This year, 2025, will serve up a political barn burner in Canada. How it unfolds remains an open question. The main thing is that it will unfold: this sordid chapter of our collective story will end and we—the people of Canada, in an election from coast to coast to coast—will execute the coup de grâce on a government a series of commentators has characterized as a “dumpster fire.”
The dumpster in question is not only the government, but the Liberal Party of Canada, now smouldering in the embers.
The coals were stoked this past summer, when the Liberals lost a by-election in a Toronto riding they had held for thirty years. The smoke thickened in the fall after another “safe” Liberal seat fell in Montreal. A few dozen back benchers opined—in all discretion, of course, anonymously—that perhaps the time had come for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign.
No dice.
Then, before Christmas, a red-clad skud missile blew the lid off the canister. The same day she was to deliver the Fall Economic Statement—two months late, twenty billion over her own fiscal guardrail—finance minister Chrystia Freeland resigned in dramatic fashion.
A sure signal that nobody, but NO BODY, puts Baby in a corner.
A December 23 clip by false.excitement conveyed the prevailing mood:
“Canada Has Fallen”
And now?
And now, too many in our chattering classes have concluded it’s over.
Not just the government, mind you, not just the Liberal Party—Canada itself. The swan singers and organ grinders, the outright opportunists have begun ramping up their rhetoric and crumpling like cheap lawn chairs.
The occasion is not just the fire, but a key factor in igniting it: the return of Donald Trump to power and his threat of tariffs until that porous border gets dealt with. Then too, there is the trolling. President Trump has set his sights on our Prime Gaslighter, stating that Canada could be the 51st state, of which Justin Trudeau might one day be the lucky governor—if, that is, Wayne Gretzky turns down the job.
Donald Trump is not taking Canada’s ruling class seriously, in other words.
And our so-called elites?
They’re not taking it well.
“Every Canadian should be deeply offended,” quipped former Quebec premier and failed Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Jean Charest, offering the 51st state statement as a “wake-up call.” Ontario Premier Doug Ford found Trump’s comments unfair and insulting, “like a family member stabbing you in the heart.”
Candice Malcolm, editor-in-chief of True North and founder of the True North Centre for Public Policy, swooned hard southward instead. On December 24, she dropped what looked oddly like a consulting pitch—dystopian as hell, but with “Merry Christmas” tacked at its end:
Steps 2 and 3 of this strange post unfold in a similar vein, cheerfully spooling out advice culminating in the decimation of the Canadian population and annexation of our territory as American, but without voting rights. Trump, thankfully, will be fine, “going down in history as the man who united North America without firing a single shot.”
Jah wohl.
Brava, sister.
With public intellectuals like this in our corner, who needs enemies?
This brings us to our final example, which is almost endearing by comparison. A December 27 article by Robyn Urback of The Globe and Mail bears the alarming title, “We’ve lost our national identity — and with it, our pride in our country.” Thence follows a nostalgic tour through the motifs of the 1990s, the height of our national identity manufacturing industry.
Ms. Urback finds little left of the “kaleidoscope of Canadian identity” that our past governments cultivated—national points of pride like our former peacekeeping role, our inclusiveness, our storied public health care. Instead, we now have flags at half mast on Canada Day, deteriorating social and economic conditions, and hyper-awareness of historical transgressions.
Little wonder, she says, that we no longer take pride in our country. That “civic ideology” doesn’t take care of itself, after all—and our post-national leaders have put in zero work to tend it.
Canadians are so spread out, so diverse, and so varied in experience that we cannot, and should not, expect that unity and cohesion will simply happen by accident. We’ve lost our national identity and with it, our pride in our country. But with some effort, and a deliberate course change from Canada’s leadership, we can get it back.
Indeed.
If only we could get back that national pride somehow.
A Beautiful Demolition
At the eye of the swirling mosh pit, Twitter can also be beautiful.
Case in point: December 28. Jay Currie, aka “Eyes on — Unacceptable” serenely demolished the lot of them. No professional pundit, Mr. Currie is a precious metals investor, engaged lay commentator, and (full disclosure) a friend of this Substack. Always a treat, some of his threads are especially memorable.
This one was a thread for the annals:
In an extended argument Jay shows how Canada’s national identity was “profoundly affirmed” in the winter of 2022:
Canadians from every walk of life, every educational background, every ethnicity and religion went to Ottawa with the convoy and organized protests in provincial capitals. 3/
The convoy affirmed a “robust view of the Charter of Rights.” Together with the cold, overpass parties, and hockey sticks, it was a “profoundly Canadian experience.” It was also one pundits and their dwindling readership found incomprehensible—even scary. The convoy people got shit done, and they didn’t ask permission first.
For people in the convoy and supporting the convoy the unconstitutional mandates and lockdowns actually interfered with them earning their livings and running their businesses. The blob was delighted to sit at home, the truckers couldn’t. 7/
And the trucker’s reality, Jay submits, is key to our national identity:
The national identity Urback thinks we’re lost is the bottom up reality that Canadians are people who do things. We have to be. And we have been throughout our history. A fact that is very easy to forget in Ottawa or our big cities. 8/
Actually doing things, building mines, constructing pipelines, making things, farming, hunting, fishing, hiking are easy to forget in academic/media/government environments. 9/
But the real Canadian identity arises from the phrase “Get’er done.”
“Get’er done.” Our founding experience, our national identity, is the curt word of the lead hand at a mine or building site. “Vicariously,” he states:
the proudest I have ever felt of my Canadianness was when 100s of people walked jerry cans of diesel past the Ottawa police to fuel up the trucks. It was clever, non-violent, and got the job done. You don’t defeat people like that. Ever. 11/
Amen.
Get‘er Done
Acknowledging Jay Currie’s gift, I suggest “get’er done” be our motto through the political storms to come.
It will be a shit show, no doubt, and there will be short-term pain. But once we dial in the right channel, it will be a task we can rise to collectively.
Get’er done.
God knows, there will be plenty to do. Once the incumbent is finally removed—a to-do of the first order—there will be all manner of rot and corruption to clear. There will be foreign interference to probe, a border to patrol, a tax to axe, a dollar to revive, a debt to beat back. All that and a new PMO to check—well-nigh impossible given the known tendencies of that office.
Get’er done.
And we can all do our small part—whatever our talents. Take Jay, whose readers turned to his posts as our regime skidded off the rails. One of them said as much yesterday:
Get’er done.
Let politicos bluster and journalists fawn. Let those who flaked out during COVID flake out all over again. That’s on them.
Our precedent is the Convoy and before it, our forebears—the doers and builders, military men and women, the teachers and healers who got’er done in years before.
Let’s let “get’er done” get us there in 2025.
Suggested Viewing/Reading
It’s all on X this time, purveyed by talented Canadians:
“Canada is FUBAR,” An Amazing Zoltan Production (December 2023). Brilliant 3-part series with a killer soundtrack by Alex Zoltan, juxtaposing the Convoy to the methods and fallout of our current regime.
“ARRIVESCAM,” “bad actor” and other feats of political animation by False Excitement, aka doboy, are unmistakable and always timely.
“His Grace,” Jay Currie, Eyes On - Unacceptable. The threads unfold like intricate paper snowflake chains, almost on the daily.
What a wonderful New Year's gift, Jodi!
It is wonderful to, once in a while, have one of my paper snowflakes (and points on for the Rumsfeld reference) taken up by someone whose work I profoundly admire.
Thank you!
Thanks for this - we need a rallying cry!