It is unusual for prime minister Justin Trudeau to hold off but in the battle between the fox and the mud hen, he knows he needs to stand back. He has nothing to gain from acknowledging or sparring with the conservative’ s fox, finance critic Pierre Poilievre. The conservative MP is tasked to defame and destroy the liberal finance minister and deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland. So far, it seems a fair fight.
Also known as the American coot, the long-legged mud hen tends to nest in boggy ground where the eggs can be searched out by their natural foe, the fox. In the quagmire of parliament, the battle is most often in evidence during question period. While fox-Poilievre likes to question what he calls Justin-flation, the slur on the prime minister’s name is actually addressed to the finance minister.
But the liberal mud hen gives back in kind. She is a highly experienced journalist and she brings her much better information gathering techniques to the fore in warding off the fox’s attacks.
There are world-wide inflationary influences that need to be addressed but are hardly caused by the liberal government in Canada. Much of the problem is in supply chain breakdowns, trucking and transportation troubles, customer-facing employee shortages and the many other business disruptions caused by the coronavirus. The world is not out of the woods yet with Covid-19 variants.
But with the fox standing in the House of Commons saying that inflation is all the fault of the liberals, there are still those foolish enough to believe him. And it doesn’t help that house prices in Ontario and British Columbia continue to climb in an out-of-control fashion. When gasoline and other fossil fuels are under indictment as causing climate change, their escalating prices smack more of price-fixing and unjustified profit-taking. It is as though the companies are looking to their retirement nest-eggs while destroying those of others. There are many financial troubles ahead but my bet is on the mud hen.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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