National Affairs by Claire Hoy — Trudeau should be ashamed

December 3, 2016 · 0 Comments

We shouldn’t be surprised.
After all, it was Justin Trudeau, the candidate for his current job, who told a women’s group in Toronto last year how much he admired China’s dictatorial government.
And it was Trudeau’s father, the former prime minister Pierre, who adored both China and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, feelings he has clearly passed along to his privileged son.
You have likely heard by now that our benighted prime minister, upon hearing about the death of Castro, the 90-year-old Cuban dictator, described him as a “larger-than-life leader who served his people for almost half a century” and “made significant improvements to the education and health care of his island nation.”
Essentially ignoring Castro’s 50 years of what Human Rights Watch calls “a repressive system that punished virtually all forms of dissent, a dark legacy that lives on even after death,” our man and his “sunny ways” painted a glowing picture of Castro and offered his heartfelt sorrows to Cuba “on behalf of all Canadians.”
I think not, Justin.
Trudeau’s extraordinary peon of praise for the dead dictator sparked an entire industry of ironical tweets and Facebook take-offs, ridiculing Trudeau’s blind praise of Castro’s health and education reforms (while ignoring his appalling repression of his people) to praise a host of historical dictators in the same vein.
Just two posted examples: “Today we say goodbye to Mr. Mussolini, the former Italian prime minister best known for his competent train-management.” And: “While Emperor Nero was controversial, his dedication to song and writing poetry signaled a Roman artistic renaissance.”
You get the drift. Yes indeed, Cuba’s health and education system improved under Castro’s iron-fisted rule. Then again, most countries around the world have also seen improvements over the past half century — duh! — and Castro’s schools were forced to teach only government-approved propaganda. No academic freedom there, which went along with the lack of freedom of the press, unions or pretty much anything else not given Castro’s personal blessing.
Indeed, Tory leadership contender Lisa Raitt said Trudeau “should be ashamed of himself” and should “apologize . . . Castro was a monstrous dictator . . . He trapped the Cuban people in poverty while silencing dissent and arresting dissenters . . . Canada expects better from its prime minister than affection for tyrants.”
Not, apparently, if the prime minister happens to be a Trudeau. Their affection for dictators seems to be in their blood.
Noted Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio was so taken aback with Trudeau’s tone-deaf statement he could hardly credit it as being legitimate, tweeting: “Is this a real statement or a parody? Because if this is a real statement from the PM of Canada it is shameful & embarrassing.”
There is an element of rabid lefties in Canada who applaud the Trudeaus and their fondness for such leadership, perhaps as much because of a deep-seated hatred of the Americans — after all, Castro stood up against them all those years — as for their actual admiration of the dictators.
Former Ontario union leader Sid Ryan — my long-time television debating partner — posted this on his Facebook page: “I read and watched with disgust the CNN and American MSM coverage of the death of Fidel Castro. They focussed on the idiots dancing in the streets of little Havana in Miami.”
Ryan then offered a “more balanced” article from the Irish Times, then went on to make the astonishing claim that Castro was “one of the world’s iconic leaders up there with Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.”
Really? Mandela and King? I don’t recall either one of those great men advocating — let alone instituting — arbitrary state torture and imprisonment. Nor do I recall them advocating making unions illegal, something Castro certainly did and which, by itself, should have given Ryan pause given his lifelong devotion to union work.
As for those Cuban “idiots” celebrating Castro’s death, it is fair to say that unlike Ryan and his ilk — who basked in comfortable surroundings in their Cuban visits — these people and their families experienced the evils of his regime first-hand, which is why they risked everything to flee Cuba in the first place.
I could be wrong about this, but I can’t remember a single incident of somebody fleeing the U.S. to get to Cuba, yet hundreds of thousands —many of whom died trying — went the other way. What does that tell you, eh?
I agree with Raitt that Trudeau “should be ashamed.” But, sadly, he isn’t. And fortunately for him, he’s still got Fidel’s brother and the Chinese dictatorships to admire. hoy