Let Them Eat Cake: Canadians need to stop electing the jobless children of the rich.

Career Opportunity: Politician. No skills, abilities, education, training, or experience necessary. Must have: family money and/or connections. This job comes with an excellent salary, regular raises far above cost of living, all the benefits, an excellent pension, and most imporantly zero accountability.

I have a regular customer at the store in which I work, we will call him John. In a recent conversation with John, he suggested Canadians need to stop electing trust fund kids. He meant current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but when I thought more on it, I realized that most of the elected officials currently representing me, as well as many of the major names that wish to represent me at various levels of government, fall into that category in some way. Almost none have any significant work experience outside politics. As a result they have no idea how everyday Canadians live. They pay lip service to our cries of the doubling and tripling of food prices because they have never been working poor. They have no idea what it is to worry about not being able to afford ever escalating rent, never mind to break down and accept what entire generations of young people now have to, which is that they will NEVER be able to afford a house or even an undersized, poorly built condominium. Or that they will in many cases not be able to afford a car to get to whatever underpaying job they can find. They can definitely not even consider retirement, they will NEVER retire, they must accept that they will die at work. Not forgetting to mention their lives will be shorter and harder than their parents’ generation because healthcare funding keeps getting cut.

Given that Ontario is a “wealthy” province and is sitting on a multi-billion dollar surplus it is unconscionably evil that healthcare funding is being cut so deeply that wait times at Sick Kids frequently top TWENTY FOUR HOURS.

At first I thought the ineptitude or our politicians at even coming up with solutions to Canadian’s problems let alone implementing them was a combination of all of them being variously stupid, corrupt (“owned” by various industries and corporations) or afraid to be bold in their approaches lest they accidentally offend the professionally offended. But then I realized they were so comfortable financially, they could not relate to the people they pretend to represent. And that is a serious problem.

“Surely there must be at least some that do not come from money!” you cry incredulously. “They cannot ALL be trust fund children or nepotism hires, there must be at least SOME that worked their way up” you demand.

Shall we have a look?

I was born, raised, and still live (for the time being) in Toronto. The current mayor of Toronto is Olivia Chow. She is 67 years old, and won her first election in 1985 as a school board trustee. That means she has not had any job but paper pushing elected official since she was 28 (before that she was an artist). Nearly forty years of her paycheques (that is the correct spelling) coming exclusively from the public coffers. In the preceding paragraph I used the word nepotism. Olivia Chow was married to the late Jack Layton, former leader of the New Democratic Party and the most successful leader in the NDPs history. Under his leadership the NDP won 103 seats in the 2011 election, enough to form the Official Opposition. When Jack died Olivia lost a lot of her political position, because it was not hers to begin with. She resigned her seat in 2014 so she could run for mayor in Toronto. She lost. She then attempted to return to federal politics in 2015 where she lost by a wide margin to Adam Vaughn. People might disagree with me and that is their prerogative, but I do not believe Olivia Chow would have been NEARLY as successful without her husband being Jack Layton (a kind of nepotism). She won the mayoral run-off after John Tory resigned solely because Toronto chose the city councilor Doug hates the most in hopes that she makes his life as miserable as he makes ours. While she might claim to be the voice of the little guy, she has not been one since you could buy a four bedroom home in midtown Toronto on ONE average salary.

It is very easy to point the finger at Justin and Doug and say they are the problem. They definitely are, but Olivia has been mayor for nearly a full year and a greater focus has been spent on whether or not Toronto should decriminalise hard drugs than on solutions to many of its other more pressing problems.

The mayor preceding Olivia was John Tory. John’s father was president of Thomson Investments Ltd. and was a director of Rogers Communications (yes, the multi-billion dollar telecommunications and media empire). His grandfather founded Sun Life of Canada (the life insurance and investment management behemoth). John came from money. He did what children of old money do and got an education in political science followed by a law degree. He has far more work experience than Olivia, definitely a much wider range of experience, but when your family is already LOADED and your family friends include Ted Rogers and the Weston’s, it is not like he was ever hard up for work, opportunities, or financial and political support. I do not deride his work ethic or his intelligence, but you cannot tell me those connections and wealth did not help grease his way to success. Ignoring the nepotism, he still has no idea how the average Canadian lives or survives. He has never had working or middle class problems.

Our current Premier is Doug Ford. He has a high school diploma. His father Doug Sr. cofounded Deco Labels & Tags in 1962. According to his Wikipedia biography page, he became involved in running his father’s company in the 1990s. That would have made him around thirty years old when he decided to join the family business. Given that he did not pursue higher education, what did he do in his 20s? Specifically, what did he do for money? If you believe the stories, he was a drug dealer in Etobicoke, and was well protected by the local police there because of how influential and powerful his father had become. If you choose not to believe those stories, a very valid question still remains; what did he do for a decade? We know he did not waste it playing video games because he is famously technologically illiterate. All that is left (if you do not believe/accept the drug dealer stories) is that he lived off his family’s money. Which means he also has never had a real job and anything close to the problems people living in Toronto today experience. And now that he has used his position as Premier to sell massive and important pieces of the province to his developer friends, we know he will have multiple soft landings whenever either of the other parties manage to find a remotely electable leader with one microgram of charisma and at least a half a plan. Doug has never had to work, and once he leaves office with his pension secured, he will no doubt work his fingers to the bone at a half dozen do-nothing ‘board member’ jobs at real estate development firms in Woodbridge and Mississauga. He neither understands nor cares how his constituents and the people of Ontario live or survive, and/or how his daily decisions make their lives harder because he has always had an easy life.

The unscrupulous, ignorant, corrupt buffoon currently doing his best to undermine Ontario and turn into a southern US state, complete with the underfunded education system, low salaries, and no universal healthcare to match. That is not progress.

Our current prime minister is Justin Trudeau. His father Pierre Trudeau was one of Canada’s most famous prime ministers. He also came from money as Pierre’s father owned a gas station chain, some profitable mines, an amusement park and the minor-league baseball team the Montreal Royals. As far as I can tell from his biography page, outside of teaching math and French at a private school in BC in the late 90s he has never had another JOB. In the early 2000’s he studied engineering for a bit, but did not graduate. He also started a master’s degree but did not finish that either. In 2007 he won the Liberal party’s nomination and became a full time politician. He has ZERO understanding of what Canadians want and need, as can be seen by where he chooses to focus his attention and on what he chooses to spend Canadian taxpayer dollars. This is why the Liberals will lose the next election. He and the Liberals are not afraid of doing what is necessary to fix the problems Canada and Canadians are facing, they do not even understand what they are. He is so wildly out of touch he does not realize if he and his policies did not create those problems, they definitely exacerbated them.

Justin recently gave $5.3 billion dollars to the Phillipines to help with climate change. It will do nothing, because it will all get embezzled by the political elite of that country. The practical side of me suggests that money could have been far better used here in Canada to, you know, make sure all our Indigenous communities had drinkable water. Out of touch.

The man Justin will lose the government to is named Pierre Poilievre (please note I did not say Pierre would win, I said Justin would lose, there is a difference). He is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and currently leader of the Official Opposition. He likes to humble-brag that he was raised by two schoolteachers in a modest household in Calgary. And that may be the case, but that does not mean he has ever had a REAL job either. His Wikipedia biography page, which has very obviously been doctored by his public relations team (they were not subtle), speaks of him having jobs like a paper route and then later telephone canvassing for Jason Kenney (former premier of Alberta). He was the president of the Young Tories at the University of Calgary and was generally involved in all things Conservative Party and from there moved almost immediately to parliament. Basically he was very much a keener for the Conservatives, some PC bigwig liked him, backed him and he won his first seat in parliament at the age of 24. So from the age where most young people are trying to start their careers Pierre has been pulling in six figures, and has been for the last twenty years. Which means he too has no idea the pinch Canadians are currently feeling and has no education other than…well none of his biography pages say exactly what he studied. Reading between the lines that usually means it is not something his PR people want known because it might be used against him.

The PC public relations team have put out attack ads against Justin and very obviously staged “interviews” with Pierre trying as best they can to make him look like he is anything but an empty suit. At no point in their PR campaign have they released anything that looks like a policy or a plan for the future of the country. Weak.

Canada as a nation, and Canadians its citizens are currently having a difficult time of it right now. This is where leadership should shine. We need solutions to our problems sooner rather than later. Unfortunately none of the politicians I mentioned above (or any of the others in our political orbits for that matter) have come up with any useful solutions to our current problems. None of them have ever had problems that are in any way similar to those faced by the average middle and working class Canadian. None of them have ever had to skip meal so their children could eat. None of them have skipped lunch in order to pay for bus fare home because they cannot afford both on the same day. They have never glued their shoes back together hoping they can get just one more winter out of their boots. They own their houses and condos and many more they rent out. They do not have to worry that their landlord will jack up the rent by 50% or they will be evicted under the falsehood that the landlord’s “daughter” (who does not exist) needs to move in. They do not fear the threat of reno-viction, or change in ownership (when the landlord sells the property to a numbered corporation…which he also owns) or something like what happened at 650 Parliament St. where they managed to kick out the ENTIRE population of a building because it would take at least a year to fix the electrical problem…meanwhile entire thirty story buildings are being put up in a less time. John was right. We as Canadians need to stop electing the jobless children and spouses of the rich and connected to lead. They cannot fix the problems Canadians face because none of them understand what they are.

Especially not money problems, because any time the cost of living goes up they can, and do, vote themselves a raise. Remember when Doug gave everyone in provincial parliament a 14% raise while lowering the minimum wage? He is one for the ‘little guy’ all right.   

I have just named five political leaders in significant positions of power that directly affect the biggest city in this country. Among them there is not a single former nurse, engineer, concrete foreman, truck driver, small business owner, bookkeeper, restaurateur, or anyone with ANY job experience in the real world. Not a one of them. None of the leaders have any experience being anything but political elite. It is therefore no surprise that there has been zero headway into fixing the problems with this city, province, or country.

The affordability issue of housing in this country is not an impossible problem. It could be fixed (albeit slowly) if only any of our political leaders had even one functioning vertebra.

P. S. Last week professional curmudgeon and all around miserable dinosaur Rex Murphy passed away. I nomiate myself to replace him at the National Post. If successful I promise to be far more in touch with what is going on with Canadians under the age of 80, and twice as mean to those who I feel hinder the progress of Canada and young Canadians.

P. P. S. Thank you to Theo Moudakis for being such an excellent cartoonist.