Posted on 07/03/2018 11:22:51 PM PDT by aquila48
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been able to maintain popularity at home during his three years in office despite a challenging, at times combative relationship with the Trump administration since 2017. But amid a conservative rise at home, the young leader of the country's Liberal Party is about to face a new front from Canada's most influential province.
The Progressive Conservative Party firebrand Doug Ford, brother of the late former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, will be sworn in as the premier of Ontario on Friday and assume a highly influential position in a province he calls "the engine of Canada." Ford won a contentious election against incumbent Kathleen Wynne, a fellow member of Trudeau's Liberal Party and the country's first openly LGBT premier, on promises to fight back against what he considers elite government control. "The party with the taxpayers' money is over," he declared in his victory speech.
The win, capped with other familiar pronouncements from Ford like "We have taken back Ontario!" drew almost immediate comparisons to the populist and anti-establishment wave that President Donald Trump rode to win the White House. And it raises concerns in Trudeau's camp that a similar sentiment could eventually force him from power.
"When you look at the response of millennials, when you look at the response of Ontarians, there's just a growing concern that it's become increasingly difficult for most people in the province to meet their financial obligations, and growing concern about what the future for their children and grandchildren will look like," says Donald Abelson, a political science professor at the University of Western Ontario. He attributes the sharp rise in popularity of conservative candidates across the country that now matches support for liberals as the result of "a kind of all-out assault on liberal leadership both provincially and nationally."
"That has to be of some concern to Trudeau," Abelson says.
I'm confused....
Yeah....sort of the like The Jumbo Shrimp Party.
Great analogy.
I concur with the comments that goldstategop made. Doug Ford is a LOT better than the big lib Ontario premier he replaced (Wynne). Ford came out of a (brief) meeting with “The Boy Blunder” (Trudeau) earlier this afternoon. The ONLY thing they agreed on was that they were united against the 25% US tariffs on Canadian steel & aluminum. On everything else they differed.
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