happen in Canada, particularly with Conservative leaders who continue not to stand up for women’s rights [sic].”
So there we have it, then. After nearly a decade of scandal and a deterioration in living conditions, Trudeau’s political strategy is to deploy “trans kids” and aborted babies as wedge issues in the hopes that he’ll scare enough impoverished progressives into voting for him just one more time. I don’t think it’ll work, but it is worth noting how ugly and cynical it is that he’s even trying.
