Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/02/when-asked-about-trumps-desi.html
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Huh. Self control in a leader. I’d forgotten what that looks like.
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Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, is infamous for actually invoking martial law in Canada during the October Crisis of 1970 after a Deputy Premier and a British diplomat were kidnapped by Quebecois terrorists. Earlier in the crisis, when asked how far he’d go, he said, “Just watch me”.
And Trudeau Sr. still handled it better than Trump’s handling this.
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Yeah, agree %100. It’s depressing looking at a tank full of fish cannibalizing themselves. It sucks even more if you’re one of the fish in the tank. I’m surprised Trudeau hasn’t proposed a border wall yet…
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Obviously Trudeau is horrified by Trump’s behaviour, but Canada has far too many economic ties to the US to risk outward censure. There was no way for him to actually criticize the US president responsibly, so he pivoted.
I was struck by how you could hear crickets chirping during the pause, however.
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I think Canada and Mexico should both build border walls and then flood the US.
I saw that as a citizen of the United States. It is utter madness here right now, they need to protect their nations from spillover from the escalating conflicts here.
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Putin: “lol”
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The look on his face said all that it needed to, IMHO. I know, it’s the same look I have on my face watching this unfold as a Canadian living in the US currently as an immigrant, where I am absolutely at the mercy of what I say online, lest it be used against me in immigration proceedings.
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This. The question was in a lot of ways a “gotcha”. If he says he supports Trump, he knows Canadians will go ballistic. If he says he supports the protest, our RW will have a field day with a chance of those troops diverted to our doorstep.
He’s on a tightrope and he knows it. But the Cons are going to spin this either as “he supports chaos” or he has no clue (because he did have a long pause).
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Genuine question: What’s keeping you here?
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My career. “Work” being a common refrain, I wager, for a whole lot of folks doing what they need to right now, in situations many orders of magnitude worse than my watching from the sidelines as well.
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20 years ago, Mayor Mel Lastman called in the Army for snow removal
I’m wondering, how is that fact currently relevant for you?
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I’m sure it was meant as a stark contrast to how the military has been proposed for use north and south of the border, though I’d argue the October Crisis posted above is more on point.
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Understandable. Now’s definitely not a good time to be job hunting or pulling up roots with the pandemic and all. It’s just that my usual thinking was “despite everything, the US is still the best country to live in” and that view has taken a serious beating over the last 4 years.
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I came from a country with more than its’ fair share of problems, but it’s still my home, and let me tell you, watching 2020 unfold here instead of there has felt like being in bizarro-world.
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There’s not much to say about the question itself, but I was distracted by the URL on his dais. What’s with the definite article? Surely canada.ca/coronavirus is equally valid in French and English? Is the second form purely for the sake of performative bilingus?
(Also: “canada.ca” should very obviously be “www.ca”)
I understand the impulse to conflate a nation with the behaviour of the worst of its members. However, it is an impulse that has led to war, darkness, and death countless times throughout history.
Do not surrender to it.
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French doesn’t handle nouns without articles well. “Coronavirus” is fine for English, but ungrammatical in French, hence “le coronavirus”.
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(A) It is a known fact that French native speakers cannot understand non-articled nouns. Merely seeing one will freeze their cranial parsing centres. /s (Sorry, couldn’t resist that one - as someone who suffered French language as a school subject for 7 years.)
(B) And probably more seriously, I wonder if the dual language requirements demand that there be two versions, even where they could perhaps be unified. I dunno (probably a Canadian will be along soon to explain)
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