SNELL: Trudeau, Singh and the great Canadian cow

“Canada is like an old cow. The west feeds it, Ontario and Quebec milk it and we can well imagine what it is doing in the Maritimes,” Tommy Douglas, the father of Medicare and former Saskatchewan premier once said of our economy.

Canadians elected a new livestock manager in 2015, Justin Trudeau, who didn’t know the difference between a teat and a tail. Like a city cousin showing up at the family farm, Trudeau donned jeans, a cowboy hat and spurs and began wreaking havoc. Canadians stood and watched as he leapt onto the cow’s back, shouted “sunny ways” and drove the economy straight through the nearest fence.

Too misguided for consequence or reason, Trudeau dismounted, stripped his garments, and flew to Tofino B.C. for downtime. Tommy Douglas, six feet under the back forty, rolled over in his grave.

Bloodied and drooling, the great Canadian economic cow started feeding outside the corral of fiscal responsibility. Wandering in the dark, it gorged itself on a sweet and potentially lethal crop of debt. Unable to restrain itself, the cow now lays bloated on the ground with a terrible case of mastitis. Milk production has stopped. Without decompression and antibiotics the cow will die. Geopolitical vultures circle overhead.

Enter farmhand Jagmeet Singh, holding two items capable of saving Canada — the bullwhip of non-confidence to drive Justin Trudeau away, and the large-bore needle of prudence to save the economic cow.

A few days ago, Singh told Canadians he ended his supply-and-confidence agreement with Justin Trudeau, a move that should end the NDP-Liberal alliance and set Canada free from it’s Commodus-like prime minister.

Farming analogies aside, it’s a case of too little, too late. Even if Singh triggers an election, potentially forfeiting his MP pension, the damage is done. His would-be hero status is squandered. Singh could’ve restrained Trudeau, Freeland, Guilbeault and their cohorts years ago. He could’ve helped the working class.

Canada is now an international embarrassment, a joke on the world stage in very dangerous times. Communist China interfered in our last election. Millions of Canadians are insolvent as Ottawa touts carbon tax rebates. Thousands of poorly vetted immigrants have flooded the country. Crime is rampant and the housing crisis persists.

The national debt has ballooned to $1,238,437,760,500 — Trudeau and Singh remain unrepentant.

The list of catastrophes under the Liberal-NDP alliance could fill pages and are reinforced by Singh’s recent comment about ending the supply-and-confidence agreement.

“Justin Trudeau has proven again and again he will always cave to corporate greed. The Liberals have let people down. They don’t deserve another chance from Canadians,” Singh said.

It is, quite possibly, the most empty and tone-deaf comment ever made by a Canadian politician — eclipsing the prime minister. It is an attempt by Singh to slough off responsibility for not helping Canada, and to emerge unscathed into the social democratic light of Douglas.

No one is buying it — not even the labour movement, which appears to be siding with Pierre Poilievre.

Corporate greed? Justin Trudeau never had a problem with corporate greed. He suppressed corporations and the working class by driving up taxes, regulation, debt, prices, and crime.

Singh, who stands to gain a $2.3 million pension if he delays an election, has lost the right to represent Canadians in the House of Commons. Singh and Trudeau have used each other as proxies in a mission to save Canada from themselves.

They must be banished from the Canadian farm while Poilievre resuscitates the cow.